What is up? Welcome to your Daily Buckeye Blitz for a Tuesday, January 31st, 2023, the last day of the month. Wow! I’m your host, Joe, from the Buckeye Cast. Doing it for you every day here, your Daily Buckeye Blitz. Five to ten minutes of Buckeye info you never knew you needed. Just kidding, you definitely need this info. We know we’re in the middle of the after-season.
Thoughts and prayers go out to the Bengals who got smoked, got beat Sunday night. Sorry about that. Big Joe Burrow fan, so hate to see that. Sammy Hubbard too, Von Bell, those guys, so unfortunate. But I think the Bengals are going to be good for a while. I don’t think they’re going anywhere, so they’ll get in the Super Bowl eventually again.
Anyways, let’s talk offense defense. I’ve found something interesting the other day when I was looking at scholarship numbers. There’s an imbalance between the offense and the defense when you look at the number of scholarship players on each side of the ball. And this is not a new thing. I just went back the last three recruiting cycles, and we have an imbalance. Like in 2021, it’s really bad. But so, we have more offensive players than defensive players. And it’s not by one or two, you know, it’s by like five to eight, you know, depending on the year, which is substantial. And I’m not saying it is the reason why we have issues in the defense, but I think it has something to do with it.
I’m not saying the team has to be 50/50 split. You can’t do that anyways with 85 scholarships unless you go down to 84. You know, so I don’t think you need to have a 50/50 split. But according to Ryan Day’s scholarship numbers by position, this is what he wants. He said this over a year ago or about a year ago. He wants four quarterbacks.
These are scholarship, okay, forget Walk-Ons stuff like that. Four quarterbacks, five running backs, 11 receivers, five tight ends, 16-0 linemen. Okay, that gives you a total of 41 players on offense. These are his goals for each position. Obviously, you can’t hit that right on the button every time, but then defense, you know, it’s eight D ends, eight D-tackles, eight linebackers, eight cornerbacks, and 11 safeties. So that’s a total of 43. So bringing your number to 84, which is kind of weird. So you gotta remember you got kickers and punters in there. So you’re never gonna hit that right on the button. But let’s look at 2023’s class, all scholarship players including new recruits that are coming in.
We’re projected to have 45 scholarship players on offense, right? And 39 on defense. We’re going to have four quarterbacks when everybody gets into the class and on campus. Five running backs, if you include Chip Trayanum, 13 receivers, six Titans, and 17 O-linemen. 18 if you include Avery Henry who has gone through the fight with cancer, so 17 is what we’re gonna base that on. Okay, to make the 45. Now, on the 39 defensive players in this scholarship school year, we’ve got, we’ll have seven defensive tackles, nine defensive ends, seven linebackers, six corners, and ten safeties.
Now, where are we lacking? Just remember, I just said we need eight corners, 11 safeties, eight linebackers, and eight D-tackles. We’re lacking. We’ve got some holes there that we have to address on the defense, in my opinion. And again, why? So if the goal is to have 41 on offense, 43 on defense, we’re way out of whack with these numbers. We have 45 on offense, 39 on defense. You know, so we can’t make all that up in the portal. You can’t make that up in one recruiting cycle.
But this is not a new trend. This has been happening. In 2022, the offense had 43 players, defense had 38, almost in line with what we have now. 2021, offense had 44 players, defense had 36. Freaking insane, man.
When they break for spring practice in March, when they begin, they will only have 31 scholarship players on defense. 31. The rest of the guys are coming in in the summer after spring is over. That’s frightening. So very concerning. Coaching staff is going to have to get creative with how they practice, and probably going to have to give guys some days off.
You know, obviously, you’re going to have to have guys cross-train at other positions. It’s very concerning to me that this is a trend. It’s not just a one-year thing. So we’ll probably lose some guys, especially in the O-line and wide receiver rooms, most likely after spring. There’s just too many dudes in there. I mean, what I mentioned there, receivers will have 13. Ryan Day only needs 11.
So O-line as well, we’re going to have 17. I’m sure it’ll keep Avery Henry on scholarship as going through his chemo and treatments and stuff, but 17 O-linemen, he only needs 16. So I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some guys that haven’t even seen the field yet, like those third and fourth-year guys, talking about Trey Leroux, Grant Toutant, those guys may not be around after spring, in my opinion.
But we’ve got to get D-linemen, and we’ve got to get corners. That is priority one. That’s why they’ve been holding all these visits from portal guys. Just had the Old Miss guy in Columbus this past weekend. I think NIL is going to be the deciding factor there between Ohio State, Michigan, and Tennessee. So guess who is attacking NIL? Tennessee. And he said in one of his Instagram videos over the weekend, one of his boys in the background said, “We’ve taken no pay cut.” So where do you think that’s going? So scratch him off the list, I’m guessing. And I’m not sure he really wants somebody like that that’s focused just on an NIL money, but so this offense and defense imbalance is a major concern of mine, and we only brought in a 20-person class in this 2023 cycle.
So, this has to be attacked, and I think this is priority one. When you bring a James Laurinaitis into the staff, you can’t go on the road and recruit, but he can communicate with players, text, call, you know, any kind of communication is fine. And anytime a recruit’s on campus, you can meet with them and stuff, you know, so he is going to be charged with that task of increasing this defensive recruiting, especially linebackers. Obviously, he’s going to be the GA there, but I think you want him to kind of mold him in that Brian Hartline of the defense, you know, that’s what we’re looking for, Brian Hartline of the defensive stat that is going to attack recruiting and eventually get a position coach job, you know, as he elevates in the program, and then he can get on the road and recruit and stuff.
So, that’s all I got for you. Once you want you to be aware that this is a trend, this imbalance between the offense and defense. So, let me know what you guys think. Does it bother you? Do you care? I do. I think it’s a big deal, but we’ll see how things change going forward. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Go Bucks!