Jeremiah Smith highlights the Buckeyes’ returnees on offense in 2025.
Now that the dust has settled on Ohio State’s national championship celebrations and the NFL season has come to a conclusion as well — with Parris Campbell’s Philadelphia Eagles winning the Super Bowl — now is as good a time as any to take a way-too-early look ahead at the 2025 Buckeyes.
Ryan Day has filled out his offensive coaching staff by promoting Brian Hartline to full-time offensive coordinator, in addition to the hiring of Tyler Bowen as offensive line coach. Hartline’s knowledge of the passing game mixed with Bowen’s familiarity with the run game should once again provide Ohio State with balance on that side of the ball, albeit the players running the show will look a lot different.
While we still have a long ways to go before the first depth charts are put together, here is how we think the starting lineup will look as we project ahead to Aug. 30.
QB1: Julian Sayin
Will Howard solidified himself as an Ohio State legend after just one season in Columbus, and he now passes the torch to Alabama transfer Julian Sayin. The No. 1 QB and No. 6 overall player in the 2024 class per the 247Sports Composite, the former five-star prospect transferred from the Crimson Tide to Ohio State following Nick Saban’s retirement. He has attempted only 12 passes with the Buckeyes — five completions for 84 yards and a touchdown — but is the heir apparent to Day’s QB machine.
Battling it out for the backup job will be sophomore Lincoln Kienholz and true freshman Tavien St. Clair. A top-200 player in the 2023 class, Kienholz attempted 22 passes for Ohio State in 2023, completing 10 for 111 yards, but threw no passes in his two appearances in 2024. St. Clair, meanwhile, is an incoming five-star as the No. 3 QB in the country in the 2025 class and the top player in Ohio.
RB1: James Peoples
RB2: CJ Donaldson
Ohio State loses both of its top two running backs to the NFL in TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins, with the pair having been instrumental to the Buckeyes’ national title run. The two stud ball-carriers finished with eerily similar stands, with Judkins rushing for 1,060 yards and 14 TDs and Henderson with 1,016 yards and 10 TDs. Position coach Carlos Locklyn will look to replicate that successful two-back system with James Peoples and CJ Donaldson in 2025.
Peoples is in his second year with the program, coming to Ohio State as a top-10 running back in the 2024 class and a top-20 player out of Texas. The 5-foot-10 tailback got his feet wet as a freshman, rushing 49 times for 197 yards and two TDs in relief of Henderson and Judkins. Donaldson, meanwhile, comes to Columbus by way of Morgantown. The senior spent the past three years at West Virginia, racking up over 2,000 yards rushing and 30 touchdowns with the Mountaineers.
Locklyn adds a deep and supremely talented freshman class to his room as well, with a trio of first-year guys in Anthony “Turbo” Rogers, Bo Jackson and Isaiah West.
WR1: Jeremiah Smith
WR2: Carnell Tate
WR3: Brandon Inniss
Depth: Mylan Graham, Bryson Rodgers, Quincy Porter
Even with the loss of Ohio State’s program record holder in career receptions, Emeka Egbuka, you know a Brian Hartline-led Buckeyes’ receiver core is going to be nasty. That will of course be the case again, headlined by the former freshman phenom himself, Jeremiah Smith. Smith more than lived up to the hype in 2024, leading Ohio State with more than 1,300 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns. Despite being NFL ready, the rules dictate he still must play two more years of collegiate ball, and for that Hartline is lucky.
Behind Smith will be a pair of stars in their own right in Carnell Tate and Brandon Inniss. Tate played a huge role for Ohio State as WR3 in 2024, catching 52 passes for 733 yards and four TDs, and will now see even more work come his way. Inniss, on the other hand, didn’t do a ton in the passing game, catching 14 balls for 176 yards and a touchdown, but was incredibly valuable on special teams and will be rewarded for the gritty work as a top-three receiver in this offense in 2025.
Outside the top three are a handful of guys who could very well play their way into a bigger role as the season goes on. Mylan Graham was a five-star prospect and the No. 7 WR in the 2024 class, while Quincy Porter is an incoming five-star as the No. 5 WR in the 2025 cycle. Bryson Rodgers was a top-400 player coming out of high school, but has impressed on the practice field during his first two years with the program and seems itching to break out.
TE1: Max Klare
TE2: Will Kacmarek OR Jelani Thurman
Ohio State’s tight end room has a chance to be elite in 2025. That is largely a result of the addition of Purdue transfer Max Klare, the No. 1 TE and a top-15 overall player in this most recent transfer portal window. Entering his junior season, Klare is coming off a huge campaign for the Boilermakers with 51 catches for 685 yards and four TDs — all team-highs. The Buckeyes aren’t usually a team who looks to target their tight ends, but they also don’t usually have a receiving threat at the position quite like Klare.
Behind Klare is Will Kacmarek, who will likely see the field along with Klare a ton due to his prowess as a blocker. The Ohio University transfer only caught eight passes for 86 yards for Ohio State this past season, but was functionally a sixth offensive lineman on the field more often than not. The Buckeyes also have Jelani Thurman waiting in the wings, as the massive 6-foot-6 target enters his junior campaign having shown improvement over each of his first two years on campus.
LT: Ethan Onianwa
LG: Luke Montgomery
C: Carson Hinzman
RG: Austin Siereveld OR Tegra Tshabola
RT: Phillip Daniels
It was a crazy season for Ohio State’s offensive line, and many of the bigger names up front are now gone. Tackle Josh Simmons and guard Seth McLaughlin were the stalwarts earlier in the year, but both went down with season-ending injuries, and are now moving on to the next level. Donovan Jackson slid over from guard to tackle to fill in for the injured Simmons, but now he as well as his bookend Josh Fryar are also off to the NFL. Tasked with replacing both starting tackles, the Buckeyes looked to the transfer portal.
It was there that they found Ethan Onianwa and Phillip Daniels. Onianwa is a veteran of 34 starts at Rice, and the 6-foot-6, 345-pound tackle allowed just one sack in 350 pass-blocking snaps all last season, per PFF. Daniels, meanwhile, is a Cincinnati native who began his collegiate career at Minnesota. The 6-foot-5, 315-pound blocker started the final four games of the year for the Gophers, and was slated to return to that starting role in 2025, which he will now do in Columbus instead.
Ohio State will have some options on the interior, as all four guys who played those positions down the stretch this past season are back. Carson Hinzman is the clear frontrunner to resume his starting job at center, while the trio of Luke Montgomery, Austin Siereveld and Tegra Tshabola will battle it out for the two guard spots. Based on how well Montgomery played in the CFP, I give him a slight edge over the other two, and expect him to start opposite either Siereveld or Tshabola.
Ohio State’s spring practices won’t begin until mid-March, with the program taking some extra time off following a 16-game season that only came to an end on Jan. 20. There is also the second transfer portal window, which opens on April 16. Needless to say, a lot can change between now and when the Buckeyes take the field against Texas this August, but it doesn’t hurt to look ahead and start getting excited for the defending national champs!