When people talk about notable Ohio State transfer portal additions, the first guys who generally come to mind are Justin Fields, Caleb Downs and Quinshon Judkins.
All three players were incredibly productive with the Buckeyes, and each are among the very best to ever play their respective positions in Columbus. Both Downs and Judkins also helped to bring home a national championship.
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That being said, while that trio and a good few others have come to Ohio State and immediately made the team better, perhaps no transfer addition has changed the entire culture of a room quite like Davison Igbinosun.
Igbinosun’s career began in New Jersey, where he was a two-way star at Union High School. Iggy did it all for the Farmers as a senior, leading the team in rushing yards (808), receiving yards (403), total touchdowns (11) and interceptions (3).
“Excellent ball skills,” said 247Sports’ Brian Dohn in his player evaluation of Igbinosun. “Willing to come up and fill run gap and be physical at point of attack. Great body control and sure tackler in space. Instinctual player with frame flexibility.”
The North Jersey standout was rewarded for his efforts, ranking as the No. 1 player in the state in the 2022 recruiting class. Igbinosun ranked as the No. 17 cornerback in the country and No. 124 player overall per 247Sports, earning offers from more than two dozen programs across the country.
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Ohio State was not among that group, but the 6-foot-2 cornerback held offers from a handful of both SEC and Big Ten programs, as well as Notre Dame and a trio of offers from the Ivy League.
It looked initially like Rutgers was going to land the in-state product, earning a commitment from Igbinosun that July — less than a month after a visit to Ole Miss. Come October, Igbinosun re-opened his recruitment, and after two more visits to Ole Miss, with stops at Tennessee, Rutgers, and Kentucky along the way, the New Jersey native signed with the Rebels on Jan. 12, 2022.
After enrolling early and impressing the coaching staff during spring practice, Igbinosun made an instant impact at Ole Miss. The corner played in all 13 games for the Rebels that season, starting in 10 of them, and played more than 560 snaps in his very first collegiate season.
Per PFF, Igbinosun finished with the fifth-best coverage grade for Ole Miss that season among players with at least 500 snaps. He was officially credited with allowing 25 receptions on 40 targets for 259 yards, the third-fewest yards allowed of any Rebels defender with a similar amount of snaps despite being the second-most targeted corner on the roster.
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Iggy would go on to finish second on the team with five pass breakups as a true freshman, earning himself a Freshman All-American selection from College Football News.
Things did not go so well for Ole Miss as a whole in that 2022 season, however, beginning the year 7-0 before losing five of their final six games to end up a 8-5, culminating in a 42-25 loss to Texas Tech in the Texas Bowl. On top of that, co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach Chris Partridge left to take a job at Michigan.
The combination of those two factors ultimately resulted in Igbinosun entering the transfer portal.
While there were obviously a bunch of schools interested in the productive 6-foot-2 defensive back and Freshman All-American, it did not take long for Igbinosun to end up at Ohio State.
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“It was kind of late and I feel like I was already being recruited by (other schools). I had a visit to UCLA on a Friday, maybe (that) Tuesday before, Ryan Day called me,” Igbinosun told 247Sports. “Ohio State was the place I wanted to be since I was a little boy. (After) hopping in the portal, I didn’t think they would offer me.”
That phone call from Day had basically sealed the deal.
Igbinosun officially entered the transfer portal on Jan. 18, 2023, and by Jan. 31 he had signed with the Buckeyes.
“When we interviewed [Igbinosun], that’s exactly what we’re interviewing for. Maturity, for fit, can they be a great teammate?” former Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles said. “And [Iggy] has that.”
On the field, Igbinosun instantly became a crucial part of Ohio State’s defensive secondary.
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Iggy played the most snaps (697) of any Buckeye defender in 2023, finishing as the team’s highest-graded tackler (84.3) and second-best run defender (86.6). Despite being targeted a team-high 70 times — 25 more than the next closest player (Denzel Burke, 45) — Igbinosun allowed receptions on only 51.4% of his targets, the second-best of anyone with at least 300 coverage snaps.
Then came the 2024 campaign, where Igbinosun had one of his most productive but also most frustrating seasons of his career.
Playing more than 800 snaps in what turned out to be a 16-game schedule between the regular season and College Football Playoff, Iggy was once again among the team’s best tacklers and run defenders. He was again targeted the most of anyone on the team (60), but again allowed the lowest percentage of receptions (53.3%) of anyone on the roster with at least 100 coverage snaps.
While that was all great, Igbinosun’s biggest detractor was penalties.
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A defensive back who certainly wasn’t afraid to get physical with receivers, Iggy had been flagged only three times as a freshman at Ole Miss, and then six times as a sophomore in Columbus. However, in this his junior campaign, Igbinosun racked up a whopping 13 penalties in 2024 — the most of any player in college football.
It felt as though at least once a game Igbinosun was getting called for pass interference or defensive holding. The corner was making some spectacular plays for Ohio State, including most notably a crucial interception in the end zone against Penn State, but fans had to hold their breath any time a ball was thrown in his direction for fear of a flag coming out.
It became a tough situation for a player that was so good in coverage and such a good tackler, but whose physicality was also getting him in trouble. Things had gotten so bad at one point that the Buckeyes’ coaches started having Igbinosun wear oven mitts in practice for him to get use to defending without grabbing the receivers.
Then the College Football Playoff came around, and to Iggy’s credit, he was able to keep the penalties at bay for the most part. Igbinosun was not flagged a single time against Tennessee or Oregon, and only once against Texas. The DB did pick up a pair of penalties against Notre Dame, but it ultimately did not matter as Igbinosun got to hoist the National Championship trophy with his teammates at the end.
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Igbinosun then followed it up with perhaps his best season in his final run in 2025.
Facing a team-high in targets (46) for the third year in a row, Iggy allowed receptions on only 47.% of them — by far the best on the team. His coverage grade of 81.8 was the highest of his career and the third-best on Ohio State behind only Caleb Downs and Sonny Styles.
Most importantly, Iggy cut the penalties in half, getting flagged only five times across 14 games.
Overall, Davison Igbinosun finished his Ohio State career with 157 tackles, 22 pass breakups, four interceptions, three fumble recoveries, a national title and a pair of gold pants, coming away with the game-sealing interception against Michigan in Ann Arbor as one final exclamation point on a brilliant collegiate career.
As good as Igbinosun was on the field for Ohio State, his most important contributions arguably came off the field when the TV cameras were off.
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Once Jeff Okudah left the Buckeyes’ cornerbacks room at the end of the 2019 season, the position group lost its way for several years.
Okudah had dubbed the OSU secondary ‘BIA’, and they backed it up by ranking No. 1 in the country in passing yards allowed that season. In the two years that followed, the unit completely fell off a cliff, as Ohio State ranked 122nd and 97th nationally in passing yards allowed in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
Guys like Shaun Wade and Denzel Burke did their best to buoy the position group, but those rooms severely lacked depth and had lost any sort of edge that had come with the ‘BIA’ moniker.
Once Igbinosun arrived in Columbus, he single-handedly brought with him that edge.
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His physicality and his mindset brought a new swagger to Ohio State’s cornerbacks room that we hadn’t seen since the program was routinely pumping out first round NFL Draft picks at the position in the mid-to-late 2010s. Igbinosun immediately became the emotional and spiritual leader of a group that had previously just been going through the motions.
“The way he goes about his business every day. The way he competes every day in practice. We talk a lot about how important practice is and that you’re going to sink to your level of training,” Day said. “He brings it every single day, and he’s going against really good receivers every single day in practice. He doesn’t back down to anybody, and you can see that in his approach. Every time there’s a competition, he’s the first guy in line. You want a secondary that’s built that way.”
You can even see that play out just in a guy like Denzel Burke alone, who went from playing his worst career season in 2022 to his best season in 2023 when Iggy joined the team.
You could see it on the field too, where Igbinosun never shied away from the competition. Iggy was the Buckeyes’ biggest trash talker; An enforcer who set the tone for the rest of the defense to follow.
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It was that attitude that made Ryan Day such a big fan of Igbinosun.
“There’s a lot of growth,” Day said during Cotton Bowl media day. “Davison has always brought an edge to him. That’s why I love having IGB around me. He just brings great energy to the table. There’s an edginess, a toughness, a competitiveness, a grittiness, and he’s aggressive.”
The defensive back was excellent at getting into opponents’ heads. Igbinosun riled up Oregon wide receiver Traeshon Holden so badly that Holden spit on Igbinosun’s face mask, resulting in Holden’s ejection from the game against Ohio State.
They don’t say ‘iron sharpens iron’ for no reason. Igbinsoun bringing that competitive nature and trash talking with him to practice brought the entire team’s energy and competitiveness to a new level.
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“A couple of years ago when IGB came in, they said he brought that DB room back to life with the trash talking and stuff like that,” wide receiver Brandon Inniss told Buckeye Sports Bulletin.
When asked about some of the unsung heroes of Ohio State’s undefeated 2025 regular season, Igbinosun was front of mind for the head coach. Day credits Igbinosun with changing the culture of Ohio State’s cornerbacks room.
“Davison Igbinosun really changed the culture of our secondary when he got here from Ole Miss and has continued to do that,” Day said. “(He’s a) gritty, competitive dude who just brings it every day. He’s had a major impact on our program.”
With so many stars around him, Igbinosun was rarely Ohio State’s best player on the field, but his impact in his three years in Columbus cannot be overstated. The cornerback helped bring a reeling position group back from the dead with stellar play and an even better attitude.
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It feels like the Iggy goes a bit under-appreciated playing next to an otherworldly talent like Caleb Downs, but the corner deserves a ton of credit for the transformation of the Buckeyes’ defensive secondary.
IGB brought back BIA. Now it’s time to go be great in the NFL.
