Ohio State is managing a bit of roster turnover in the aftermath of its national championship.
Thirteen of the 22 players who started for the Buckeyes in the College Football Playoff final against Notre Dame were seniors with eligibility expiring.
The total included a starting quarterback in Will Howard, leading tackler in linebacker Cody Simon and top pass rushers in Jack Sawyer and J.T. Tuimoloau.
Few teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision are left to replace as much as the Buckeyes, as highlighted by returning production rankings from ESPN’s Bill Connelly.
In Connelly’s first offseason rankings unveiled Monday, the Buckeyes ranked 101st out of 136 FBS teams with 46% of their production returning. They were 92nd on offense with 47% and 103rd on defense with 45%.
It’s the lowest for Ohio State since it ranked 121st in 2021. In each of the last three years, it had been in the top half of the FBS in returning production, including as high as 24th in 2022 when C.J. Stroud was returning behind center.
The Buckeyes had been 56th last year with 65% of their total production returning.
Incoming transfers factor into the rankings. Ohio State added six players from the transfer portal during the winter, a group that included tight end Max Klare, who was Purdue’s leading receiver last season, and Ethan Onianwa, the starting left tackle at Rice.
But star receivers Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate and All-American safety Caleb Downs account for much of the Buckeyes’ returning production.
A handful of other playoff teams are in similar situations. Texas, which fell to the Buckeyes in the semifinals, was two spots lower, and Georgia and Oregon ranked 105th and 109th, respectively.
Others such as Clemson and Arizona State were at the top of the rankings with more than three-quarters of their production returning.
Among the Big Ten teams who made the playoff, Penn State stood the highest, ranking 33rd with nearly two-thirds of its production returning. The Irish, who met Ohio State in the final, are 62nd with 57% back in the fold.
The national average for returning production is 53.7%, a figure that is on track to be the lowest since Connelly began sorting data in 2014.
Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch. Follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @joeyrkaufman or email him at jkaufman@dispatch.com.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Where Ohio State football ranks in returning production in 2025
