A brief history of Ohio State freshman snaps. What happened in 2025? What's ahead in 2026?

How much have true freshman played for the Buckeyes under Ryan Day?

Ohio State linebacker Riley Pettijohn was among the freshmen who played the most in 2025. (Photo courtesy of OSU athletics)

COLUMBUS — Ryan Day looked about as angry as I’ve seen him look on the sideline. Ohio State’s head coach was fuming at freshman running back Bo Jackson for attempting to reach the ball over the goal line and fumbling out of bounds late in a blowout win against Grambling State last season.

Forget that the Buckeyes were up 63-0 and about to score another touchdown. That ball could’ve gone out of bounds through the end zone (resulting in a touchback) instead of just short of the pylon, and any turnover matters, even when you’re up by nine touchdowns. I doubt Jackson forgot that sideline chewing-out while he emerged as the lead ballcarrier for the rest of the season.

After all, that’s what games like that blowout of Grambling are for, opportunities for young players to play, and learn, and fail, and learn some more.

I was only watching that game recently because it was the only one in which freshman quarterback Tavien St. Clair appeared. Unsurprisingly, that game featured a heavy dose of Buckeye freshmen. Twenty played on either offense or defense. Basically, if you were a healthy member of the 2025 recruiting class, you saw the field that day. Some never saw the field after that. Others played sparingly.

I try to do this exercise every offseason, a look back at what the freshman class did in their first year, and what, if anything, that tells us about what might be ahead for those players in year two. That feels especially relevant now on the heels of Ohio State losing eight members of that 2025 recruiting class to transfer after just one season, while bringing in 29 — the most Day has ever signed in one class — new players from high school. Given the increased volatility in freshman classes, I also wanted to provide some historical context on freshman playing time in the Day era to see if there’s anything to glean from it as we assess how much the 2025 class played and what it means.

The freshmen who redshirted

Six members of the 2025 recruiting class didn’t see the field at all as freshmen: running back Turbo Rogers, receivers Bodpgen Miller and De’Zie Jones, defensive tackle Maxwell Roy, and safeties Cody Haddad and Deshawn Stewart. Miller (Washington), Roy (UCLA) and Haddad (Iowa) have all since transferred.