Did Ohio State miss in the transfer portal this offseason? Inside the numbers compared to other national title contenders

How the Buckeyes stack up to Oregon, Indiana, Ole Miss, Georgia, Alabama, Texas Tech and themselves from last season

Tight end Max Klare, from Purdue, was one of four offseason transfers playing primary roles for Ohio State this season. (Photo courtesy of Ohio State)

COLUMBUS — Four to six seems right for the number of immediate major transfer portal contributors a blue blood national title contender should look to add in the offseason. More or fewer can work, but if there’s an ideal plan, through the first couple years of the portal and NIL era of college football, this is it.

That’s where Ohio State has been each of the last two seasons.

So why does it feel like maybe the Buckeyes missed in the portal compared to a season ago?

As subscriber Douglas asked recently,

Discuss Ohio State’s portal class and if they whiffed. Lots of chatter (mostly the fringe overreacting to the C.J. Donaldson fumble), but when you look at what they added, sure seems like some of their pieces just haven’t been what they hoped for.

To probe this idea, I separated Ohio State transfers into three categories, looked at the number of portal contributors on the Top 12 teams in the country compared to Ohio State, and found the positions where teams are really diving into the portal (and where Ohio State doesn’t have to.)

Did Ohio State’s portal class whiff? Let’s investigate.