Ohio State transfer portal superlatives: Biggest impact, Most interesting get, toughest loss

Which portal wins were the best? Which losses hurt the most?

Northwestern tight end Hunter Welcing (84) is one of Ohio State’s 16 transfer portal additions. (Photo courtesy of Northwestern athletics)

COLUMBUS — Ohio State seemed like the kind of program that would never go super heavy in the transfer portal. Supplement via the portal, yes. But counting on double-digit transfer additions to make an immediate impact? It felt like the Buckeyes were hoping to avoid that scenario.

However, roster chaos in college football eventually comes for everyone.

Turns out that Ohio State isn’t immune to it.

This offseason, 31 players departed the program and 16 transfers arrived (in addition to 28 incoming freshmen). Plenty of rosters across the sport turn over more, but this represents a fairly radical transformation by Ohio State’s standards.

We tracked all of the movement in our portal tracker here. Now, we’re going to dish out some superlatives, as the movement has finally come to a halt. We’re dishing out names for most likely to make the biggest impact, the biggest swing OSU took, the toughest loss to swallow, the most interesting addition, and some other notes on what the Buckeyes did and didn’t add via the portal.