January 4, 2026 • 10 mins
In this breaking news episode of the Buckeye Weekly Podcast, hosts Tony Gerdeman and Tom Orr discuss the announcement that redshirt freshman wide receiver Mylan Graham is entering the transfer portal. The fellas talk about why this happened and what it means for the Buckeyes moving forward.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast. I'm Tony
Gerdaman here as always with Tom or Tom.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
How's it going, Tony?
Speaker 3 (00:12):
It is time to do another transfer show. It's been
five minutes, ten minutes, I don't know it's been. It's
been not very long. But more transfer news for the
Ohio State Buckeyes. We just did one with guys coming in.
Now we got to do another one with guys going out.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, the news here is that former five star wide
receiver Milon Graham entering the transfer portal a red shirt freshman.
Didn't really play last year? Did I have a catch?
Had six catches for ninety three yards this year, And
like I said, former five star guy came in with
Jeremiah Smith, and you could see the two of them together,
(00:47):
Milon Graham as their prototype Z, Jeremiah Smith as the
prototype X, and it was very easy to envision them
playing together. And it just it could never quite happen
for Milon Graham, who didn't see the field hardly at
all as a true freshman. And then we expected, you know, yeah,
I'm sure he's gonna be part of the rotation, right,
there's gonna be well, there's gonna be a rotation, right,
(01:09):
and it just never happened for him this year.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
No, And it feels like there's a lot of different
pieces of this story that we can kind of get into,
and I think a lot of it starts with the
fact that he was not an early enroll leade. Virtually
everyone at this point shows up in January and goes
through springball and gets a little bit of a head
start on the next year, which when twenty three of
(01:36):
twenty five guys in the class are doing it it,
you know, it's at that point it stops being a
head start and just sort of starts being the way
and you know, then you're sort of starting If you're
one of the couple guys that does not do that,
then you're sort of starting from behind. So that you
looked at that, and you looked at the fact that
he was came in a little bit raw. He you
know that the physical talent was there, but he was
(01:58):
coming in a little bit raw last year, and you
know kind of thought, okay, you you can sort of
handwave the first year. I was expecting him to take
on a bigger role this year.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You know, there were.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Certainly opportunities where it was not the deepest Ohio state
wide receiver room.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
And then you had Carnel Tait miss a bunch of time.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And even when Carnel Tate was missing a bunch of time,
I mean missing like weeks and weeks, there was a
bunch of snaps. You know, David Adolph, a former walk on,
is getting all his steps and it was like.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Where is Milon Graham?
Speaker 3 (02:30):
And it just it felt like it never quite came
together for him. And you know, you hear it's this,
it's that, And you know everyone has their their pet
theories and their ideas on why why it didn't come together,
but it just did. It just never seemed to come
together for for myle and Graham. And you know, I
(02:51):
will leave it up to you, Tony, We'll play choose
your own adventure. Do you want to talk about the
does Brian Hartline leaving make, you know, play an impact
on Mile and Graham hitting the portal? Or do you
want to have the conversation about the fact that there's
not a post spring portal and he has to kind
of make a decision now? Is that part of why
(03:13):
this decision got made after really just kind of a year.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And a half.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, I think I don't think Brian Harline's departure has
anything really to do with this, because Brian Harline's been
the guy not playing him so and Carnel tATu is
probably out the door to the NFL, so his path
toward playing time seems to be pretty good. I do
think this is we're gonna see. We should consider the
(03:38):
transfer portal now basically like restricted free agency, and you're
gonna see a bunch of people go in, but I
think you're gonna see more people returning, just because the
only way to find out what's out there, you know,
is well, I shouldn't say that there's back channel, but
if you really want to see what's out there, you
enter the portal. You can always know you can come
back if the team will have you back. But I
(04:01):
also wonder, after two years of seeing him, does Ryan
Day feel like it's just not gonna happen for him?
And you know what, is this price tag too high
as the former five star and he won't go lower?
And it's weird that we have to talk about that
sort of thing. Now it's like, well, where is he
in the budget? And now maybe he's not in the budget.
He thinks he should be making more because he's a
former five star, and it's like, well, you are, but
(04:24):
you're also you averaged three catches per year so far
as the college football player, and that's not very good.
But Tom, let me tell you this. So since twenty nineteen,
the class of twenty nineteen, Brian Hartline has signed twenty
wide receivers. Would you care to take a guess as
to how many of those now have transferred out? And
(04:45):
we're not talking about the twenty five class. We're just
talking twenty nineteen through twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
And he signed twenty wide receivers. Well, let's see, I
know they lost the entire twenty two class and they
you know, I know they've lost Bryce and Rogers.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
They lost I'm gonna say.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Twelve, exactamundo. Nice Nice guests, not a guess, nice answer,
exactly twelve. Only one time, the twenty twenty one class
was the only class where they have not had more
players transfer out than stay. And the only player that
transferred out that was Jaden Ballard with Marvin Harrison and
Ameca Abuka. And so even the twenty nineteen class with
(05:34):
Jamison Williams and Garrett Wilson, you lost half of it.
You lost two of the three, and twenty twenty four
you've it's just it's two of four and twenty twenty three,
and it's it's put them in a situation this past
year where he had three wide receivers that he could
trust and only two of those guys could average over
(05:55):
eight yards of catch. So now you're losing guys in
the portal. They have to go to the portal, and
that's something that Brian Hartline would never do other than
for Bryson Rogers. And now you're seeing that, you know, yeah,
they have to because again they're low on numbers. They
you can't lose what sixty percent of your your wide
(06:16):
receivers to the portal, not counting the one that moved
a tight end, not counting the ones that leave early.
So the return that you're getting is very, very small.
It might be Jeremiah Smith, and it might be Carnal Tate,
and it might be Machaya Buca, but they're all not
going to hit like that. You need some guys that
could that will catch. You need some guys that produce,
(06:36):
like Carnal Tait last year where it's forty to fifty
catches six hundred yards and you just stay consistent because
you can't just survive. I guess on I don't know
if you call him solo home runs or whatever heartline
has been hitting with a few of his guys.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
It is a little bit of a Rob Deer sort
of thing where you're you're you know, you're either hitting
home runs or you're striking, and there's not a whole
lot in between those two things where yeah, you can
you know, you can dine out on Jeremiah Smith for
quite a while. That that works out pretty well in
Carnel Tad and Garrett Wilson and Chris you know, and
(07:14):
there's you can go through the list and it's like, man,
oh man, there's been he's been churning out first round picks.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
But then there's not a lot of third round picks
or fifth round picks.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
It's been first round picks or guys who end up
in the transfer portal. And that's you know, that's great
as long as guys stay healthy and you can just
rely on having a couple first round picks out there.
But as you said, now you're going into next year
with Jeremiah Smith Brandon Ennis, and then a whole bunch
of question marks. And I think you and I are
(07:47):
both pretty high on Quincy Porter and think there's quite
a bit of talent there.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
But he's was banged up a bunch this year, So
what do you really know?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
You know, we can sort of project, but it's really
just projecting just because he missed so much time this year.
And then now Bryson Rodgers in the portal, now Mile
and Graham's in the portal, and then you're getting into
a bunch of guys who were true freshmen this year
and who are coming in and are true freshman next year.
And you've you have to go into the you know,
(08:15):
you have to go into the portal and bring in
some guys.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
And they have and.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
We've you know, we've done some shows on some of
those guys who are coming in and visiting, and well,
I'm sure have much more to talk about with those
guys coming up in the next few days. But you know,
you look at you look at the depth chart there
right now, and it's just it's just exclamation points at
the top and then question marks below that.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, and Miley Graham finished the year as the receiver
with the fourth highest number of snaps one hundred and
sixty one. Bryson Rodgers won twenty nine, David Adolph ninety eight,
but the last four games of the season Bryson Rodgers
had for thirty seven snaps, David Adolph had sixty two
or so, and Miley Graham at fourteen. And he was
(09:03):
based on the way things finished out. If Quincy Porter
was healthy, then he probably would have been higher than
Mylon and Graham as well. So, yeah, this seems like
just just wasn't happening for him at Ohio State just right.
Even mentioned it at one point about practicing and just
almost not calling him out but through some critical words
(09:27):
in his direction. And I just could never get him
exactly where they needed to be reliable on the field,
and when he had a couple of chances to make
some catches, it didn't happen. And not that there were
a lot of chances, because there weren't. But there you go,
Milon Graham off to the transfer portal. Incredibly explosive athlete.
I think, just looking for the kind of consistency that
(09:49):
you know a guy can be reliable and can approach
him on third down and he's going to come down
with the ball. So there you go. Milon Graham off
to the transfer portal. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead
hit that thumbs up. We'd appreciate that. G to the channel.
You know, we got more stuff coming for you as
this will not be the last transfer either in or out.
Believe me on that one. And of course, whenever something
big happens, we will be talking about it here YouTube
(10:10):
dot com, slash Buckey Huddle as well as Buckeye Huddle
dot com, so check us out there as well. Thank
you all for tuning in and we'll talk to you
all later
Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast. I'm Tony
Gerdaman here as always with Tom or Tom.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
How's it going, Tony?
Speaker 3 (00:12):
It is time to do another transfer show. It's been
five minutes, ten minutes, I don't know it's been. It's
been not very long. But more transfer news for the
Ohio State Buckeyes. We just did one with guys coming in.
Now we got to do another one with guys going out.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, the news here is that former five star wide
receiver Milon Graham entering the transfer portal a red shirt freshman.
Didn't really play last year? Did I have a catch?
Had six catches for ninety three yards this year, And
like I said, former five star guy came in with
Jeremiah Smith, and you could see the two of them together,
(00:47):
Milon Graham as their prototype Z, Jeremiah Smith as the
prototype X, and it was very easy to envision them
playing together. And it just it could never quite happen
for Milon Graham, who didn't see the field hardly at
all as a true freshman. And then we expected, you know, yeah,
I'm sure he's gonna be part of the rotation, right,
there's gonna be well, there's gonna be a rotation, right,
(01:09):
and it just never happened for him this year.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
No, And it feels like there's a lot of different
pieces of this story that we can kind of get into,
and I think a lot of it starts with the
fact that he was not an early enroll leade. Virtually
everyone at this point shows up in January and goes
through springball and gets a little bit of a head
start on the next year, which when twenty three of
(01:36):
twenty five guys in the class are doing it it,
you know, it's at that point it stops being a
head start and just sort of starts being the way
and you know, then you're sort of starting If you're
one of the couple guys that does not do that,
then you're sort of starting from behind. So that you
looked at that, and you looked at the fact that
he was came in a little bit raw. He you
know that the physical talent was there, but he was
(01:58):
coming in a little bit raw last year, and you
know kind of thought, okay, you you can sort of
handwave the first year. I was expecting him to take
on a bigger role this year.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You know, there were.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Certainly opportunities where it was not the deepest Ohio state
wide receiver room.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
And then you had Carnel Tait miss a bunch of time.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And even when Carnel Tate was missing a bunch of time,
I mean missing like weeks and weeks, there was a
bunch of snaps. You know, David Adolph, a former walk on,
is getting all his steps and it was like.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Where is Milon Graham?
Speaker 3 (02:30):
And it just it felt like it never quite came
together for him. And you know, you hear it's this,
it's that, And you know everyone has their their pet
theories and their ideas on why why it didn't come together,
but it just did. It just never seemed to come
together for for myle and Graham. And you know, I
(02:51):
will leave it up to you, Tony, We'll play choose
your own adventure. Do you want to talk about the
does Brian Hartline leaving make, you know, play an impact
on Mile and Graham hitting the portal? Or do you
want to have the conversation about the fact that there's
not a post spring portal and he has to kind
of make a decision now? Is that part of why
(03:13):
this decision got made after really just kind of a year.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And a half.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, I think I don't think Brian Harline's departure has
anything really to do with this, because Brian Harline's been
the guy not playing him so and Carnel tATu is
probably out the door to the NFL, so his path
toward playing time seems to be pretty good. I do
think this is we're gonna see. We should consider the
(03:38):
transfer portal now basically like restricted free agency, and you're
gonna see a bunch of people go in, but I
think you're gonna see more people returning, just because the
only way to find out what's out there, you know,
is well, I shouldn't say that there's back channel, but
if you really want to see what's out there, you
enter the portal. You can always know you can come
back if the team will have you back. But I
(04:01):
also wonder, after two years of seeing him, does Ryan
Day feel like it's just not gonna happen for him?
And you know what, is this price tag too high
as the former five star and he won't go lower?
And it's weird that we have to talk about that
sort of thing. Now it's like, well, where is he
in the budget? And now maybe he's not in the budget.
He thinks he should be making more because he's a
former five star, and it's like, well, you are, but
(04:24):
you're also you averaged three catches per year so far
as the college football player, and that's not very good.
But Tom, let me tell you this. So since twenty nineteen,
the class of twenty nineteen, Brian Hartline has signed twenty
wide receivers. Would you care to take a guess as
to how many of those now have transferred out? And
(04:45):
we're not talking about the twenty five class. We're just
talking twenty nineteen through twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
And he signed twenty wide receivers. Well, let's see, I
know they lost the entire twenty two class and they
you know, I know they've lost Bryce and Rogers.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
They lost I'm gonna say.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Twelve, exactamundo. Nice Nice guests, not a guess, nice answer,
exactly twelve. Only one time, the twenty twenty one class
was the only class where they have not had more
players transfer out than stay. And the only player that
transferred out that was Jaden Ballard with Marvin Harrison and
Ameca Abuka. And so even the twenty nineteen class with
(05:34):
Jamison Williams and Garrett Wilson, you lost half of it.
You lost two of the three, and twenty twenty four
you've it's just it's two of four and twenty twenty three,
and it's it's put them in a situation this past
year where he had three wide receivers that he could
trust and only two of those guys could average over
(05:55):
eight yards of catch. So now you're losing guys in
the portal. They have to go to the portal, and
that's something that Brian Hartline would never do other than
for Bryson Rogers. And now you're seeing that, you know, yeah,
they have to because again they're low on numbers. They
you can't lose what sixty percent of your your wide
(06:16):
receivers to the portal, not counting the one that moved
a tight end, not counting the ones that leave early.
So the return that you're getting is very, very small.
It might be Jeremiah Smith, and it might be Carnal Tate,
and it might be Machaya Buca, but they're all not
going to hit like that. You need some guys that
could that will catch. You need some guys that produce,
(06:36):
like Carnal Tait last year where it's forty to fifty
catches six hundred yards and you just stay consistent because
you can't just survive. I guess on I don't know
if you call him solo home runs or whatever heartline
has been hitting with a few of his guys.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
It is a little bit of a Rob Deer sort
of thing where you're you're you know, you're either hitting
home runs or you're striking, and there's not a whole
lot in between those two things where yeah, you can
you know, you can dine out on Jeremiah Smith for
quite a while. That that works out pretty well in
Carnel Tad and Garrett Wilson and Chris you know, and
(07:14):
there's you can go through the list and it's like, man,
oh man, there's been he's been churning out first round picks.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
But then there's not a lot of third round picks
or fifth round picks.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
It's been first round picks or guys who end up
in the transfer portal. And that's you know, that's great
as long as guys stay healthy and you can just
rely on having a couple first round picks out there.
But as you said, now you're going into next year
with Jeremiah Smith Brandon Ennis, and then a whole bunch
of question marks. And I think you and I are
(07:47):
both pretty high on Quincy Porter and think there's quite
a bit of talent there.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
But he's was banged up a bunch this year, So
what do you really know?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
You know, we can sort of project, but it's really
just projecting just because he missed so much time this year.
And then now Bryson Rodgers in the portal, now Mile
and Graham's in the portal, and then you're getting into
a bunch of guys who were true freshmen this year
and who are coming in and are true freshman next year.
And you've you have to go into the you know,
(08:15):
you have to go into the portal and bring in
some guys.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
And they have and.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
We've you know, we've done some shows on some of
those guys who are coming in and visiting, and well,
I'm sure have much more to talk about with those
guys coming up in the next few days. But you know,
you look at you look at the depth chart there
right now, and it's just it's just exclamation points at
the top and then question marks below that.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, and Miley Graham finished the year as the receiver
with the fourth highest number of snaps one hundred and
sixty one. Bryson Rodgers won twenty nine, David Adolph ninety eight,
but the last four games of the season Bryson Rodgers
had for thirty seven snaps, David Adolph had sixty two
or so, and Miley Graham at fourteen. And he was
(09:03):
based on the way things finished out. If Quincy Porter
was healthy, then he probably would have been higher than
Mylon and Graham as well. So, yeah, this seems like
just just wasn't happening for him at Ohio State just right.
Even mentioned it at one point about practicing and just
almost not calling him out but through some critical words
(09:27):
in his direction. And I just could never get him
exactly where they needed to be reliable on the field,
and when he had a couple of chances to make
some catches, it didn't happen. And not that there were
a lot of chances, because there weren't. But there you go,
Milon Graham off to the transfer portal. Incredibly explosive athlete.
I think, just looking for the kind of consistency that
(09:49):
you know a guy can be reliable and can approach
him on third down and he's going to come down
with the ball. So there you go. Milon Graham off
to the transfer portal. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead
hit that thumbs up. We'd appreciate that. G to the channel.
You know, we got more stuff coming for you as
this will not be the last transfer either in or out.
Believe me on that one. And of course, whenever something
big happens, we will be talking about it here YouTube
(10:10):
dot com, slash Buckey Huddle as well as Buckeye Huddle
dot com, so check us out there as well. Thank
you all for tuning in and we'll talk to you
all later
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!