January 6, 2026 • 12 mins
In this episode of the Buckeye Weekly Podcast, hosts Tony Gerdeman and Tom Orr discuss the upcoming visit of outstanding Penn State defensive Chaz Coleman and what he could bring to the Buckeyes' defensively. Is he a must get? Do the Buckeyes have a shot? The fellas talk about all of this and more.
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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. How's it going, Tony?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The calendar turned to January, and I thought, certainly we
are done with shopping trips and wish lists and all
that kind of stuff. And it turns out, no, Christmas
may be over, but the college football shopping season has
just begun, and so we're going to do a whole
series of shows on Ohio States shopping list, wish list,
whatever you want to whatever you want to call it,
(00:34):
remember like going back and like circling things in the
series catalog, like oh, look, they have a you know,
a full football uniform that looks just like the New
York Giants. That'd be amazing and never never got it, Tony,
But you know, maybe maybe things will work out better
for Ohio State in January than it did for me
in December nineteen eighty seven or so.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yes, Mary Portal missed to you as well. Now I
just want the Gi Joe Aircraft carrier and I can't
think of anything else, but thank you for distracting me,
Tom and also depressing me. Let's instead let's talk about
chas Coleman, Penn State defenseman freshman year this year, had
(01:17):
flashed and you know, shown out and impressed a lot
of Ohio State fans. An Ohio native, so when he
hit the portal, there's a lot of excitement around. He
is now taking the campus tours of places. He's been to, LSU,
been to Tennessee, now scheduled to visit Ohio State. And
(01:38):
of course when you're looking for Ohio State, you're talking
about you're losing Kayden Curry. So it'd be nice to
sign another defense van to replace him or to replace
just to add to the depth you're not good luck
replacing Kayden Curry. I should say, you need some bodies.
And this is a guy that, as I said, had
(01:58):
some moments this year, and everybody wants some tom which
means there's going to be a hefty price tag on him.
But being from Ohio, maybe Ohio State can get a
lower tag. But even as I'm saying that Ohio State fans,
I can hear them saying, who cares what the cost is,
Go get Chaz Coleman. And that's fine, but you're also
(02:19):
still working with Kenyatta Jackson, and so there's you don't
you don't even know necessarily, I don't even know if
they know how much they can spend on somebody right now,
because they don't know how much money in the defensive
liner room is still available to be used.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Right It feels like there's a lot of moving parts here,
and until you know who's coming back and who's not,
you don't really know number one and what you're you know,
what kind of resources you're working with in terms of money,
But number two, how many holes do you have to fill?
Because if Kanyata Jackson is back next year, the defensive
line room looks one way. And if Kanyada Jackson's not back,
well then it looks a little bit different. And you know,
(02:54):
you you go from you know, I think I think
there are three kinds of players right now. The you
need you need someone in this position. You need a
defensive end to fill a spot. You need this guy.
This guy is your have to have guy, and yeah,
(03:16):
you know would be nice, but don't need you know,
in a little extra depth might be something like this.
This to me feels like it's probably in the middle
maybe where you probably you want to add someone else.
You don't you know, this is not like well, you
know if someone if someone just kind of like wanders
in off the street, you would be great. Like it's
(03:36):
it's more than that they need someone at that defensive
end position. I think Chas Coleman would be a great addition.
I don't know that Chas Coleman is the only person
that can solve this issue for Ohio State, because you know,
you see people. I think his name got connected to
Ohio State early enough that everyone just kind of wrote
him in and then it's like, well, if they don't
get him, everything is lost. You know. I think Chas
(03:57):
Coleman would be a great addition to Ohio State. But
there are are other names out there that I think,
especially if they can keep Kimyata Jackson, probably could fill
that position in at least sort of a similar way
to Chess Coleman, because Chess Coleman is good, Chess Coleman
has ties to Ohio. Chess Coleman would be a great
addition to this team. But Chess Coleman, You're still looking
(04:19):
at a lot of projection with him. It's not like
he put up enormous numbers as a true freshman. He
played as a true freshman, which is you know, that's
that's good, that's impressive. That shows that you're kind of
on a trajectory to bigger things. But you're not you know,
this doesn't fall into the bucket of well, you're you're
paying for the veteran, proven producer, because that feels like
that's where teams have really found a lot of success
(04:42):
in the portal.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, and it seems like the price tag that he
has is one of a proven commodity and even some
of the services are ranking him as, like, you know,
one of the top two or three defensive ends in
the portal and true freshman. This year, as I said,
he had some moments, especially against Ohio State. Everybody remembers
him lining up over Carson Hinzman, spinning right around him
(05:04):
and creating an incompletion, hurrying Julian saying on the season,
in nine games played, eight tackles, three tackles for loss,
one sack. Compare that to Ohio State true freshman defensive
end Zion Grady thirteen tackles, two tackles for loss, one sack. Now,
what some people tell you is that chas Colemyn's pressure
(05:27):
rate and win rate was much higher, and so take
that for what it is, but it's eight tackles, three
tackles for loss in a sack, and everybody's talking about
him like he can't miss and if you do miss him,
what are you even doing? Like why are you even
bothered trying to play football and field a football team.
(05:48):
He's listed at six four two forty six and he's
the frame that he has. He can add more weight
and the athleticism is tremendous, and he was kind of
an under the radar guy for I think in recruiting
in that maybe there's just something about it. Maybe he
was too skinny for Ohio State, even though I think
we all remember Jamonte Jean Baptiste, you know, going and
(06:09):
getting him from New Jersey and bringing him in as
like a two hundred and five pound outside linebacker defensive
end and putting the weight on him. So I don't
know that that necessarily connects. But you see what he
was able to do at times against at Penn State.
One of those was a forced fumble sack where he
basically just picked football up off the ground, forces it,
(06:31):
picks it up and takes it and runs it for
a nice return. Smooth athlete and one of those guys
that you're watching and he's from Ohio, and it starts
to like smart with a lot of fans like why
did he get away? How did this happen? How could
you let this happen? This is an opportunity for Ohio
State to right or wrong and if you don't do it,
(06:52):
then you've just committed another wrong.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, and you know, I think this is also you
can't get too emotional about these things because if you
get emotional, that's when you're you know, you dedicate a
bunch of money to like this guy. Listen, I'm coming
at this from the perspective of a lifelong Mets fan.
Let me tell you all the ways you can screw
up in free agency. You can fought, you know, and
(07:18):
not that college football is not that the transfertal is
free agency, Tony, I'm not saying that anyway. So since
college football the transfer portal in NIL is now free agency,
let me tell you all the ways you can screw
up in free agency with the benefit of it lifetime
as a Mets fan finding one person and saying it's
this guy, and if we don't get this guy, we're
all doomed. We might as well fold the franchise. That's
(07:41):
a great way to give Jason Bay an enormous contract.
How did it work out? Sh sh We don't have
time to talk about it. Are they still paying Bobby Benia?
It doesn't Tony, I'm not here to talk about that.
You have to, I think, I think you have to
look at it. And unless you're talking about a truly
generational talent Jeremiah Smith, Caleb downs like there are lots
(08:06):
of you know, Ohio State has been fortunate to have
a number of like I mean like truly generational talents
at their position the last couple of years. There are
not that many of those guys out there. If you're
talking about one of these truly generational talents, absolutely, like,
go ahead, drop that bag, whatever you need to do
to get them in. You don't you know that. I
(08:27):
don't know that there is a generational talent as a
defensive end this year. I think there's a lot of
very good players. Think jas Coleman's a very good player.
I think jas coleb would be a great addition to
Ohio State. You know, if Chas Coleman goes somewhere else,
this is going to be a year where Ohio State
will still feel the football team and will still probably
win ten games and make the College Football Playoff. Like
(08:47):
it'll be fine if they can get him, great, But again,
you have to factor in all this other stuff with
Kenyada Jackson or can you keep him. If he can
keep Kanyada Jackson, that is job one, because Kenyada Jackson
has done has done you know this at the high level.
He has been an impact player at the college you know,
the high college level. You know what you're getting with
(09:09):
Kenyata Jackson and that that is the most valuable thing.
You know, Chess Coleman had had he I think he
is like maximized last season to get people all whipped
up about it where he was an Ohio kid, didn't
end up going to Ohio State. And then immediately Week
two has that huge game against Florida International. Four tackles,
two tackles for loss, had the forced fumble, the fumble
(09:32):
recovery of the long return you talked about. That was
half of his tackles all season. That was two thirds
of his tackles for loss all season. So you know
you have this like, well, I mean Week two, imagine
what he's gonna be doing the rest of the season,
and he was good the rest of the season. He
was playing the rest of the season. And again, I
don't want to undersell this. This is someone who was
playing on Penn State as a true freshman. That's very impressive.
(09:55):
But I, you know, I don't think this is you know,
this is like, oh, he's light years better than Zion.
I don't really see that.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
So you know.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
You're gonna you would love to have him lighting up
across from Zion Grady. That would be fantastic, That would
be a great outcome here. But you know, this is
this is not Caleb Downs, this is not Jeremiah Smith.
Almost no one that we're going to be talking about
in this whole series of shows is Caleb Downs and
Jeremiah Smith.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
No. And and yet if Kenyada Jackson does leave for
the NFL or leave in general, now that becomes jas
Colbyn becomes somebody, or the defensive end position becomes something
that you really need to go and get because without
Kenyada Jackson you're looking at you mentioned Zion Grady, Boatkinson,
(10:43):
we assume would be back a Josh Mickens, Carry Wilder
and Drake Quinn. The too true freshmen I'm looking at
that list and I'm wondering, well, I wonder how much
they can get out of carry Wilder because they're probably
going to need him and is put on a bunch
of weight and looks like he's ready to go as
a redshirt freshman next year in Zion Grady should be
(11:05):
pretty good as a sophomore. But it's a lot of
should be and you know, looks this ways. And that's
also the case if they had Chas Coleman as well.
But I guess if you don't have Kenyatta Jackson, it
would be better to have well, in any instance, it
would be better to have Chas Coleman than not.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Let's say, oh yeah for sure, yeah, for sure, you
would much rather have Chess Coleman than not have Chess Coleman.
But you would much rather have KENYAA Jackson ahead of
anyone else that we're talking about in this conversation for
the twenty twenty six buck guys. So you know that
feels like that's the single biggest piece that we're waiting
on an answer on right now. Is he going to
come back? Is he not going to come back? And
(11:43):
if he comes back, that's that's the biggest win Ohio
State can have at the defensive end position, and Chess
Coleman is probably the second biggest win they can have
at the defensive end position.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yep, I would agree with that. So there he goes
some thoughts on Chas Coleman and what he could do
mean for the buck Eyes and with the Buckeyes. Frankly
he could do for him as well. If you want
to hit the thumbs up if you're watching, we'd appreciate that.
Subscribe to the channel if I've not yet done so.
Five star rating. Interview on all the podcast platforms always appreciated,
and you can continue to find us at bucke huddle
dot com. Thank you for tuning in and we will
(12:13):
talk to you all later
Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast. I'm Tony
Gerdaman here as always with Tom or Tom. How's it going, Tony?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The calendar turned to January, and I thought, certainly we
are done with shopping trips and wish lists and all
that kind of stuff. And it turns out, no, Christmas
may be over, but the college football shopping season has
just begun, and so we're going to do a whole
series of shows on Ohio States shopping list, wish list,
whatever you want to whatever you want to call it,
(00:34):
remember like going back and like circling things in the
series catalog, like oh, look, they have a you know,
a full football uniform that looks just like the New
York Giants. That'd be amazing and never never got it, Tony,
But you know, maybe maybe things will work out better
for Ohio State in January than it did for me
in December nineteen eighty seven or so.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yes, Mary Portal missed to you as well. Now I
just want the Gi Joe Aircraft carrier and I can't
think of anything else, but thank you for distracting me,
Tom and also depressing me. Let's instead let's talk about
chas Coleman, Penn State defenseman freshman year this year, had
(01:17):
flashed and you know, shown out and impressed a lot
of Ohio State fans. An Ohio native, so when he
hit the portal, there's a lot of excitement around. He
is now taking the campus tours of places. He's been to, LSU,
been to Tennessee, now scheduled to visit Ohio State. And
(01:38):
of course when you're looking for Ohio State, you're talking
about you're losing Kayden Curry. So it'd be nice to
sign another defense van to replace him or to replace
just to add to the depth you're not good luck
replacing Kayden Curry. I should say, you need some bodies.
And this is a guy that, as I said, had
(01:58):
some moments this year, and everybody wants some tom which
means there's going to be a hefty price tag on him.
But being from Ohio, maybe Ohio State can get a
lower tag. But even as I'm saying that Ohio State fans,
I can hear them saying, who cares what the cost is,
Go get Chaz Coleman. And that's fine, but you're also
(02:19):
still working with Kenyatta Jackson, and so there's you don't
you don't even know necessarily, I don't even know if
they know how much they can spend on somebody right now,
because they don't know how much money in the defensive
liner room is still available to be used.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Right It feels like there's a lot of moving parts here,
and until you know who's coming back and who's not,
you don't really know number one and what you're you know,
what kind of resources you're working with in terms of money,
But number two, how many holes do you have to fill?
Because if Kanyata Jackson is back next year, the defensive
line room looks one way. And if Kanyada Jackson's not back,
well then it looks a little bit different. And you know,
(02:54):
you you go from you know, I think I think
there are three kinds of players right now. The you
need you need someone in this position. You need a
defensive end to fill a spot. You need this guy.
This guy is your have to have guy, and yeah,
(03:16):
you know would be nice, but don't need you know,
in a little extra depth might be something like this.
This to me feels like it's probably in the middle
maybe where you probably you want to add someone else.
You don't you know, this is not like well, you
know if someone if someone just kind of like wanders
in off the street, you would be great. Like it's
(03:36):
it's more than that they need someone at that defensive
end position. I think Chas Coleman would be a great addition.
I don't know that Chas Coleman is the only person
that can solve this issue for Ohio State, because you know,
you see people. I think his name got connected to
Ohio State early enough that everyone just kind of wrote
him in and then it's like, well, if they don't
get him, everything is lost. You know. I think Chas
(03:57):
Coleman would be a great addition to Ohio State. But
there are are other names out there that I think,
especially if they can keep Kimyata Jackson, probably could fill
that position in at least sort of a similar way
to Chess Coleman, because Chess Coleman is good, Chess Coleman
has ties to Ohio. Chess Coleman would be a great
addition to this team. But Chess Coleman, You're still looking
(04:19):
at a lot of projection with him. It's not like
he put up enormous numbers as a true freshman. He
played as a true freshman, which is you know, that's
that's good, that's impressive. That shows that you're kind of
on a trajectory to bigger things. But you're not you know,
this doesn't fall into the bucket of well, you're you're
paying for the veteran, proven producer, because that feels like
that's where teams have really found a lot of success
(04:42):
in the portal.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, and it seems like the price tag that he
has is one of a proven commodity and even some
of the services are ranking him as, like, you know,
one of the top two or three defensive ends in
the portal and true freshman. This year, as I said,
he had some moments, especially against Ohio State. Everybody remembers
him lining up over Carson Hinzman, spinning right around him
(05:04):
and creating an incompletion, hurrying Julian saying on the season,
in nine games played, eight tackles, three tackles for loss,
one sack. Compare that to Ohio State true freshman defensive
end Zion Grady thirteen tackles, two tackles for loss, one sack. Now,
what some people tell you is that chas Colemyn's pressure
(05:27):
rate and win rate was much higher, and so take
that for what it is, but it's eight tackles, three
tackles for loss in a sack, and everybody's talking about
him like he can't miss and if you do miss him,
what are you even doing? Like why are you even
bothered trying to play football and field a football team.
(05:48):
He's listed at six four two forty six and he's
the frame that he has. He can add more weight
and the athleticism is tremendous, and he was kind of
an under the radar guy for I think in recruiting
in that maybe there's just something about it. Maybe he
was too skinny for Ohio State, even though I think
we all remember Jamonte Jean Baptiste, you know, going and
(06:09):
getting him from New Jersey and bringing him in as
like a two hundred and five pound outside linebacker defensive
end and putting the weight on him. So I don't
know that that necessarily connects. But you see what he
was able to do at times against at Penn State.
One of those was a forced fumble sack where he
basically just picked football up off the ground, forces it,
(06:31):
picks it up and takes it and runs it for
a nice return. Smooth athlete and one of those guys
that you're watching and he's from Ohio, and it starts
to like smart with a lot of fans like why
did he get away? How did this happen? How could
you let this happen? This is an opportunity for Ohio
State to right or wrong and if you don't do it,
(06:52):
then you've just committed another wrong.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, and you know, I think this is also you
can't get too emotional about these things because if you
get emotional, that's when you're you know, you dedicate a
bunch of money to like this guy. Listen, I'm coming
at this from the perspective of a lifelong Mets fan.
Let me tell you all the ways you can screw
up in free agency. You can fought, you know, and
(07:18):
not that college football is not that the transfertal is
free agency, Tony, I'm not saying that anyway. So since
college football the transfer portal in NIL is now free agency,
let me tell you all the ways you can screw
up in free agency with the benefit of it lifetime
as a Mets fan finding one person and saying it's
this guy, and if we don't get this guy, we're
all doomed. We might as well fold the franchise. That's
(07:41):
a great way to give Jason Bay an enormous contract.
How did it work out? Sh sh We don't have
time to talk about it. Are they still paying Bobby Benia?
It doesn't Tony, I'm not here to talk about that.
You have to, I think, I think you have to
look at it. And unless you're talking about a truly
generational talent Jeremiah Smith, Caleb downs like there are lots
(08:06):
of you know, Ohio State has been fortunate to have
a number of like I mean like truly generational talents
at their position the last couple of years. There are
not that many of those guys out there. If you're
talking about one of these truly generational talents, absolutely, like,
go ahead, drop that bag, whatever you need to do
to get them in. You don't you know that. I
(08:27):
don't know that there is a generational talent as a
defensive end this year. I think there's a lot of
very good players. Think jas Coleman's a very good player.
I think jas coleb would be a great addition to
Ohio State. You know, if Chas Coleman goes somewhere else,
this is going to be a year where Ohio State
will still feel the football team and will still probably
win ten games and make the College Football Playoff. Like
(08:47):
it'll be fine if they can get him, great, But again,
you have to factor in all this other stuff with
Kenyada Jackson or can you keep him. If he can
keep Kanyada Jackson, that is job one, because Kenyada Jackson
has done has done you know this at the high level.
He has been an impact player at the college you know,
the high college level. You know what you're getting with
(09:09):
Kenyata Jackson and that that is the most valuable thing.
You know, Chess Coleman had had he I think he
is like maximized last season to get people all whipped
up about it where he was an Ohio kid, didn't
end up going to Ohio State. And then immediately Week
two has that huge game against Florida International. Four tackles,
two tackles for loss, had the forced fumble, the fumble
(09:32):
recovery of the long return you talked about. That was
half of his tackles all season. That was two thirds
of his tackles for loss all season. So you know
you have this like, well, I mean Week two, imagine
what he's gonna be doing the rest of the season,
and he was good the rest of the season. He
was playing the rest of the season. And again, I
don't want to undersell this. This is someone who was
playing on Penn State as a true freshman. That's very impressive.
(09:55):
But I, you know, I don't think this is you know,
this is like, oh, he's light years better than Zion.
I don't really see that.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
So you know.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
You're gonna you would love to have him lighting up
across from Zion Grady. That would be fantastic, That would
be a great outcome here. But you know, this is
this is not Caleb Downs, this is not Jeremiah Smith.
Almost no one that we're going to be talking about
in this whole series of shows is Caleb Downs and
Jeremiah Smith.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
No. And and yet if Kenyada Jackson does leave for
the NFL or leave in general, now that becomes jas
Colbyn becomes somebody, or the defensive end position becomes something
that you really need to go and get because without
Kenyada Jackson you're looking at you mentioned Zion Grady, Boatkinson,
(10:43):
we assume would be back a Josh Mickens, Carry Wilder
and Drake Quinn. The too true freshmen I'm looking at
that list and I'm wondering, well, I wonder how much
they can get out of carry Wilder because they're probably
going to need him and is put on a bunch
of weight and looks like he's ready to go as
a redshirt freshman next year in Zion Grady should be
(11:05):
pretty good as a sophomore. But it's a lot of
should be and you know, looks this ways. And that's
also the case if they had Chas Coleman as well.
But I guess if you don't have Kenyatta Jackson, it
would be better to have well, in any instance, it
would be better to have Chas Coleman than not.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Let's say, oh yeah for sure, yeah, for sure, you
would much rather have Chess Coleman than not have Chess Coleman.
But you would much rather have KENYAA Jackson ahead of
anyone else that we're talking about in this conversation for
the twenty twenty six buck guys. So you know that
feels like that's the single biggest piece that we're waiting
on an answer on right now. Is he going to
come back? Is he not going to come back? And
(11:43):
if he comes back, that's that's the biggest win Ohio
State can have at the defensive end position, and Chess
Coleman is probably the second biggest win they can have
at the defensive end position.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yep, I would agree with that. So there he goes
some thoughts on Chas Coleman and what he could do
mean for the buck Eyes and with the Buckeyes. Frankly
he could do for him as well. If you want
to hit the thumbs up if you're watching, we'd appreciate that.
Subscribe to the channel if I've not yet done so.
Five star rating. Interview on all the podcast platforms always appreciated,
and you can continue to find us at bucke huddle
dot com. Thank you for tuning in and we will
(12:13):
talk to you all later
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