Ohio State wrestling coach Tom Ryan offers unique perspective on NIL, transfer portal

Ohio State wrestling head coach Tom Ryan detailed a very unique perspective in the world of NIL and the transfer portal.

Going into 2023-24, Ryan had zero incoming transfers to his starting lineup. Other teams like Penn State and Michigan reloaded for a national title run this winter with big name transfers.

They’re not the only ones, but Ohio State and Ryan took a different approach, as he detailed in an exclusive conversation with On3.

This is a fascinating answer from Tom Ryan about NIL and the transfer portal in college wrestling. @wrestlingbucks are all homegrown and I really appreciated @Buckeye158’s perspective. @On3sports x @On3NIL pic.twitter.com/H5CNcn1d6E

— Nick Kosko (@nickkosko59) July 14, 2023

“Yeah, so we’ve had zero issues with guys wanting to leave the program, other than guys that quite frankly, are great people, great team members, but just aren’t good enough to start,” Ryan told On3. “So that’s the issue that we’ve had, like the Koontz brothers. We helped them find the place. Rocky Jordan who’s a superstar, we helped him find a place, Jacob Decatur was a division three national champion, you know, but in general, we’ve had zero issues with guys leaving. On the looking to enhance your team, I think every coach right now is defining their core. Who are we? Who are we as a program? 

“And what are my core values basically, and when does loyalty become a hindrance and when is it right where it should be? And I think, I don’t know if the word is loyalty, but I do think that human beings can be overly loyal to another. If they’re if they’re creating havoc in your life, and you stay loyal to them, I’m not saying stop being friends with them or not assisting them, but the question becomes, when do you go and get somebody else?”

For Tom Ryan’s full conversation with On3, click HERE.

“So we looked at our lineup and the reality is up and down, my lineup, we’re in a really good spot,” Ryan said. “I think I have a top 12 guy in every weight class.  So now the question is, if you got a top 12 guy, do you go get the No. 4 guy or do you stay loyal to your top 12? I would never go in the portal without talking to the student athletes in that weight class. 

“We talked to a few people. And ultimately we talked to a few guys in different weight classes. Every guy on my team that was in that way knew who I was talking to. But it just for us as a staff had seen the value proposition wasn’t worth it.” 

That’s where NIL came into play for Ryan and Ohio State.

“What people were looking to get financially for us to possibly score a point or two more at the national tournament and create this perhaps sense of disloyalty on our side, we opted to not do it,” Ryan said. “I think what the world is right now, wrestling is looking at Penn State, Michigan, Iowa. I mean all three of those schools, they’ll have at least four starters in their lineup that were not recruits of theirs out of high school. 

“All of them jumped in there. I’m not saying good or bad. All I’m saying is what’s happened now is that if you miss on the front end, and the reality is if someone, if you recruit someone, and they don’t develop the way you thought they would, we’re going to call that a miss. Doesn’t mean they’re not amazing people and we love them, but they’re misses. So now you have free agency.”