Former Buckeyes reserve safety Jantzen Dunn transfers to Kentucky
COLUMBUS — Ohio State safety transfer Jantzen Dunn committed to Kentucky Sunday. Dunn entered the portal on Dec. 13 after spending two seasons trying to carve out a role for himself in the Buckeyes secondary.
Dunn is returning to his home state with three years of eligibility remaining. The Bowling Green (Ky.) South Warren product chose Ohio State over Kentucky, Louisville and Tennessee in the 2021 cycle. He was a top-200 recruit in that class — in fact, the 6-foot-1 defensive back was ranked the No. 157 overall player in the country and as the No. 8 safety, not to mention that he was the No. 2 player in the state of Kentucky.
Except, the four-star prospect accumulated just nine defensive snaps in two years with the Buckeyes, according to Pro Football Focus.
Dunn suffered a season-ending injury in October of his freshman year after showing some promise.
“He’ll come out of the backend of this, and he’ll get stronger for it,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said in the aftermath of Dunn’s injury. “He probably doesn’t see that right now, and it’s hard. But unfortunately that’s this game and that’s life. He’s going to have a lot of great days as a Buckeye, but this week has obviously not been a great week for him.
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“He’s going to have to recover and really grind every day to get stronger. Then we’ll get him back on the field.”
Despite more injury troubles in this year’s training camp, Dunn did make it back to the field this season but not on defense. His snaps were limited to special teams, where he scattered 16 snaps across four games (Notre Dame, Arkansas State, Wisconsin and Penn State), per PFF.
Dunn spent 13 of those 16 snaps on Ohio State’s punt return team.
For all Ohio State-related portal content, check out Lettermen Row’s transfer tracker.
