For the third time in just over a year, Ohio State has added a transfer to bolster what had been a thin area on its offensive depth chart.
Running back Trey Sermon, who racked up more than 2,000 rushing yards in three seasons at Oklahoma, just announced that he will transfer to Ohio State for the 2020 season.
— Trey Sermon (@treyera) March 22, 2020
Sermon is 6 feet tall and listed at 216 lbs. He rushed for 744 yards at 6.1 yards per carry as a freshman in 2017.
His best season with the Sooners came in 2018 when he finished with 947 yards (5.8 YPC) and 13 touchdowns.
Sermon suffered a serious left knee injury in early November of his junior season and missed the rest of the year. He finished 2019 with just 385 yards on the ground and four touchdowns.
He now provides another possible answer to a running back room that was dealing with a lot of questions.
The departure of JK Dobbins for the NFL already left a major hole, and injuries suffered by returning reserves Master Teague and Marcus Crowley left things pretty thin.
Demario McCall was moved back to the running back position from wide receiver after Teague’s injury, joining redshirt freshman Steele Chambers. True freshman Miyan Williams will arrive this summer.
But Sermon gives the Buckeyes another proven option at a position of need.
It’s somewhat similar to the addition of Rutgers transfer Jonah Jackson in 2019, which helped shore up what had been a shaky offensive line.
Of course, the most high-profile transfer addition recently was quarterback Justin Fields, who arrived in January 2019 and finished the year as a Heisman finalist.
Sermon and the Buckeyes seemed like an almost perfect fit as soon as his name hit the transfer portal.
He visited Ohio State multiple times when he was a high school recruit, and was already familiar with both the Buckeyes’ program and running backs coach Tony Alford.
Plus, it was a chance for OSU to add a proven veteran who has played at the highest levels of the sport.
For Sermon, it’s an opportunity to potentially win the starting job for one of the only programs that has been more successful than the Sooners during the Playoff era.
It’s hard to imagine a better fit.