The Most Recent Buckeye From Each Ohio County

Since its first season in 1890, Ohio State football has been built on a foundation of players from within the state of Ohio.

As the program grew into a regional player, and then blossomed into a national powerhouse, playing for the Buckeyes became a dream for most kids who ever stepped on a pee wee field in the state.

While recent seasons have seen the Buckeyes shift to a more national focus in recruiting, there is still a solid base of the team’s talent that comes from within the state’s borders.

The runaway winner for the county that has produced the most 2020 Buckeyes is Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is located. There are 11 Buckeyes who list somewhere in Hamilton County as their hometown. Franklin County (Columbus) is second with six.

This year’s team also features at least one player from a part of the state that hadn’t produced a Buckeye in decades.

True freshman offensive tackle Trey Leroux is from Norwalk, Ohio, in Huron County. He’s the first scholarship player from there since Thomas Waugh in 1979, and the first player from there at all since walk-on Carlos Luna in 1990.

If current 2021 OSU commitments end up signing and enrolling, several counties could soon have their first scholarship Buckeye in several years including Summit (2018), Stark (2017), Portage (2011), and Lawrence (2009).

A few points of order before we dive into the chart. First, players are categorized by the hometown they are listed with on the official team roster. So while senior OT Thayer Munford played his high school football at Massillon Washington, he’s listed with the players from Hamilton County because his listed hometown is Cincinnati.

All hometowns are pulled directly from the official team rosters from 1960-present here, and prior to 1960 here. Those earlier records are incomplete, but they are the best official records available.

Last year’s edition of this feature only went back to 1960 or so. This is a more comprehensive update. With that said, this is not an exact science. It’s possible that in reading through a century worth of rosters, someone was missed. If so, please leave a comment below.

In the case of players whose hometown is split between multiple counties, a good-faith effort has been made to determine which county his high school was located in and place him there.

All players listed below are the most recent scholarship player from one of Ohio’s 88 counties. If there has been a walk-on player from a county more recently than the most recent scholarship player, that walk-on is listed with an asterisk.

Here are the counties without a player listed: Adams, Brown, Holmes, Monroe, Morgan, Morrow. A similar feature ran last year, and a number of readers provided suggestions on players from some of those counties.

One suggestion was George Putnam from Holmes County on the 1915 team. The 1915 roster lists only “Putnam” with no further information, and a search of Newspapers.com turned up no details on Putnam.

For now, such players are not listed unless they are officially documented somewhere.

Another reader mentioned Jim Patchell from Batavia, Ohio, who was the most recent player from Clermont County when he played in 1922. Because the 1922 roster is online and includes hometowns, he is now included.

There was also a lot of response last year about why additional players weren’t included. Please note that this is “The Most Recent Buckeye From Each Ohio County” and not “Every Buckeye From Each Ohio County.” So if there is a player on the 2020 team from a county, we’re not also listing every guy from there who played in 1997.