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“Miami quarterback Tate Martell is eligible to play immediately after the NCAA approved his waiver request, the school announced Tuesday.”
Former Ohio State Buckeyes quarterback Tate Martell was granted his waiver of eligibility from the NCAA on Tuesday afternoon and will be eligible immediately for the Miami Hurricanes. The Hurricanes had to wait a lot longer than the Buckeyes had to for Justin Fields, as he was cleared and declared eligible on Feb. 8, almost a month and a half ago.
Martell transferred from Ohio State to Miami after Field’s decided to transfer from Georgia to Ohio State. At the time, Martell stayed firm to Ohio State and told reporters he was “100 percent confident” that he would be the starter come August, but then backtracked on that two weeks later and entered his name into the transfer portal.
Martell will compete for the competitive starting job with N’Kosi Perry and Jarren Williams. This is a huge development for the Hurricanes as they have struggled with the quarterback production over the last two seasons. They will look to Martell to fill that void and give them the necessary push at the helm. This is a team that has done well filling out the overall roster and if Martell has a solid season, they will be a contender in the ACC under new head coach Manny Diaz.
During his time at Ohio State, Martell threw for 269 yards and one touchdown while completing 82 percent of his passes.
“Defensively, Ohio State was 0-9 this season when it allowed teams to have an offensive efficiency rating better than 105.1. Iowa State has topped that total in 25 of its 34 games and is 19-6 when doing so.”
-Adam Jardy, Columbus Dispatch
To start the season, the OSU was 12-1 and were ranked top 15 in the country after losing three starters from last season. A big reason for this—and how they got to that point—was on the defensive end of the ball. Through those first 13 games, the Buckeyes only allowed over 70 points two times (Syracuse, 72; and Bucknell, 71) and kept their opponents under 60 points on four separate occasions.
This can be attributed to multiple factors, one of which being they simply played an easier schedule and more defensive minded teams in 2018 than 2019. During Ohio State’s five game losing streak to start 2019, opponents averaged 75.2 points per game and the Buckeyes were outscored by 9.6 points per game.
This set a bad tone for them defensively and took the wind out of their sails a bit while Holtmann kept experimenting with new rotations and starters to find out what was best for this team. They also ran into injury problems with CJ Jackson and Kyle Young and then their sensational sophomore Kaleb Wesson was suspended for three games to end the regular season.
Iowa State is averaging a Big 12 best 77.4 points per game and shooting 47.7 percent from the floor. They are led by Marial Shayok at 18.6 points per game and have five guys averaging over nine points per game. This is a team that can score at will and it will be a tall task for the Buckeyes to slow them down. However, if they are successful and can force the Cyclones into some trouble early, they will be in good shape as Iowa State struggles on the defensive end at times and guys like Kaleb Wesson, Andre Wesson and C.J. Jackson will have ample opportunities to score the basketball throughout this match up.
“Ohio State is the only NCAA wrestling program to beat out Penn State for a national title in the past eight years. And although OSU failed to top the Nittany Lions at Big Tens this year, the Buckeyes managed to send more wrestlers to the national championships than any other team in the country.”
The Ohio State wrestling team will enter the Thursday national championships with all 10 of their Big Ten championships starters qualifying for the NCAA’s. The Buckeyes are sending the most wrestlers to the tournament and will look to end the reign of the Penn State Nittany Lions.
Ohio State has one number one wrestler in the country with Myles Martin (184) but also have three number two wrestlers in the country with Kollin Moore (197), Joey McKenna (141) and Micah Jordan (149). They were able to secure eight All-Americans last season but with a lot of those wrestlers graduating and the Buckeyes not having the depth they are used too, achieving that number again will be an uphill challenge.
True freshman 125-pound Malik Heinselman will wrestle his first ever NCAA tournament and is the youngest Buckeye to wrestle this weekend.
Seniors Te’Shan Campbell, Micah Jordan, Joey McKenna and Myles Martin will wrestle for the final time, with Martin looking to stay undefeated and win another title.
Redshirt Junior Kollin Moore comes in at the No. 2 seed in the 197 bracket, but has two losses on the year to the one seed Bo Nickal, who is 115-3 in his illustrious career.
The Buckeyes will be fun to watch starting Thursday-Saturday with all of their starting wrestlers competing in the tournament.
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