Ohio State running back Dallan Hayden is entering the transfer portal.
Hayden announced his decision Monday night in a social media post thanking Buckeyes coaches and staffers “for making me a better man and a better player.” He has three years of collegiate eligibility remaining.
“Wearing Scarlet & Gray has been one of the great honors of my life,” Hayden wrote. “The decision to enter the transfer portal was not easy.”
As a freshman, Hayden gained 553 yards and five touchdowns on 110 carries. He collected 146 yards and three scores in a late victory over Maryland and tallied 43 yards in Ohio State’s College Football Playoff semifinal loss to Georgia.
However, Hayden redshirted in his second season. He received 20 touches in three games, compiling 110 rushing yards and a touchdown in lopsided wins over Purdue and Minnesota.
Hayden called it a “mutual agreement” to redshirt and said earlier this month and said he was “very confident” in earning playing time this season.
“Obviously, I wanted be on the field, because freshman year I played and then got redshirted,” he said, via Dan Hope of Eleven Warriors. “So it was tough. But everything happens for a reason.”
Had he stayed in Ohio State, Hayden would have opened the season no better than third on the team’s stacked depth chart. TreVeyon Henderson returns for a fourth season after scoring 11 touchdowns in 2023, and former Ole Miss star Quinshon Judkins transferred to the Buckeyes.
True freshmen James Peoples and Sam Williams-Dixon are now the program’s only other running backs on scholarship. Yet Ryan Day may have college football’s most ferocious backfield duo in 2024.