The big news out of the Ohio State camp this week turned out to be no news at all. 

Rocco Welsh is sticking with the Buckeyes after the Internet began buzzing in recent days with chatter that the returning NCAA finalist could be headed elsewhere. 

It came to a head Tuesday when social media speculation created a brush fire that Welsh extinguished with a post declaring his intention to stay in Columbus. 

The Ohio State University is home. I’m staying home. Go bucks.

— Rocco1Welsh (@rocco_welsh) December 18, 2024

“He was never leaving,” Ohio State coach Tom Ryan said. “There’s just mis-assessing or misrepresenting the situation.”

Ryan said he presented Welsh with three options for his second season with the program. On Nov. 2 — the day before the Buckeyes opened the season at the Clarion Open — Ryan said he had a conversation with Welsh and laid out those three options.  

Welsh could compete for the 174-pound starting job against 2022 All-American Carson Kharchla, who was working his way back from a leg injury that ended his 2024 season. But that wrestle-off would have to wait until December when Kharchla was ready to return to competition. 

“What made (that option) challenging was Carson was out until December and Carson has no redshirt and Rocco does,” Ryan said. “So if we have a redshirt (at your disposal) and you lose (the wrestle-off), your redshirt is gone because you’ve been wrestling (in the lineup) up until December. Basically, the timing of the wrestle-off — if we had one — it couldn’t happen until December because Carson is recovering from a leg injury from last year. So we had to discuss that. If you want to go ‘74, you can. You’ll have to wrestle-off for the spot, which he’s fine with.”

The second option Ryan presented to Welsh was moving up to 184 “because you’re huge, you’re big and strong.” 

The third choice is the one Welsh has chosen, according to Ryan — utilizing his redshirt season. 

The best thing for him is to redshirt,” Ryan said. “The best thing for the team long-term is for him to redshirt.”

Somewhere along the line, however, online rumors began circulating that Welsh wasn’t being allowed to wrestle-off for the 174-pound spot. Ryan called those posts “negligent reporting” and “very damaging and very unhealthy.” 

Those posts sparked the speculation that Welsh might be looking to leave Ohio State. 

“He doesn’t need to stay here,” Ryan said. “He can go wherever he wants and people would pay a lot of money for him. That’s the day and age we’re in. He stayed because he has a foundation of trust and he’s connected to people here that he wants to be with. That’s why elite people stay. There’s confidence and there’s connection.” 

Bucking Up

Ryan was looking in the rearview mirror this week at a comeback win over Pittsburgh, waxing grateful for the selflessness of certain Buckeye wrestlers. 

“We knew going into the dual that we weren't at full strength,” the Buckeye coach said of the 20-17 victory in which Ohio State dug itself out of a 14-point deficit. “Pitt’s got some good upper-weights, they won the flip of the coin, and they chose to start the match at 174 — a good strategy on their part. They were probably wanting some momentum with early matches they believed they could win and put pressure on our lower weights.”

Indeed, Pittsburgh built momentum, thanks to a pair of narrow wins, another decision and a technical fall. 

The fast start for the Panthers put pressure on Ohio State’s lightweights and the unfazed Buckeyes answered, registering five consecutive wins from 125 through 157, including bonus-point wins from Brendan McCrone (125), Nic Bouzakis (133), Paddy Gallagher (157) and Jesse Mendez (141) to turn the team score tide.

While each individual Buckeye win proved essential to pull out the team victory, Ryan cited the effort of his entire squad.

“We wrestled a true freshman in (Ethan) Birden — who weighed in at 165 and had to wrestle at 174 — and he lost in overtime to Luca Augustine,” Ryan said. “Augustine’s very tough, and Birden wrestled him tough. We had our chances, but Ethan needed to attack more, but again, he wrestled a tough opponent and he’s just gotta learn from that.

“Then we had (Seth) Shumate wrestle and I thought he should have won (in a 6-5 loss to #11 Reece Heller). There were some positions that should have been points for him that weren’t. When you have a 95 percent advantage in certain positions, you have to turn those situations into guaranteed points for yourself. When you don’t score from those positions, that’s not good. At 197, we had our 184-pounder (Ryder Rogotzke) go because we’re just so beat up. We had no (Luke) Geog for the match. We had no (Nick) Feldman. We had no Carson (Kharchla). Carson is our starting 174-pounder and he’s out, so Rogotzke — our starting 184 pounder — had to bump up to 197. It was a challenge.

“The good news for us is because of our depth, we were still able to beat a pretty tough team even with some guys out.”

Most impressive to Ryan is the willingness of his troops to embrace whatever the staff asks, even if it endangers one’s own personal record by giving up significant poundage.

“Take Ryder Rogotzke,” he said. “The two most important things as a team member are how much are you willing to do for the team? And are you relatable — are you likeable — or are you a disrupter? Ryder fills those two buckets; he overflows them. He’ll do anything that we ask for the good of the team, and he’s loved by his teammates (for it).

“The guy had surgery and was out for three weeks. He practiced one day, and we had to wrestle him against Pitt. Not only did we need to wrestle him, we had to wrestle him up a weight. He never said a word. He just got stitches out of his elbow, our trainer cleared him, and he didn’t say a word when we talked with him about needing to wrestle him up a weight. Whatever helps the team, Ryder is good with.”

Rogotzke wasn’t the only Buckeye grappler Ryan praised for his team-first approach.

“It was the same thing with our 165-pounder, Birden, who went up to 174 for us,” Ryan said. “He and Ryder both weighed in light, they both wrestled tough, and they both helped us win that dual meet. Even though they both lost, they helped us win the dual (by not surrendering bonus points).”

Rogotzke was flattered by his coach’s praise. 

“Man, that’s great to hear,” he said. “Last year when the coaches came to me telling me they were going to pull my redshirt, it was just an ‘OK, I’ll do whatever you need me to do, whatever the team needs.’ And I ended up doing well.” 

Early in the season, Rogotzke aggravated an injury sustained seven years ago.

“I dislocated my arm really bad in eighth grade and I reinjured it this year and had to get surgery on it three weeks ago. It was frustrating. I wrestled the first match against Chattanooga at the beginning of the year and won, but my arm was killing me so we got the surgery. So after that I had to get cleared, and was able to just get one practice in after sitting for a bit because Geog was hurt. That’s when they came to me.”

Rogotzke is ready if Geog doesn’t heal as quickly as the Buckeyes hope.

“If he can’t come back, I’ll do whatever they need me to do,” Rogotzke said. 

His coach is appreciative but not surprised.

“It all comes back to, ‘What is the beauty of this sport?’ And the answer is the team,” Ryan said. “You can still help the team by going into a match and even taking a loss, but with no excuses, no, ‘Coach, I’m still hurt. This guy’s heavier than me,’ none of that. 

“You can still help the team by wrestling hard, no matter the circumstances. There’s a million excuses and reasons we can come up with if you see the world through a ‘poor me’ lens. 

“Ryder and Birden and a whole bunch of these guys don’t do that.”