Ohio State football offensive lineman Enokk Vimahi enters transfer portal
Ohio State offensive lineman Enokk Vimahi on Tuesday entered the transfer portal for his final year of eligibility, The Dispatch confirmed.
Vimahi spent five seasons with the Buckeyes as a reserve lineman and twice filled in as a starter at right guard.
Those starts included the losses to Missouri in the Cotton Bowl in December and archrival Michigan in 2022..
Despite the starting experience, Vimahi did not appear to be in the mix to replace Matt Jones as the Buckeyes’ starting right guard this year.
The position battle along the interior of the line in spring practice largely involved Luke Montgomery and Tegra Tshabola, as well as Carson Hinzman, who is also competing with Alabama transfer Seth McLaughlin to start at center.
When the Buckeyes reconfigured their starting offensive line to include Vimahi in the Cotton Bowl, it led to little improvement. They surrendered four sacks while quarterbacks Devin Brown and Lincoln Kienholz were under pressure on 51.9% of their dropbacks, according to Pro Football Focus.
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Since enrolling at Ohio State in 2019, Vimahi appeared in 38 games. A native of Hawaii, he was a four-star recruit and the nation’s seventh-ranked offensive guard in his recruiting class.
He has an additional year of eligibility as a result of the blanket waiver players received due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Tuesday is the deadline for players to submit paperwork to enter the portal during the spring window.
Since the portal reopened on April, four Ohio State players have put their names in the online database that allows them to be contacted by other schools about the possibility of transferring with Vimahi following running back Dallan Hayden and safeties Ja’Had Carter and Cedric Hawkins.
Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch and can be reached at jkaufman@dispatch.com.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State football OL Enokk Vimahi enters transfer portal
