Top transfer TE Max Klare joins Ohio State for 2025 football season

Max Klare, the top-ranked tight end in the transfer portal, will play for Ohio State in the 2025 football season.

Top-ranked transfer tight end Max Klare will play for Ohio State in 2025. / Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

Former Purdue tight end Max Klare has committed to play at Ohio State for the 2025 football season out of the transfer portal, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

Klare is considered the most talented tight end in the winter transfer portal window, rated as the No. 1 transfer at the position by ESPN’s and 247Sports’ most recent rankings.

He caught 51 passes for 685 yards and scored four touchdowns with the Boilermakers, who finished winless in Big Ten play and 1-11 overall behind the nation’s 129th ranked scoring offense.

Klare is a redshirt sophomore and native of Ohio, having played his varsity ball at St. Xavier High in Cincinnati, one of the nation’s more prestigious high school programs.

“Just an opportunity to win a national championship and develop into a better player and play against the best competition day-in and day-out, and being around a lot of like-minded individuals that are going to push me to be my best,” Klare told ESPN.

Klare’s addition marks another important gain for the Buckeyes’ offense looking ahead to next year and another key pickup in the transfer portal.

News of Klare’s intention to play for Ohio State follows the revelation that former West Virginia tailback CJ Donaldson will also suit up for the Buckeyes as a transfer in 2025.

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How the college football transfer portal works

The NCAA Transfer Portal is a private database that includes the names of student-athletes in every sport at the Division I, II, and III levels. The full list of names is not available to the public.

A player can enter their name into the transfer portal through their school's compliance office.

Once a player gives written notification of their intent to transfer, the office puts the player's name into the database, and they officially become a transfer.

The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player's request and NCAA rules forbid anyone from refusing that request.

The database includes the player's name, contact information, info on whether the player was on scholarship, and if he is a graduate student.

Once a player's name appears in the transfer portal database, other schools are free to contact the player, who can change his mind at any point in the process and withdraw from the transfer portal.

Notably, once a player enters the portal, his school no longer has to honor the athletic scholarship it gave him.

And if that player decides to leave the portal and return to his original school, the school doesn't have to give him another scholarship.

(ESPN)

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