The first four years of Palaie Gaotoete IV’s college football career haven’t gone the way many people envisioned they would.
A five-star prospect ranked as the No. 1 inside linebacker in the recruiting class of 2018, Gaoteote earned immediate playing time at USC, recording 38 total tackles with 4.5 tackles for loss and two sacks as a true freshman. But he was plagued by an ankle injury that limited him to only eight games in 2019 and played in only two games in 2020, when he missed time with a concussion before entering the transfer portal.
Following his transfer to Ohio State last summer, Gaoteote didn’t know if he would even be eligible to play for the Buckeyes in 2021 until just a day before their second game of the season against Oregon. Even after he was granted eligibility, Gaoteote saw only occasional playing time for the Buckeyes last season, finishing the year with just nine total tackles (one for loss) on 78 defensive snaps, many of which came as a Sam linebacker in short-yardage or goal-line situations.
Now going into his fifth overall season of college football and second season at Ohio State, Gaoteote is still chasing the opportunity to play a major role. With nine scholarship linebackers all competing for position on Ohio State’s depth chart this spring, it’s uncertain how much of a factor he’ll be for the Buckeyes’ defense in 2022.
That said, Gaoteote says he has the same hunger to make an impact now as he did when he began his college career as a five-star recruit at USC four years ago.
“I've always been chasing,” Gaoteote said. “I've always been an underdog, I've always been the one down, I've always been working this hard for my whole life. So it's nothing new. I definitely think where my career started, it definitely hasn’t ended, and that same mentality that I had at the beginning is the same I have right now.”
Gaoteote enrolled at Ohio State last June after entering the transfer portal in December 2020. Although an NCAA rule change before last season eliminated the requirement for players who are transferring for the first time to sit out a year before playing, Gaoteote was initially ruled by the NCAA to be ineligible to play for Ohio State last season until he was cleared on Sept. 10 – after the Buckeyes had already played their first game of the year.
In his first interview session since he arrived at Ohio State, Gaoteote said Wednesday he still isn’t sure exactly why he wasn’t eligible to play immediately, though he said there were things he had to work through academically. Gaoteote said he was also dealing with “a lot of personal things,” which led to his decision to transfer away from USC in the first place.
Because Ohio State didn’t know whether Gaoteote would be eligible to play at all last season, he said he didn’t get a ton of reps in practice until he was cleared by the NCAA. That diminished his chances of playing a substantial role for the Buckeyes’ 2021 defense, as did more injuries, which sidelined him from four of Ohio State’s final nine games.
“I definitely had a lot of setbacks last year,” Gaoteote said. “But there's no excuses.”
Now that he will have the opportunity to go through a full offseason with the Buckeyes, Gaoteote is hopeful he can be a difference-maker in their linebacker corps this season. At 6-foot-2 and 248 pounds, Gaoteote believes he is capable of playing any linebacker position in Jim Knowles’ scheme, and says he has been taking reps at the Sam, Will and Jack positions.
“Me being a team player, I’ll play any role that they want me to play,” Gaoteote said.
Knowles said last week he was still determining how Gaoteote could best help Ohio State’s defense this year.
“We want to try to find a role for him,” Knowles said. “So we had EA involved in that Jack position and also in a Sam position, which we'll utilize sometimes against teams when they play two tight ends, which our offense does a little bit.”
Gaoteote says he thinks he can bring “a lot of energy” to Ohio State’s defense when he’s out on the field, and he thinks his instincts will stand out to people if he gets the chance to play more regularly this season.
“I definitely think I play fast, loose, can definitely analyze some things a little bit faster,” Gaoteote said. “But those are all things that I continue to work on every day.”
Even though he hasn’t seen a lot of playing time for the Buckeyes yet, Gaoteote says he has enjoyed his first nine-plus months at Ohio State. Although he has spent most of his life in the western part of the United States after growing up in Las Vegas, he says he loves living in Columbus.
“The town's great, people are great,” Gaoteote said. “The food is actually really good. I mean, being from Vegas, you got like a whole bunch of variety of food, but the food here is great. I love the people most of all, they're very kind and friendly.”
What Gaoteote has loved most of all about being a Buckeye, though, is the brotherhood within the program, which he said made him feel at home even as he dealt with his eligibility issues and injuries last year.
“I think just the bond and the camaraderie that everybody has is kind of like one unit, one family type of feel,” Gaoteote said. “This is really my family away from family. So being here with and spending time with the guys, and coming in every day, just putting in work, kind of just gave me some hope.”
Because of the personal issues – which he said he preferred not to discuss publicly – he was dealing with off the field, Gaoteote said he didn’t have the same passion for football he once did by the end of his time at USC. Since he arrived at Ohio State last summer, however, that passion has been restored.
“You lose that love for something, it's kind of hard on you,” Gaoteote said. “But when you find a second home like Ohio State and you're able to do the thing that you love most, it's kind of fun again.”
