Brayton Feister picked Oregon on Friday, and the thing he took with him was not a linebacker. It was the last name Ohio State could add to its 2027 class without asking a seventeen year old to break his word to another school.
We wrote that on the day. This is the other half of it: who the three remaining names actually are, when they said yes to somebody else, and what any Ohio State flip would be arguing against. All three were read again on their own 247Sports pages on Saturday, because a target’s number is worth exactly as much as the day it was taken.
The three, as their own pages read this weekend
Benny Easter Jr., a wide receiver from Summer Creek in Humble, Texas, listed at 6-0 and 200 pounds. His 247Sports page carries a Composite rating of .9713, which puts him No. 72 nationally, No. 11 among receivers and No. 9 in Texas. It records a hard commitment to Texas Tech on November 20, 2025, and 14 offers, Ohio State among them.
Nigel Newkirk, a running back from Gainesville, Georgia, 5-11 and 200. His Composite rating of .9180 has him No. 226 nationally and No. 16 at the position. His page dates his Alabama pledge to May 31, 2026, one day before the date Sports Illustrated reported it, which is the ordinary shape of a Sunday night decision written up on Monday. We are not going to pick between the two.
Gabriel Osborne Jr., a cornerback from Mustang, Oklahoma, 6-2 and 180. A Composite rating of .9843 makes him No. 36 nationally, No. 4 among cornerbacks and the No. 1 player in his state. 247Sports’ own panel, which is a different table from the Composite, grades him a 98 and ranks him No. 15 in the country. His page dates his Oklahoma commitment to June 1, 2026.
So the board’s remaining ceiling is one top 40 player, one top 100 player and one back outside the top 200, and none of the three is free.
Easter is the long one, and Ohio State was already deep in it
Easter has been committed to Texas Tech for close to nine months, which is longer than any other name in this story and longer than most of Ohio State’s own class. Length is not the same as certainty. On3 and Rivals’ Hunter Shelton reported on April 7 that Easter spent that day on campus at Texas, that Ohio State had hosted him the weekend before, and that an Ohio State official visit was already on the calendar for May 29. LSU had him booked for April 17, Ole Miss for an official visit on June 5, Alabama for one on June 19. His 247Sports page says he took five official visits in all.
Easter’s own words to Shelton that day were not the words of a man looking to leave. “Everything is going well with Tech and with what they’re building,” he said. “They made it to the Playoff this year and came up short.”
One number in that April story deserves care, because it is the kind of thing that gets repeated wrong. Shelton put Easter at No. 47 overall and No. 9 among receivers as of April 7, on the Rivals Industry ranking. That is a different table from the 247Sports Composite, and comparing the two produces a fall that never happened. Read against itself, the Composite is the only honest comparison, and the Composite is what our commit board stores.
Which brings up a correction we owe you. This site published Easter at No. 64 in the Composite three times in July, on an Eleven Warriors reading, and that is what he was as of July 7. His own player page read No. 72 on Saturday. The board now says 72 with Saturday’s date on it, and the three July stories now carry that July 7 date in the sentence, because they were right on the day and we are not going to quietly rewrite them.
Newkirk committed before Ohio State ever got him on campus
Newkirk is the only running back Ohio State is chasing in a class that has no running back and no tight end. 247Sports’ Brett Greenberg reported that he picked Alabama over LSU, Ohio State and Michigan on a Sunday, earlier than the July 1 date he had set, right after an official visit to Tuscaloosa that weekend. Running backs coach Robert Gillespie had led the recruitment for more than a year. Two of Newkirk’s former Gainesville teammates were already in Alabama’s 2026 class.
The part that matters for Columbus is the calendar. Ohio State had an official visit on the books for June 12 that Newkirk committed before taking, as Cleveland.com’s Andrew Gillis noted when he named him a flip target on August 3. Whatever case the staff had planned to make in person, it never got made.
His junior tape is not the problem. His page lists 184 carries for 1,496 yards and 19 touchdowns in 2025, at 8.1 yards a carry, with 12 catches for 128 more.
The running back room in this class has been empty since David Gabriel Georges chose Tennessee on July 22. Newkirk is the entire plan B, and plan B has been pledged to Alabama since the end of May.
Osborne is the biggest name, and he is the hardest ask
Osborne is the highest rated player Ohio State is still pursuing in this cycle, and the reason is exactly why he will be difficult. 247Sports’ Collin Kennedy reported that Osborne picked Oklahoma over Alabama and Ohio State as the Sooners’ 23rd commitment of the 2027 cycle, and that the pledge moved Oklahoma to No. 1 in 247Sports’ team rankings that day. He is an in state prospect at a program building the class of its life. Nine days after he committed, News On 6 reported that 247Sports had moved him to five stars in its June 10 rankings update.
Ohio State’s need at the position is real and has been documented here since visit season: this class has two cornerbacks and lost the state’s best, and Osborne would immediately be the best defensive back in it.
What this actually means for the class
Nothing about Ohio State’s 19 commitments is in question here. The class is still No. 5 on On3’s Industry table, still built in the trenches with six offensive linemen, still holding three five-stars, and its two linebackers, Prince Goldsby and Quinton Cypher, are the same two who were there on Thursday.
What changed on Friday is the shape of every remaining move. Before Feister announced, Ohio State could grow this class by winning an argument with a recruit. Now it can only grow this class by winning an argument with a recruit and a coaching staff at once, at three schools that have no reason to help. And at tight end there is no argument to have at all: the class has no tight end committed and no tight end target on the board, a hole that opened when Colton Johnson picked Ole Miss on July 9.
Fall visits are the next real information, and the first home game is the first chance to generate any. Until then, the honest version of this board is three names, three other logos, and every rank on it stamped with the day somebody looked.
The full class, every rank credited to the outlet that published it, is on the 2027 commit board. What this class still needs is on the needs page.
