Split the 18 commitments Ohio State held as of July 6 down the middle and the two halves do not look like they belong to the same class. The defense has nine pledges and a defensive line Eleven Warriors ranks with the best the program has ever signed. The offense also has nine. Six of them are offensive linemen.
That is the whole shape of this side of the ball after official visit season. Ohio State has built a wall, and it has not yet found anyone to run behind it.
Update, July 18: defensive tackle Karlos May committed and the class moved to 19. The even split this piece opens with is now ten defenders and nine on offense. Nothing on the offensive side of the board has changed.
Update, July 23: two of the three open questions below are answered, and they went opposite ways. Brady Edmunds shut down his recruitment and is staying; David Gabriel Georges chose Tennessee on July 22, so the running back room is still empty. Correction, July 25: the quarterback section below originally said Edmunds visited UCLA after Columbus. He visited UCLA on June 5 and Columbus on June 19, per Eleven Warriors and A to Z Sports. The order is corrected in place and stated here rather than quietly fixed.
The line is the class
Start where the work is done. Justin Frye holds six offensive linemen, and Dan Hope calls the group “the strongest and most complete position in Ohio State’s recruiting class on the offensive side of the ball.”
As of July 11, Kellen Wymer, the four-star from Liberty Center in Ohio, was the highest ranked at No. 67 overall. Caden Moss, the tackle out of Jackson Academy in Mississippi who pledged in late June, was No. 74 when this ran. Behind them: Brody McNeel of Godwin in Virginia at No. 310, Jimmy Kalis of Central Catholic in Pittsburgh at No. 323, Mason Wilt of St. Clairsville at No. 365, and Davis Seaman of Bishop Watterson in Columbus at No. 423. Four of the six are Ohio kids. All six are four-stars.
Six linemen is not a shortage. It is close to a finished room, in a cycle where the rest of the offense has barely started.
No running back, and one date
The class has no running back. Not a low-rated one, not a project. None.
Ohio State’s answer was David Gabriel Georges, the No. 10 overall prospect in the country. When this ran, the Buckeyes and Tennessee were his two finalists; by mid-July, SI’s CFB HQ and Land-Grant Holy Land both had Ole Miss in the group as a third. Hope’s framing was not subtle, and it is worth quoting exactly: he called it “arguably the most consequential decision of the entire 2027 recruiting cycle for Ohio State.” On July 22, Georges chose Tennessee over Ohio State and Ole Miss, per ESPN and CBS Sports.
He was right about the stakes, and the reason is arithmetic rather than hype. A class that signs the No. 10 player in the country at its emptiest position finishes with a top-heavy offense and a filled hole. A class that loses him has nine offensive commits, six of them linemen, and no back to take a handoff in a room that has to be rebuilt from scratch next cycle. There was no third outcome, and the class got the second one.
No tight end either, and no visits
The second hole gets far less attention and is arguably more damning, because losing a recruitment is one thing and never contesting it is another.
Ohio State has no tight end in the class. Per Eleven Warriors, the Buckeyes “didn’t even host a single official visitor at tight end this summer,” a situation Hope calls “certainly not ideal.” The one uncommitted name attached to the position is Colton Johnson, a three-star out of Tennessee. For a program that has put tight ends in the NFL out of this exact pipeline, an empty room and an empty visit list in the same summer is the quietest problem on the board.
The quarterback took a visit somewhere else
Brady Edmunds, the four-star from Huntington Beach and the No. 251 overall prospect at the time of writing, is still committed to Ohio State. He also took an official visit to UCLA, on June 5, before he took his to Columbus on June 19, and he has not said plainly that he is staying.
What he has said, on the subject of walking away from his Ohio State pledge, is that “it would be a tough thing to walk away from.” That is a sentence with a door in it. We have been tracking this one for a week, and nothing in the last month has closed it.
Receiver is fine, and it cost them one
Brian Hartline has the one position group on offense that looks like a normal Ohio State position group. Jamier Brown, the five-star who was at Big Walnut in Ohio when this was written and has since gone back to Wayne in Huber Heights, is the No. 24 overall prospect in the class. Jordan Donahoo of Oviedo, Florida joins him as a three-star.
Two names were live when this ran. Monshun Sales, a five-star out of Indiana, has since committed to Indiana. Benny Easter Jr., the No. 64 overall prospect as of July 7, is committed to Texas Tech and named as an Ohio State flip target. One name is already gone: Blake Wong picked BYU.
What the rankings see, and what they miss
None of this is why Ohio State slid in the industry rankings, but it explains why the slide does not scare the staff. Rivals moved the Buckeyes from No. 5 to No. 7 in its updated 2027 industry team rankings, per SI’s Matt De Lima on July 6. The same article concedes the part the number hides: Ohio State’s average rating per commit is among the highest of any program in the top seven.
That is the rankings paradox this class keeps running into. Volume-weighted formulas punish a class that is nine deep on offense with six linemen and one enormous unanswered question. They did not know the question would be answered on July 22, and not in Ohio State’s favor.
What to actually watch
The offensive line is finished and it is very good. Everything else on this side of the ball is a hole, a maybe, or a date on a calendar. Georges answered on July 22, and chose Tennessee. Edmunds answered on July 23, and stayed. Tight end may not get answered at all.
See where every one of them stands on the 2027 commit board, and what the class still needs on the needs page.
