Read the board by position and the 2027 class sorts into eight groups. Six offensive linemen. Four defensive linemen. Four defensive backs. Two receivers, two linebackers, one quarterback. That is nineteen names and eight rooms, and two of those rooms are empty.
Ohio State has no running back committed in the class of 2027 and no tight end committed in the class of 2027. Cleveland.com’s Andrew Gillis walked the class position by position on August 3, and the interesting part is not that the two holes exist. Everybody who follows this class knows they exist. The interesting part is that the reported plan at both spots is a player who is not currently a 2027 recruit of Ohio State’s, and at one of them the plan may not be a high school recruit at all.
The running back is somebody else’s commit
The running back class was supposed to be settled on July 22. It was, in the wrong direction. Five-star David Gabriel Georges, the No. 10 overall prospect, picked Tennessee over Ohio State and Ole Miss, and ESPN’s headline said the quiet part out loud: Tennessee beat out Ohio State for him.
Gillis writes that after the Georges miss the Buckeyes “will have to look elsewhere for a running back in the class,” and names the two likeliest routes. Both of them belong to other programs. Alabama commit Nigel Newkirk and Florida State commit Jayden Miles “seem to be the likeliest two options, if Ohio State were to try and flip someone it has already offered.” If either one happens, per that report, the Buckeyes add another four-star back, and they are expected to take only one in the cycle.
Look at how each of those two got where he is, because it explains the size of the ask.
Newkirk is a Gainesville, Georgia back listed at 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds, and Rivals analysts rank him the No. 6 running back in the country. He committed to Alabama on June 1 and shut his recruitment down, becoming the seventh pledge in the Tide’s 2027 class. Sports Illustrated’s CFB HQ reported that Ohio State had hosted him for the spring game in April and had a June 12 visit on the calendar, and that he committed to Alabama before that visit ever happened. The reason SI gives is relationships: Newkirk had built an unusually close bond with Alabama running backs coach Robert Gillespie, he had visited Tuscaloosa more than anywhere else, and he already had two high school teammates on campus. LSU was a finalist and did not separate itself. Michigan, with a veteran running backs coach in Tony Alford, was a finalist and could not match the visits.
Miles is the other name, and his story is the one already on this board. He took an Ohio State official visit in June and committed to Florida State the day after it, per Eleven Warriors. He is carried as a miss here for that reason.
So the honest shape of the running back plan is this. Both candidates saw Ohio State up close this spring or summer, and both then chose somewhere else. A flip is not a fresh recruitment. It is asking a player to reverse a decision he made with the Ohio State information already in hand.
There is a longer horizon, and it is real. Gillis notes that Elijah Newman-Hall is waiting in the wings in the 2028 cycle, and Newman-Hall is already committed to Ohio State. That helps the 2028 room. It does nothing for a 2027 class that would sign with no back in it.
The tight end may not be a recruit
The tight end room is emptier than the running back room, in a specific way: there is nobody left to recruit.
Gillis puts it plainly. Ohio State “doesn’t have a tight end committed, and all of the players it has offered in the class are committed to another program.” That matches what this board already carried. Colton Johnson picked Ole Miss on July 9, and he was the last uncommitted tight end holding an Ohio State offer. Before that, Eleven Warriors reported the Buckeyes did not host a single official visitor at the position all summer.
Where the August read adds something new is what comes next. One option Gillis raises is the late add: Ohio State took Nick Lautar late in the process for the 2026 class and “could easily do the same in this upcoming cycle.” The other option is that there is no 2027 tight end at all. Given the development curve at the position, per that report, Ohio State has made a point of finding additions in the transfer portal, and if Mason Williams turns out well and Nate Roberts looks the part, the Buckeyes could play the portal game again rather than sign a high school tight end in this class.
That is a strategy, not an accident, and it is worth separating from the running back hole. One room is short a player Ohio State wanted and lost. The other room may be empty on purpose.
It is also the room this program just set a record in. Ohio State became the first school this decade to have two tight ends drafted in the same year, in April, four months ago. One of those two arrived from the transfer portal out of Ohio University. The portal answer is not hypothetical here. It is the recent history.
Two zeroes in a smaller class
The rest of the class is in good shape and the same report says so. The offensive line is six deep and effectively set. The defensive line is a four-man group with two five-stars in it. The linebackers have room for a third, the secondary is expected to add depth, and the quarterback question was closed when Brady Edmunds shut his recruitment down.
The thing that makes two zeroes matter more this year is the size of the class they sit in. Ohio State signed 28 players a year ago. This class is expected to be smaller. Two empty position groups inside a smaller class is a larger share of the class than the same two holes would have been last cycle, and both of the positions involved are ones you cannot easily backfill with a lineman.
One number we would not change until somebody read the table
There is a figure in that August 3 report that did not match what this site published, and rather than quietly move it, here is the discrepancy.
Gillis writes the class is ranked No. 5 overall per On3. Our board had said No. 7 by On3 since a July 7 reading, and when this piece first ran the LED band on the front page still said 07.
We left it at 7 that day, for a reason. On July 6, SI’s CFB HQ described Ohio State dropping from No. 5 to No. 7 in the Rivals Industry team rankings, and On3 publishes more than one 2027 team table. So “No. 5 per On3” in August and “No. 7 per On3” in July might be two different tables rather than a class that moved. On3 blocks automated reads from us, so we could not open the table and settle it in the same breath as writing this. Changing the number on the strength of a secondhand attribution would have been guessing with a citation stapled to it.
Updated August 6, 2026. Both tables have now been read directly, and it was two tables, not a move.
On3’s Industry team rankings have Ohio State fifth, on a class score of 92.186, with a star split of three fives, twelve fours and four threes. On3’s Rivals-only team table, stamped with the same update time on the same day, has the Buckeyes seventh, on 91.588. Neither figure is new and neither report was wrong. Ours was under-specified: an LED reading 07 over the word “National” cannot tell a reader which of two tables it came from.
The board now publishes the Industry figure, because that is the table On3’s own Ohio State commit page reports and it is the like for like successor to the composite this board has always been kept in. The whole rank column was re-read from it the same day. Every one of the 19 commits moved at least one place, and two moved off the blue chip line: Brody McNeel and Jaden Carey are three stars in the Industry read, which puts the class at 15 blue chips of 19. That is the same 15 of 19 Gillis printed on August 3, arrived at from the other end.
The front page LED now reads 05, and the small print under it names the table.
The two zeroes, meanwhile, are not in dispute by anyone. Count the board yourself.
