Recruiting momentum is usually a narrative invention. Last week it was just the calendar. On Friday, June 26, offensive tackle Caden Moss committed to Ohio State. On Monday, June 29, five-star defensive lineman Marcus Fakatou followed. Four days, two top-100 linemen, one message about where this program is investing.
Moss is a 6-5, 320-pound tackle from Jackson Academy in Jackson, Mississippi, ranked No. 74 overall in the 247Sports composite. He is Ohio State’s first top-100 offensive line commit from outside the Midwest footprint in years, the first top-100 out-of-state OL pledge since Donovan Jackson in 2021.
Fakatou is the bigger headline. The 6-6, 275-pound lineman from Sierra Canyon in Chatsworth, California is the No. 26 overall prospect and the No. 2 defensive lineman in the composite, and he picked the Buckeyes over Georgia and Texas. When you beat those two programs for a West Coast five-star in the trenches, that is not a recruiting win, that is a statement of program health.
What it adds up to
With Fakatou in the fold, Ohio State is tied with Texas Tech for the most five-star defensive line commits in the 2027 cycle and tied with Texas A&M for the most top-100 defensive line commits. With Moss, the class holds six offensive linemen, the program’s first six-man OL haul since 2020, and one of only four two-top-100-OL classes in the country alongside Texas A&M, Notre Dame, and Florida.
Larry Johnson’s room and Tyler Bowen’s room both got younger, bigger, and meaner in the span of one weekend. The full strategic picture, and the January losses that forced it, deserves its own breakdown. We wrote that too.