Ohio State’s class of 2027 has nineteen pledges and no running back, and on Saturday, September 5 a running back is coming to see it play.
Jordan Hall is a senior at Princeton High School in Cincinnati. He is committed to Miami of Ohio. A to Z Sports’ Brandon Little reported on August 27, crediting Mick Walker of Lettermen Row, that Hall will be in Columbus for the season opener against Ball State. Land-Grant Holy Land’s Caleb Houser reported the same visit on Saturday morning and added that Hall said so himself on Thursday.
Ohio State has not offered him. Both outlets say that plainly, and 247Sports’ player page agrees from the other direction: it lists eight offers, it names Miami of Ohio, Cincinnati, Maryland, Penn State and Wake Forest on its team list, and Ohio State is not one of them.
The week that made him a recruit worth watching, with the dates attached
Neither story dates the game, and the date is the interesting part.
MaxPreps has Princeton beating Archbishop Moeller 31 to 24 on Thursday, August 20, the first game on its schedule. A to Z Sports itemizes what Hall did in it: 91 rushing yards, two rushing touchdowns, and an 88-yard receiving touchdown. That is 179 yards from scrimmage and three scores in a game Land-Grant Holy Land calls one of the top matchups of Ohio high school football’s opening week.
Then 247Sports’ timeline, which stamps each event with a day:
- August 21: Penn State offers.
- August 22: UConn offers.
- August 23: Wake Forest offers.
- August 24: Cincinnati offers.
- August 25: Maryland offers.
Five offers in the five days after one Thursday night, starting the very next morning. Before that game the timeline carries exactly one offer: Miami of Ohio’s, on May 11, followed by Hall’s commitment to the RedHawks in June. A to Z Sports lists Bowling Green and Toledo among his offers as well, and 247Sports’ timeline does not date either of those.
Princeton then beat Middletown 28 to 7 on August 28, per the same MaxPreps page, and Hall’s recruitment is a week older and considerably louder than it was ten days ago.
What this means for the room that has been empty since July
The 2027 running back room is not thin. It is empty, and it has been since David Gabriel Georges chose Tennessee on July 22. Ohio State had spent the cycle on Georges, missed, and this site has written the same sentence in every story since: the entire remaining plan is Nigel Newkirk, a flip target who has been pledged to Alabama since June 1 and who shut his recruitment down when he committed.
Ten days ago the only other running back news on this beat was an offer to a 2028 back in Alabama, which is a fine piece of recruiting and does nothing for the class that has the hole. Hall is the first name since July 22 who is in the 2027 class, plays running back, and has something with Ohio State on the calendar.
He is also, by every rating anyone publishes, a smaller name than the one Ohio State missed. The 247Sports Composite files Hall at 0.8650, No. 1181 nationally and No. 88 among running backs in the class. Georges was a five-star, and ESPN had him No. 10 overall in the class on the day he picked Tennessee. A to Z Sports puts that comparison in its own words, calling Hall “a developmental type of recruit for the Buckeyes” and noting that “Ohio State was never going to land another Gabriel Georges in this class.” That is A to Z Sports’ judgment, not this site’s, and it is quoted here because it is the honest frame around a visit that is otherwise easy to over-read.
What the board says now
The board gained a row. Jordan Hall is on it as a flip target: RB, 5-10.5 and 205 pounds, three stars, No. 1181 nationally, Princeton in Cincinnati, pledged to Miami of Ohio. The row says in its own note that Ohio State has not offered him, because a target list that does not distinguish between a man Ohio State is recruiting and a man Ohio State has signed off on is not a board, it is a wish.
Two small things this site will not print, and it is worth saying why:
His height is 5-10.5 here and 5-11 in Land-Grant Holy Land’s story. This board’s entire size column is the 247Sports reading measured to the half inch, and the rule attached to it is that a half inch is never rounded away, because a reformatted number can no longer be compared against the page it came from. So 5-10.5 stands and the disagreement is stated rather than smoothed.
And there is no date on the Miami commitment. 247Sports’ own page carries two: the header stamp reads June 4, 2026 and the timeline event reads June 7, 2026. Same page, same reading, two days apart. Until a second outlet settles it, the board says June 2026 and nothing more.
What would settle this
The Ball State game kicks at 12:30 p.m. on Big Ten Network, per Ohio State’s own schedule. The question the visit answers is not whether Hall is impressed. It is whether Carlos Locklyn, listed as Ohio State’s running backs coach in the school’s staff directory, sends him home with an offer.
If that happens, this board’s note changes from “Ohio State has not offered him” to a date, and the 2027 class finally has a running back it can actually recruit. If it does not, the room is still empty and the flip board is still one Alabama pledge deep, with the transfer portal sitting behind it as the plan nobody wants to say out loud.
Either way, this site will say which one happened.
