Monshun Sales has a date. The five-star receiver announces at noon on Friday, July 17, live on the Pat McAfee Show, and he is choosing between Ohio State, Alabama, Indiana, LSU and Texas.
That is three days from now, and it makes him the first of three Ohio State decisions in six days. Karlos May follows on Saturday. David Gabriel Georges follows on the 22nd. By the end of next week the shape of this recruiting class is settled, and Ohio State is favored in exactly one of the three.
The best receiver on the board, and the numbers behind him
Sales is 6-foot-5, he plays at Lawrence North High School in Indianapolis, and he is the rare recruit whose ranking depends on which ranking you read. In 247Sports’ own evaluation, per Jeff Rabjohns, he is the No. 1 receiver in the country and the No. 13 prospect overall. In the 247Sports composite, the average that our commit board uses for every player on it, he is the No. 2 receiver and No. 8 overall.
Both are true. They are different instruments, and every outlet covering Friday has picked one. We list him at No. 8 because that is the number the rest of the board is measured in, and a board that mixes ranking systems is a board that cannot be compared to itself.
As a junior he caught 37 passes for 794 yards and nine touchdowns, an average of 21.5 yards a catch, and added 56 tackles playing safety, per 247Sports. The scouting note attached to his profile there calls him “one of the biggest freakshows in the country with his hulking frame and elite athletic markers.”
Ohio State was the favorite. That was a while ago.
This is the part Buckeye fans will not enjoy. Buckeyes Wire put it plainly on Sunday: “There was a time when the Buckeyes were seen as the odds-on favorite to land Sales, but that sentiment seems to have faded in recent months.”
Sales grew up in Alabama and lives in Indiana, and the reporting has converged on Indiana as the school to beat, with Alabama the other name that keeps coming up. Writing on Tuesday, Land-Grant Holy Land’s Dan Hessler has the Hoosiers ahead and adds that Ohio State’s staff “will not give up easily in this one.”
So we are not going to tell you what happens Friday, because nobody covering this recruitment knows. What we can tell you is what it costs. Ohio State has two receivers committed in this class, five-star Jamier Brown and three-star Jordan Donahoo. Sales would be the third, and he would be the highest-rated player in the entire class. The only other receiver on the board is Benny Easter Jr., who is committed to Texas Tech and would have to be flipped.
Saturday: the one they are supposed to win
Karlos May announces the next day, July 18, choosing among Auburn, Georgia, Florida State and Ohio State. Hessler reports Ohio State is “viewed as the slight favorite.”
May is the four-star defensive tackle at No. 132 overall, and he matters out of proportion to that number. This class has zero true defensive tackles. Not a thin room, an empty one. Our 2027 needs page counts it straight from the board every time the board changes, and it has been reading the same thing all summer.
The 22nd: Ole Miss is in it now
And then the biggest one. Georges, the five-star running back, announces Wednesday, July 22 at 5:30 p.m. ET on the CBS Sports College Football YouTube channel.
Here is what changed since we last wrote about him: this is no longer a two-team race. Every report through early July framed it as Ohio State against Tennessee. As of this week, Sports Illustrated’s CFB HQ and Land-Grant Holy Land both list three finalists, and the third is Ole Miss. We have corrected his profile and the board accordingly.
Georges himself does not sound like a young man who has decided. He told reporters, in comments SI published Monday, “It’s hard. You feel this way, like you know, and then it’s sort of 50-50. People will say the 22nd of July is far off, but honestly for me, it’s pretty close.”
The stakes there are the plainest on the board. Ohio State has no running back in this class at all. Georges is the No. 10 overall prospect in the composite and the No. 2 back in the country. On3’s Pete Nakos has reported he is expected to become the highest-paid running back recruit ever, with a deal that could approach two million dollars. That is a reported expectation and not a signed number, and we will not print it as one.
Six days
Eighteen commitments as of July 14, No. 7 in the class rankings, and three of the best remaining players in America all answering the same question inside one week. Ohio State could finish next Wednesday with a five-star receiver, a defensive tackle and a five-star running back. It could also finish with the defensive tackle and two polite thank-you posts.
The board moves on Friday at noon. We will move with it.
