This one hurts twice. Monsanna Torbert Jr., a four-star cornerback from Cincinnati ranked No. 106 overall in the 247Sports composite, committed to Michigan on July 1. An Ohio kid, at a position of need, to the rival.
Torbert chose the Wolverines from a final four of Michigan, Ohio State, Indiana, and Louisville. The sequencing tells the story: he took his official visit to Columbus June 12 through 14, then visited Ann Arbor the following weekend, and the momentum never came back. He had been an Indiana commit until decommitting in May, so a second pledge always felt close.
The bigger problem
Zoom out and the in-state picture is rough. Ohio’s three top-ranked 2027 cornerbacks are all now committed elsewhere: Torbert to Michigan, Ace Alston to Notre Dame, and Kei’Shjuan Telfair to Penn State.
Ohio State’s cornerback room in the class currently consists of Deontay Malone of Massillon Washington (No. 285) and Jaden Carey of Florida’s St. Thomas Aquinas (No. 383). Solid players, but no committed defensive back sits inside the composite top 200, and the top remaining target at the position, Gabriel Osborne Jr., the No. 5 corner nationally, committed to Oklahoma last month. The staff is still pursuing Osborne, and they may need to land that flip to keep Tim Walton’s room stocked at the standard this program expects.
Losing recruits happens. Losing Cincinnati kids to Michigan is the kind of thing this site exists to track until it gets corrected.