The-Ozone Recruiting Commentary

Volume 25, Installment 1

Why This Column

When the-Ozone went on line many, many years ago we had a feature called “Recruiting Commentary” which featured information from both the web and from professional recruiting information experts, specifically Bill Kurelic.

Bill was an in-demand guy and eventually went to work for Rivals as a full-time employee. Recruiting Commentary continued after that, but without ‘inside” information, only with information gleaned from the Web. Eventually, so many recruiting services popped up that it seemed like Recruiting Commentary was just superfluous and was eventually dropped.  Through the years we’ve dabbled in recruiting coverage, mostly during signing season, but recruiting has not been a real focus for us,  if for no other reason that there were (and are) so many other people already doing it and doing it well.

So why a Recruiting Commentary column today? After all, there are more places than ever covering Ohio State football recruiting. What’s changed is that the recruiting information world has become a world of premium information that must be paid for by the consumer. That it turns out is a good business model. It must be because so many people are trying to make money doing it. The result of that however is that recruiting sites have had to deal in more and more detail and minutia in order to differentiate themselves from their many competitors and gain subscribers. That is wonderful for the avid recruiting enthusiast. It occurs to us, however, that not everybody falls into the mold of a rabid recruiting information hunter. There is another group out there that is interested in recruiting, but not enough to be willing to pay for the information and not enough to have to expend the time and effort to sort through all the detail and minutia that the recruiting sites are producing to attract their target market, yet interested enough to want to know what is going on with Ohio State recruiting from time to time.

That’s the intended audience for this column. We don’t claim to have any secret, inside information. What is here is readily available on the internet. What this column tries to do is gather that information in one place, then add some analysis and perspective to the data. It’s a service to those who are interested in recruiting but not so interested as to pay a subscription fee and/or spend a lot of time sorting through information.  Come to think of it, even those who do pay subscription fees may find our perspectives and analysis interesting, and if nothing else they can show their expertise by adding to these reports in the comments area accompanying them.

The General State of OSU Football Recruiting

You probably already know this, but the state of OSU recruiting is somewhere between fantastic and amazing. Urban Meyer started it and Ryan Day’s is building on it. In Day’s first full year as OSU Head Coach the Buckeyes are recruiting at a level that probably eclipses the level established by Urban Meyer, and that is saying something. While the head coach at Ohio State Meyer brought OSU recruiting to unheard of levels , and now Day is not only meeting that standard, but might actually be surpassing it.

The 2021 OSU recruiting class currently consists of 19 verbal commitments and is ranked by the 24/7 composite as the number one class in the nation. The Buckeyes currently have verbal commitments from four five-star prospects, 12 four-star prospects and three three-star prospects.  Alabama’s second-ranked class also has four five-star commitments, but currently no other school has more that one. In the Big Ten, Michigan has one five-star commitment, the rest of the league has none.

24/7 provides a metric which attempts to measure the quality of the players in a recruiting class. It is the average player ranking of the commitments in the class. OSU’s current average is 94.94. To put that in perspective here are the player rankings of OSU’s classes under Urban Meyer:

2020 91.79
2019 91.87
2018 94.29 (highest average in the nation that year)
2017 94.59 (highest average in the nation that year)
2016 91.56
2015 90.31
2014 90.59

Day’s first class at OSU is currently ranked higher than any class signed by Urban Meyer. The Meyer classes that were close to  Day’s current level were the best class in the country that year by this metric. Additionally, Day is not done yet this year.  There is room for five to seven more players in this class. Based on the players that the Buckeyes are still in on, the average for Day’s class has a chance to move even higher.  Nationally, Alabama is nipping at OSU’s heels with an average player ranking of 94.48, about a half-point behind. Clemson is at 94.17, Georgia 93.95 and LSU 93.46. In the Big Ten, Michigan is at 89.48, Wisconsin at 88.76 and Penn State and 88.60.

OSU’s recruiting success on the national level is very much mirrored by their success in the state of Ohio.  There are currently seven Ohioan committed to the 2021 class. The 24/7 composite ranks them as the first, second, third, fourth, sixth and 11th-best players in the state. Looking ahead to 2022, the top player in the state is seen as a heavy lean to OSU with 100% of his crystal balls pointing to the Buckeyes. The number three, four and five players in the state are already verbally committed to OSU. It’s pretty safe to say that Ryan Day is keeping the fence around Ohio in good repair when it comes to football recruiting.

This installment of Recruiting Commentary has dealt with why we have revived this column and the general state of OSU football recruiting. In Installment 2 scheduled for tomorrow we’ll start dealing with specific players and player groups, who is committed and who is yet on OSU’s recruiting board. We hope you’ll come back and check it out.