Tag: Class of 2025 Recruiting

Ohio State football loses commitment from key four-star defensive end

Ohio State football lost a commitment from a key Class of 2025 four-star defensive end. Colorado appears to be the favorite to land him.

The Ohio State Buckeyes are among the most notable college football programs in the country and typically get the attention of top-ranked recruits.

The Class of 2025 is no different as the Buckeyes will have outstanding freshmen coming to Columbus next season. They have three five-star talents committed.

However, they will be without London Merritt, who has officially decommited from Ohio State. Colorado is seen as the frontrunner to land the four-star defensive end.

Merritt is ranked as the 25th-best EDGE in the class and the 31st-best player from the state of Florida by 247Sports. Their composite ranking has him as the 13th-best defensive end.

Colorado and North Carolina are both “warm.” He officially visited Ohio State in June and then Colorado on October 11. He committed to Ohio State back in March.

That said, here’s his official post.

While losing Merritt is far from ideal for Ryan Day and his program, the Buckeyes will be just fine. They have the best two cornerbacks in the class coming to Columbus and five-star quarterback Tavien St. Clair as well.

This team will be laced with talent next season, especially as several key weapons like Jeremiah Smith will undoubtedly be back to again dominate the Big Ten.

Duke basketball makes the top 10 for top-100 shooting guard Braylon Mullins

Duke basketball made the top 10 for newly offered four-star Braylon Mullins, a talented Class of 2025 sharpshooter from Indiana who keeps rising in the rankings.

Despite being the most recent team to offer four-star shooting guard Braylon Mullins, Jon Scheyer and the Duke Blue Devils clearly made a strong enough impression. Mullins released his top 10 schools on Monday and included Duke as he prepares to meticulously wrap up his recruitment.

Duke has watched Mullins play on multiple occasions over the spring and summer circuit, but the offer didn’t come until this past weekend. Mullins has been electric on the Adidas circuit, eviscerating defenders on the court with some electrifying performances. The 6-foot-5, 180-pound four-star sits at No. 73 overall on the 247Sports 2025 Composite Rankings, but the late riser very well may finish within the top 50 or higher when the rankings get updated. He’s already catapulted up to No. 23 on the 247Sports Rankings.

Alongside Duke, the caliber of schools recruiting Mullins is as impressive as it gets. The Connecticut Huskies, winners of the last two national championships, remain in hot pursuit. UNC, Kentucky, Kansas, Indiana, and others have all put themselves into the running for Mullins.

Duke has yet to coordinate an official visit with Mullins but his father told On3’s Joe Tipton that plans were being made to schedule one. Mullins has scheduled official visits with the Tar Heels, the Wildcats, the Hoosiers, Michigan, and Tennessee.

Mullins would be a terrific shooting guard fit on Duke because of his ability to shoot the ball at an extremely efficient clip.

 

Duke basketball makes the top eight for 2025 guard Acaden Lewis

Lewis, a four-star combo guard from the Class of 2025, will decide between Duke and seven other schools for his commitment.

Duke basketball remains in the mix for 2025 guard Acaden Lewis.

The four-star combo guard released his top eight schools on Wednesday morning, and the Blue Devils kept themselves in the race for his commitment.

Head coach Jon Scheyer will need to beat out some stiff competition for the Washington, D.C., native, however. Lewis also included North Carolina, Connecticut, Kentucky, Syracuse, Michigan, Tennessee, and Auburn among his finalists.

According to the Wednesday report from 247Sports’ Dushawn London, Lewis plans to visit each of these eight schools before making a decision in November around the early signing period.

London’s report also made Lewis’s top priority very clear.

“I want to play,” Lewis said. “I’m not there to sit behind a bunch of people they have at the guard spot…NIL is cool but my main focus is playing and being somewhere where I think I’ll be comfortable, where I belong.”

Lewis said his relationship with the head coach will also be a point of emphasis in his recruiting as well.

As of Wednesday afternoon, 247Sports ranks Lewis as the 31st-ranked prospect in the class. He stands 6-foot-2 and weighs in at 170 pounds.

Duke football commit shows behind-the-scenes look at official visit on social media

Sampson Onuoha, a 2025 edge rusher and Duke’s second-best commit in the class, shared a look at his official visit to Durham on TikTok.

Division I athletic programs pull out all the stops for football recruits during their official visits. Top-ranked prospects get to enjoy personal tours of programs with no expense spared as coaches try to sway them for a commitment.

What does such a process look like in Durham? Duke football commit Sampson Onuoha would be happy to show you.

The three-star edge rusher from Massachusetts, the second-highest-rated 2025 prospect committed to Blue Devils head coach [autotag]Manny Diaz[/autotag], pulled back the curtain for a recent TikTok. Onuoha documented as much of his official visit as he could, from a driver picking him up to take him to the airport on Thursday through the weekend.

Onuoha, who had already committed to the program before his trip, said he watched a walk-through practice from the Duke team and took some photos in a Blue Devils uniform on the field at Wallace Wade Stadium. He even went to a waterpark with the coaching staff and some current players the following day.

@sampson.onuoha

Come with me on my Official Visit 🔵😈 #fyp #fypシ #viral #d1 #dukefootball #duke #officialvisit #committed #d1athlete #SampsonOnuoha

♬ original sound – Sampson

Onuoha helps form one of Duke’s best recruiting classes in recent memory, as the Blue Devils already have 23 commitments to sit inside the top 30 on 247Sports’ rankings.

2025 wide receiver prospect includes Blue Devils in his top three

Qeanu Johnson, a three-star wideout from Connecticut, released his top three schools on Wednesday with the Blue Devils still in the running.

Qeanu Johnson, a three-star wide receiver prospect from Connecticut, released the final three schools in his recruiting race on Wednesday.

His home school, the Huskies, remain in the race, but so do the Blue Devils and the Penn State Nittany Lions.

Johnson plays for Hamden Hall Country Day High School, and he led the team with 584 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns in 2023. He even picked up 164 rushing yards on just 11 attempts on the ground, adding three scores as a rushing threat.

He’s also played on the defensive side of the ball with seven total tackles and a 99-yard pick-six.

“(He has) a safety frame but a receiver skill set and uses his size and strength to create separation,” wrote 247Sports National Recruiting Analyst Greg Biggins. “He’s not a burner but runs well enough and shows good initial quickness off the line. He catches the ball cleanly and does a nice job on 50-50 balls. ”

The national recruiting website currently has Johnson as the 90th-ranked athlete in the 2025 recruiting class.

The Blue Devils already have three wide receiver commitments for the 2025 class, notably from three-star talents Gerritt Kemp and Jaivon Solomon. Kavon Simmons, a quarterback from Wake Forest High School, will also change positions to play wideout in Durham.

2025 defensive line target for Duke football shares photo in a Blue Devils uniform

One Duke football target for the 2025 recruiting class shared a photo of himself in Blue Devils gear on social media with an encouraging caption.

Duke football fans couldn’t wish for a better month on the recruiting trail than the team had in June.

In his first full recruiting cycle as the team’s head coach, [autotag]Manny Diaz[/autotag] has worked the Blue Devils inside the top 20 of national rankings with more than 20 commitments thus far.

The hot streak might continue, too. On Monday afternoon, three-star defensive lineman Carmello Brooks shared a photo of himself in Duke gear on X (the social media platform formerly known on Twitter).

“#bleedblue,” Brooks captioned the post.

Brooks took a visit with the program over the first weekend of June and shared a positive social media post about the experience. The 88th-ranked defensive lineman in the 2025 247Sports Ranking has no Crystal Ball Predictions for any program as of Monday night, but 247Sports says his recruiting race seems to be down to Duke, Houston, and the Texas Longhorns.

The Texas native stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 275 pounds according to his player profile.

The Blue Devils already have an edge rusher and two defensive linemen among their 2025 commitments.

Future Duke quarterback Dan Mahan sounds excited about all of his future teammates

Every college football program wants its young quarterbacks to become vocal leaders, and 2025 Duke commit Dan Mahan is well on his way.

The Blue Devils have racked up 2025 commitments on the recruiting trail this month, and no one seems more excited than three-star quarterback Dan Mahan.

11 of Duke’s 21 commitments for the 2025 cycle have announced their decision since the start of the month as head coach [autotag]Manny Diaz[/autotag] started hosting official visits, and Mahan’s been vocal about all of them on social media.

One of the earliest commitments for the 2025 class, Mahan aligned himself with the Blue Devils back on April 13. The three-star prospect from Burlington, North Carolina, plays for Walter M. Williams High School, and he compiled 1,776 passing yards, 323 rushing yards, and 25 total touchdowns as a junior last season.

The future passer started his recent social media content by teasing that there was “some great news on the way” for the Blue Devils after his official visit on June 9.

Here’s a look at some of Mahan’s tweets about the program over the last few weeks.

Mahan picked up another future teammate on Sunday, a Georgia wide receiver named Jaivon Solomon as Diaz continues his dominance in the Peach State.

2025 two-way star from Pittsburgh commits to Duke football

Bradley Gompers, a three-star prospect from Pittsburgh who plays on both sides of the ball, announced his commitment to the Blue Devils on Sunday.

Duke football added another member to the 2025 class on Sunday when Bradley Gompers announced his commitment to the program.

Gompers, who plays for Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a three-star prospect. He played linebacker, tight end, and strong safety for the Vikings last season.

An outstanding athlete, Gompers measures out at 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds. 247Sports ranks him as the 90th overall linebacker in the class, and he’s the 789th-ranked prospect in his year on the site’s Composite Rankings.

He also took recent visits with Rutgers and Michigan State before settling on Duke head coach [autotag]Manny Diaz[/autotag]. He also included Pittsburgh, Maryland, Northwestern, and West Virginia in his top seven at the end of May.

Gompers becomes the 15th commitment of the class for the Blue Devils. He’d be the first tight end in the 2025 cycle, but Diaz already landed three linebackers in the rest of the year. Cameron Smith, a Philadelphia linebacker, is Duke’s only four-star commit so far in 2025.

Duke offers Shelton Henderson, a four-star 2025 forward

Shelton Henderson, a four-star freshman in the Class of 2025, said on social media that the Blue Devils offered him a scholarship.

The 2024 Duke basketball recruiting class has only been on campus for a few days yet, but head coach Jon Scheyer already has an eye on 2025.

Shelton Henderson, a four-star forward from the Class of 2025, announced that the Blue Devils extended a scholarship offer to him through social media on Tuesday.

Henderson, a 6-foot-6 product of Bellaire High School in Texas, currently ranks as 247Sports’ 49th-ranked player in the cycle. He’s even higher on the site’s Composite Rankings, where he is the 41st overall player.

“Henderson is a physical specimen from the wing position who arguably has the best long-term tools in the national class,” 247Sports recruiting analyst Brandon Jenkins wrote in the site’s scouting report. “He operates as a playmaking wing who is loaded with intangibles that are off the charts…Henderson has the build to overpower defenders on his drive at the collegiate level and should draw fouls with ease when looking to drive the basketball.”

Last season with Bellaire, Henderson averaged 21.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game, leading the Cardinals in both categories. He added 3.9 assists, 2.9 steals, and 1.4 blocks per game, according to MaxPreps.

The Blue Devils don’t yet have a commitment for the 2025 recruiting class.

Duke football recruit runs into Michael Strahan on his official visit

Duke football hosted a dozen high school recruits for official visits this weekend, and one of them ran into a Pro Football Hall of Famer.

If Duke football recruits weren’t expecting to see a Pro Football Hall of Famer during an official visit, they were pleasantly surprised this weekend.

RJ Boyd, a three-star 2025 running back from Georgia, shared that he ran into former New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan on Friday.

Strahan, who also attended a Duke men’s basketball game during the 2023-24 season, has a daughter attending the university. Another one of his daughters received treatment for a brain tumor at Duke University Medical Center.

Across his 15-year NFL career with the Giants, Strahan finished with 141.5 career sacks, four First-Team All-Pro nominations, and a Defensive Player of the Year award. He won the latter in 2001 when he set an NFL single-season record with 22.5 sacks.

Boyd announced his official visit with the Duke football program earlier in the day on Friday, one of a handful of offensive prospects in town for the weekend. He seemed pretty thrilled to cross paths with Strahan.

Duke head coach Manny Diaz landed two 2025 commitments and a transfer over the past seven days, including two running backs. We’ll see if Strahan helps him land any more.