Tag: ohio state recruiting

Ohio State included in 5-star 2021 offensive tackle’s top five

Five-star offensive tackle Tristan Leigh out of Fairfax, Virginia includes Ohio State in his top five released Thursday.

The Ohio State football program has already put together one whale of a recruiting class for 2021, but there’s still a little more room left with some big fish still out there to hook.

One of those is five-star offensive tackle Tristan Leigh out of Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, Virginia. The six-foot, five-inch, 270-pounder is rated as the No. 3 offensive tackle and eleventh overall recruit for in the entire 2021 class according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings. He would be a huge addition to what is already widely considered the top recruiting class in the country.

And as a bit of good news for Ohio State, Leigh included the Buckeyes in his top five released on Thursday.

The other four schools in Leigh’s announcement include Alabama, Oklahoma, Clemson, and LSU.

The Buckeye staff has begun to increase its efforts for Leigh as of late, and where he ends up is pretty wide open, though most experts believe he is a slight lean to Clemson at the moment.

We’ll stay on top of any further developments with his recruitment.

Ohio State basketball gets pledge from top prospect in Ohio, Malaki Branham

Ohio State basketball has landed its top target for 2021, four-star shooting guard Malaki Branham out of Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary. Boom!

They are celebrating at Value City Arena today. That’s because Ohio’s top prep basketball prospect out of Akron’s St. Vincent-St. Mary, Malaki Branham, has announced his pledge to Ohio State.

At six-foot, four-inches, Branham is rated as the No. 6 shooting guard and 27th overall recruit in the 2021 class according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings. And now, he’ll be joining Chris Holtmann and company in Columbus.

Branham, a Columbus native who moved to Akron since high school chose the Buckeyes over Xavier, Louisville, and Alabama. His recruitment waxed and waned, and the coaching staff never really had extreme confidence that he would end up at Ohio State, but persistence and relationship building paid off.

Branham joins two others from Ohio in the 2021 class, Kalen Etzler and Meechie Johson. The trio now combines for the best recruiting class in the Big Ten and second-best in the country.

We’ll have more on what this means for the program later (hint: it’s huge), but for now, it’s time to celebrate.

 

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Ohio State five-star RB commit TreVeyon Henderson will not be transferring to another high school

Ohio State 5-star running back commit TreVeyon Henderson will not transfer to another high school despite his senior season being canceled.

With the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on high school sports in this country, many high-profile prep athletes have had tough decisions on their plate. Many are faced with not being able to play their senior seasons because of cancellations, and that has some knocking on doors that would otherwise not be looked at.

For example, five-star DB Tony Grimes has decided to reclassify and enroll in college at the University of North Carolina this fall rather than sitting idly by and missing out on an opportunity to compete. Others have — and will — have to make some similar decisions as things become more clear.

We touched on that being the case for Ohio State five-star running back commit TreVeyon Henderson. His high school season has already been shelved, so there was a chance that he would transfer to another private school like IMG Academy in Florida to continue to develop and get more playing time.

That does not appear to be in the cards however according to a tweet Henderson shared on his own Twitter profile. He will be staying the course, continuing to attend high school in Hopewell, Virginia, then enrolling early at Ohio State.

While it would have been fun to see what Henderson could have done at another school during his senior year, this makes sense for him. He is an excellent student and uprooting his life for a few months doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when he’s already committed to a big-time program.

Looks like we’ll have to wait until the spring of 2021 to see Henderson again, but this time it’ll be in the colors of Scarlet and Gray.

 

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Top Ohio State basketball target to announce decision Wednesday

Ohio State’s top target for the 2021 recruiting cycle, Malaki Branham, is set to make his college decision on Wednesday afternoon.

It looks like Chris Holtmann and the Ohio State basketball team won’t have to wait much longer to find out where one of its top targets for the 2021 recruiting cycle will go to school.

At six-foot, four-inches, Malaki Branham out of Akron St. Vincent-St Mary — the same high school that produced LeBron James — is rated as the top prospect in all of Ohio, and No. 5 overall shooting guard in the country according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings.

The Buckeyes have been heavily recruiting him for quite some time and there are still a lot of questions as to where he will end up. That will all be settled Wednesday according to a tweet from Branham himself on Monday.

For Ohio State, keeping the best kids from Ohio in the state is something it wants to continue to do. As of late, other teams in the Big Ten, and national powers have come into the Buckeye state and cherry-picked the talent. It would be a good statement for the program if OSU could land Branham and change that narrative.

The other schools in the running for his services include Xavier, Louisville, and Alabama. And if you’re looking for which way Branham is leaning, that has been hard to decipher. The only clue we have is some crystal ball predictions starting to trickle in on 247Sports. Those are beginning to fall the way of Ohio State, but we’ll just have to see.

So, be on the lookout at specifically 2:22 we guess to see what decision Branham makes.

 

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WATCH: Jordan Hancock discuss why he chose Ohio State over Clemson

Watch why four-star 2021 defensive back Jordan Hancock chose to flip his commitment from Clemson to Ohio State.

Four-star 2021 defensive back Jordan Hancock committed to Clemson back in March, but it never seemed right in his heart. After some reconsideration, Hancock de-committed from Clemson and quickly flipped to Ohio State. He announced his decision on Twitter Sunday afternoon, and it sure feels like this one is now locked in.

But why did he have a change of heart?

There are a lot of rumors, but what better way to understand why Hancock changed his mind than to hear from the man himself. The No. 6 rated cornerback in the 2021 recruiting cycle according to 247Sports Composite Rankings spoke to Rivals and posted some of his responses through his own Twitter Profile later on Sunday.

Click on the below video and hear a few reasons why he is glad he decided to change his commitment to Ryan Day and Ohio State.

Buckeye Nation reacts on Twitter to Jordan Hancock commitment

Jordan Hancock has officially flipped from Clemson and the reaction from Ohio State coaches, players, and commits hit Twitter fast.

Four-star defensive back Jordan Hancock has officially flipped from Clemson to Ohio State, and the reaction has been swift and overwhelming from Buckeye Nation. There was a little stir and build up to it anyway, and it didn’t really come to a surprise, but now that it’s happened, Twitter is ablaze.

We’ve scoured Twitter profiles tied to Ohio State players, coaches, commits, and others and collected the best of them for your scrolling pleasure. As a reminder, Hancock’s commitment means the Buckeyes now have 19 players verbally committed with still plenty of room to go. OSU’s class still stands as the clear No. 1 in the country according to almost every recruiting service out there.

So, what did Twitter have to say?

Next … The best Twitter reactions to Hancock’s commitment to Ohio State

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Ohio State officially flips Clemson 4-star DB Jordan Hancock

Former Clemson 4-star DB commit Jordan Hancock has officially flipped and is now an Ohio State verbal for the 2021 cycle.

After all the speculation and rumors, it is now official. Four-star 2021 defensive back prospect Jordan Hancock out of Suwannee, Georgia was a Clemson commit for almost four months, but he began to waver. He then de-committed from Dabo Swinney and company about a week ago.

Since then, rumors have swirled very loudly that he was on the verge of committing to Ohio State. He had developed some key relationships with other commits in the 2021 cycle and they were not shy about alluding to some big news coming.

That’s just what we got on Sunday, as Hitchcock announced his verbal pledge to the Ohio State program.

It’s a big pickup for Ohio State, and one that ends the rather quiet period in Columbus after the unbelievable run of commitments in March, April, and May.

Hitchcock is rated as the No. 6 cornerback and 77th overall recruit in the 2021 cycle according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings. He should be in the mix to be one of the next big-time talents on the back-end of the defense to come out of Ohio State in the near future.

 

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Ohio State RB commit TreVeyon Henderson has senior high school season canceled

Ohio State five-star running back TreVeyon Henderson has had his senior season of high school football canceled due to COVID-19.

We have another casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic to report. According to a report from Eleven Warriors, one of Ohio State’s crown jewels of the 2021 recruiting class, five-star running back TreVeyon Henderson, has had his senior season canceled in Virginia.

That’s because the Virginia High School League has ruled out football this fall regardless of a vote to continue with other fall sports. Football is not in the plans for any of the proposals that the organization will ponder during a scheduled vote on July 27.

That means Henderson, if he remains enrolled at Hopewell High School, will not participate in football until he does so at Ohio State. That, or he could transfer to a private school somewhere else that does plan to play and suit up there.

According to Henderson’s comments to Eleven Warriors, he is weighing what to do next. Either way, it sounds like he’ll be coming to Columbus as an early enrollee this coming spring.

“I’ll skip spring football and still enroll early,” Henderson said to Eleven Warriors. “It’s a tough decision because I still wanna play football, but at the end of the day, it’s still gonna benefit me. I can start off fresh at OSU and start training. I just want to go ahead and get involved in the program and get a feeling about what Ohio State is all about; get around some of the players and just get comfortable there.”

Now, he just has to decide what comes in the immediate term because playing his last season at Hopewell is off the table.

“If they don’t let us play, I’m not sure if I’ll end up transferring or just end up sitting out a year,” Henderson told Eleven Warriors. “But if not, I’ll probably end up transferring. I’ve just gotta see what’s up with other schools to see if they allow early enrolling.”

Henderson has reportedly been contacted by Florida’s IMG Academy, Baltimore’s St. Frances Academy, and some other private schools. But it remains to be seen whether high school football will be played anywhere in the country when everything shakes out.

If not, he and all the other recruits across this country will be forced to wait until college to suit up again.

Ohio State included in top seven of four-star safety out of Pennsylvania

One of the top safeties in the 2021 cycle, four-star Derrick Davis, Jr. out of Monroeville, PA, has included Ohio State in his top seven.

There’s been a bushel of recruiting news when it comes to prospects still considering Ohio State as of late, most of it for the 2021 cycle. One of the latest involves a four-star prospect out of Monroeville, PA, safety Derrick Davis, Jr.

At six-foot, one-inches, and 194 pounds, Davis is listed as the No. 2 safety and 52nd overall prospect in the class according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings. Naturally, Davis has Ohio State on his list because of the Buckeyes’ recent run of success in churning out top NFL talent on the back end of the defense.

It looks like Davis won’t be announcing until around September or October according to Eleven Warriors, so we’ll just have to continue to keep an eye on where things are headed until then.

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The other schools in Davis’ top seven include USC, Clemson, LSU, Penn State, Pitt, and Georgia. And if you’re interested in which way things are leaning at the moment, the crystal ball predictions according to 247Sports give the Nittany Lions a modest edge at the moment. The pull of going to a program like Ohio State that has such a great track record of development at his position will no doubt be tempting at the least though.

This is another one that we’ll keep an eye on.

 

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Ohio State in top five of four-star 2021 tight end

Four-star 2021 tight end prospect Dametrious Crownover has released his top five schools and Ohio State is listed.

Ohio State has appeared in the top five schools of four-star 2021 tight end Dametrious Crownover. At six-foot, six-inches, out of Grandview, Texas, Crownover is rated as the No. 10 tight end in the class according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings, and would put some salve in the wound from losing out on another four-star tight end, Hudson Wolfe to Tennessee.

At this point, it looks like the team to beat for his services is the home state Texas A&M program, but with OSU appearing in his top five, there’s still time to make an impression. The other schools appearing in the announcement to his Twitter profile are the aforementioned Aggies, plus Texas, Baylor, and Nebraska.

It’s probably a long shot for Ohio State to make a serious move here with no ability to get him on campus with the dead period put in place by the NCAA because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but we’ll still stay on top of where things are headed.

 

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