COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State football’s 2025 recruiting class is off to a strong start, with 11 commits, including seven top 100 players.
On this episode of Buckeye Talk, Stephen Means and Andrew Gillis discuss the latest commitments in four-star defensive lineman Lononn Merrit, four-star linebacker TJ Alford, four-star wide receiver De’zie Jones and four-star safety DeShawn Stewart.
They also discuss recent three-star safety Cody Haddad’s decommitment from Wisconsin and what that could mean for OSU. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the significance of early commitments and the importance of landing big recruits to maintain a strong recruiting class.
Thanks for listening to Buckeye Talk.
Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.
Stephen Means (00:20.096)
Welcome back to Buckeye Talk? I am Stephen Means and that’s Andrew Gillis. It’s another recruiting pod because last time you heard our voices, we previewed one commitment because it was the only one that had an exact decision day. And Ohio State, instead of just getting one commitment, they got four for the weekend. Ohio State right now, the number two class in the country, 11 commits in it, seven top 100 players, eight in the top 101, which includes one of the guys we’re gonna talk about here. And that’s actually where we’re gonna start.
London merit, Ohio State getting its second defensive lineman in the class. Andrew, tell us more about London and just more about what Ohio State’s getting in this player.
Andrew (01:00.15)
Yeah, London Merritt. He plays at IMG Academy. Currently, he transferred there for his senior year. Or he transferred there from Georgia, I should say, for a year of football. So yeah, he’s originally playing at a really high level in high school, of high school football in Georgia. He’s playing at Woodward Academy. Really, really talented player. He’s number 101 recruit in the country, number 10 defensive lineman. He’s like 6’3”, 250.
That’s kind of where you would see him right now. I think, I mean, he projects as a defensive end. I think when you talk about adding Merritt, which now I’m just, as I say that out loud, I’m thinking Ohio State has a lot of Merritt in its class, and I’m just thinking of all the puns that can happen with that. But basically you have Merritt now. You have Zaheer Mathis, the defensive end out of Philadelphia. He’s number 57 overall player.
Both of those guys project as defensive ends. So what you’ve done now, I mean, you’ve got the number 101 player and the number 57 player in your class committed, that project to play the defensive end position. So when you’re talking about a kid like Merritt, I mean, this is a guy, I think he’s kind of raw. I think that there’s some development that can happen there, some size and some speed and things like that. But I mean, you watch him play, he flashes athletically.
I think that that’s kind of the number one thing that I saw was that, you know, you could see that this guy has a really, really high ceiling. And that’s why I like this guy for Ohio State, really. I think that he, you know, he gives them a high, a high opportunity to get an impactful pass rusher. And that’s what you need to win, right? Like that’s, I mean, Ohio State’s defensive line, for as much as we talk about how good they are right now, you need to keep that train rolling. And they’ve kind of done that a little bit. You bring in an Edward Houston. We’ve sung the praises of Jason Moore.
and Cade McDonald and Hiru Kanu and Kenyatta Jackson, we’ve mentioned him as a breakout guy, well, those guys are gonna be around forever. London Marriott’s still got a season of high school football to play. So you’re gonna need to replace this talent and I think that this goes away in doing that. So again, I like this commitment for Ohio State. This was the one that kind of popped randomly. Steven kind of made jokes about it. The Steven, well, I guess, and.
Andrew (03:24.034)
the other writers too. On Saturday morning when we were at the scrimmage, we were all kind of looking around like, so everybody was kind of panicking at 630 on Friday when he committed, right? And everybody kind of said yes. So kind of came out of nowhere, but certainly welcome news for Ohio State.
Stephen Means (03:39.104)
Listen at six two and a half and 250 pounds and he was in the Woody on Saturday when we were in there He was here for a visit. So obviously this commitment came right before he was going to be visiting Ohio State anyway, but Is this guy an edge or is he an interior guy if you project him out?
Andrew (03:56.03)
Well, I think right now you view him as an edge. Right now you look at him as a guy that is going to play on the edge. Now, with that said, I think one of the things that is interesting to me is, for example, when I went up and talked to Dominic Kirk, after his signing day, I talked to him about where he sits and where his process is and how he views fitting into Ohio State. And he mentioned, look, he played defensive end. I think he was a little bit bigger.
uh, then, then London Merritt, like taller. And one of the things that Larry Johnson said was that he wanted the athleticism on the inside. And he wanted a player like a dominant Kirk’s to keep that athleticism and make that transition eventually to move on to the interior. So I think, um, you know, you, you have, you have an edge player. I wouldn’t rule out and move to the interior. Um, but.
As we’ve kind of seen, Ohio State does like to have taller interior players. You know, I know my call was a little bit more unique, so we’ll see. But I think as you kind of map this out, you got Merritt, you got Mathis, and you’re feeling pretty good about those two guys on the edge as to exterior players.
Stephen Means (05:12.66)
Next was the guy who was playing. I know we previewed him a little bit last week when we talked about, but now that it’s official TJ offered the number 63 player number eight linebacker in the country in the class big pickup for James or anitis.
Andrew (05:24.938)
Yeah, I really like this guy, you know, kid out of Vero Beach, Florida. This, I say this a lot on this podcast because I think it’s true with recruiting. We’ll get into kind of what the commitment means on a broader scale. But for TJ Allford, the football player, I mean, he’s the number 63 overall player in the class, number eight linebacker. He listed at six, two, two 10. I think that there’s a little bit of work to be done on that frame. I think he can get bigger, but this kid can run and this kid can hit.
And I think those are the two things that you see from him and you’re like, oh wow, I wrote a story for the website today, go check it out at cleveland.com. I wrote a story and one of the things that I think has really solid potential of panning out is this can be your CJ Hicks, this could be your linebacker with just untapped athleticism, untapped potential, kind of untapped everything where you look at him and you’re like, man, this guy’s ceiling is really hot.
And that’s what I see when I see TJ Alford play football. Like I said, great sideline to sideline speed. He is a track athlete, which I do think matters. But great sideline to sideline speed, really physical with just, it’s not so much the everybody he hits, he sends to the hospital type of hit. It’s the, you’re seeing him get involved in tackling and you’re seeing him.
be aggressive and those are the kind of the traits that you want to look for. And I think that really makes sense for Alford. So on the field, you’re getting a really nice player. I think he’s a really nice compliment to Eli Lee. Eli Lee, he committed a couple of months ago. He’s a kid out of the Northeast Ohio area. And when you talk about Eli Lee, they’ve mentioned Tommy Eichenberg. Everybody talks about, hey, this guy might be Tommy Eichenberg.
You know, Eli said that one of the things was that James Lourinitis was really big on him. And, you know, hey, this is a this is a comp that they see for me. So I think with Allford and Lee, it makes a lot of sense. You know, it just that pairing makes a lot of sense. But Allford’s also from Vero Beach, Florida. And I’m not going to say that this is as big as winning the Jeremiah Smith recruitment or anything like that. I’m not I’m not going to go that far because Jeremiah’s Jeremiah Smith is just on a different level. But.
Andrew (07:47.486)
This was a really hard recruitment for James Laurinitis. And this was like his first massive win, right? Like he pulled a kid out of Florida that had, I mean, the SEC schools were breathing down his neck, but Florida, Miami, Florida State, he was visiting these schools unofficially before he committed to Ohio State. He had an Ohio State of unofficial visit the week before his commitment. And then he goes to Florida State. And then he, I think it was…
Went to Tennessee right after that, too. Like he was he was out and about a little bit and Ohio State was able to go down into Florida and get him. So, yeah, that to me, I think what it signifies is a big win for James Laurinitis. I think it can be a lot of different things in one. So, yeah, big, big commitment there for all for Ohio State. I don’t believe is out of the woods yet. You see, he’s still got some official visits that are scheduled. He’s got Florida State in June. He’s got Miami in June.
Ohio State is the first of those visits, but as we’ve seen with kids from Florida, those schools aren’t going to give up. And frankly, I mean, nor should they, right? Like if TJ Alford was from Toledo and committed to Miami, Ohio State wouldn’t give up recruiting him. So this is going to be one of those things, I think, where until you start to see official visits canceled, until you start to see some things happen or him say, I’ve shut my recruitment down or something like that.
you know, it’s still gonna be something to monitor up until signing day.
Stephen Means (09:22.86)
So here’s why I think this is the big deal. Top 100 linebacker from Florida. He’s the highest ranked linebacker Ohio State has landed that wasn’t in its backyard, meaning in state recruit. And it’s Cody Simon in 2020. You know, CJ Hicks is a five star. CJ Hicks is from Dayton, Ohio. You’re supposed to get that guy. Gabe Powers was a five star at one point in the 2022 class and a top 100 recruit. He was even a top 50 recruiter at one point. Five star recruiter at one time, as I mentioned.
He’s from Marysville, Ohio. That’s like 30 minutes away from your campus. CJ Hicks, excuse me, not CJ Hicks. Sonny Stiles has moved to linebacker before you started at safety here. He’s from Pickens in Ohio. He’s from 20 minutes off the road. You’re supposed to get that guy. This is the first time since 2020, Ohio State has left the state to go get a dude in TJ Offer, and that’s what we were talking about with the James Zoranitis taking over as the linebackers coach. Did he have that ability? Could we look at him in a couple of years and say, he’s in the same class as what
Brian Hartline and Tim Walton are as former Ohio State players turned coaches who are recruiting their butts off. And they’re also developing the positions at a high level. Now, obviously Brian Hartline has been doing this for four or five years here. Tim Walton is in his second cycle of doing this at a high level. Maybe it would have been his third at 2022, maybe that guy’s not gotten injured, but the recruiting has always been there. So James overnight is has to get more proof in that pudding, but this is just the first proof of that, right?
a top 70 linebacker from Florida. It was not something Ohio State has gotten since 2020. Cody Simon was from New Jersey, but just that idea of they’re getting highly rated guys who aren’t just in their backyards. That’s what you wanna see from your assistant coaches. And that’s what James Laurinadis went and did very quickly here, he’s only been on the job for about four months now. And this is the first thing he offers as a recruiter for Ohio State.
Andrew (11:09.29)
Yeah, and I mean, he had to beat out some programs and, you know, like, like we have talked about on this podcast, one of the things that these Ohio kids say is when Ohio State recruits them, the best kids, they tell them the best kids in Ohio stay in Ohio. And they feel that they know what an Ohio, Ohio State offer means. They know kind of how, like for a lot of these kids, they grew up Buckeye fans, like that, that’s a big deal, right?
So to go get a kid out of Florida where the football is very good and something that I was looking up during this whole process, which did make me laugh very hard. One of the lead recruiters for TJ Alford at Florida State was Randy Shannon. And Randy Shannon, the guy who played for Miami and then coached at Miami, he was the head coach there, and then he coached at Florida.
He was the interim head coach there and now he’s at Florida State. Like you, you beat out a dude who, who knows Florida like really well and has been around Florida really well. So it just kind of fun little tidbits where you’re like, Oh, that’s where Randy Shannon is today. Um, so yeah, I mean, a big for him to go down into Florida and, and do that. Cause like you said, it’s, it’s one thing to go, I think, and like, look, let’s be honest, it’s one thing to go into like. Illinois or something, or Virginia.
or Maryland and get a really highly touted recruit like that. It’s another thing to go into a battleground state like a Florida or a Texas or a California or a Georgia or something like that. I think we talked about that with Neheme offered and keeping, I guess not keeping, that starting that Alabama pipeline. So yeah, big deal. We’re obviously not gonna put him in the Heartline and Walton category yet.
That’s still, I mean, that’s going to be a year or two down the line. That’s, I mean, that’s just such a high bar to clear. I mean, think about how many years it’s taken Brian Heartline and Tim Walton to kind of cultivate that, but I think.
Stephen Means (13:14.068)
It’s all known, but that’s the thing. It didn’t take them years. Brian Heartline’s first commit as an Ohio State TRI receiver coach was Jackson Smith the jig bug.
Andrew (13:23.634)
Right, but you gotta see this with regularity is my point. Like you can’t just be like, oh, they got TJ offered and then hooray, everybody’s done. And it’s like, you gotta keep doing this.
More what I’m getting at with why I’ve even brought them up because one that’s who we’ve talked about with him But also it’s the fact that those two hit the ground running
There wasn’t this buildup of, oh, it took a couple classes and then you got the five stars. No, no, no. Jeremiah Smith is the five star of five stars, yes. But he’s had the number one wide receiver before. Mecca Buca was the number one wide receiver in his recruiting class. Brandon Dennis, at one point, was the number one wide receiver in his recruiting class. So was Julian Fleming. Jackson Smith and Jigbo was a five star. Marvin Harrison Jr. was the top 100 recruit. And the same thing with Tim Walton, where his first class, Jermaine Matthews, was the top 50 recruit. Calvin Simpson Hunt’s the top 100 recruit.
Aaron Scott’s a five star recruit, Bryce West is a top 50 recruit. And obviously what he’s done with Devin Sanchez and Fahim in this class, yes, we’ll talk about a Fahim later. Yeah, we’ll talk about Fahim later on in this podcast, but a Nahim Offert, now Devin Sanchez and Nahim Offert, that combination is the Jeremiah Smith version of what, you know, he’s there, he’s,
Andrew (14:16.362)
Fahim Delain, Nahim Offord, yeah. It can speak, yeah. Ha ha ha.
Stephen Means (14:31.556)
Tim, they’re Tim Walton’s Jeremiah Smith, that combination of you have the top two corners in the country, but we had seen that before. And so to see James Zoranaitis hit the ground running like this, that gives you some hope that the future is going to continue this way. There, as you mentioned before, Eli Lee also in the class. So you’ve got two linebackers. Are we expecting for them to maybe add any more than two linebackers in this class?
Andrew (14:54.094)
I don’t, I don’t, you know, it’s a tough thing to answer because it depends on the guy. And I think there are a few players that Ohio State is obviously interested in. You know, Riley Pettigon, I mean, he’s a guy that Ohio State is really high on. They really like him at linebacker. He’s another top 60 player.
Madden Farrimo, he’s number 111 in the class, the kid out of Southern California. He’s another guy that Ohio State is really high on. There’s a few other guys that they’ve offered, Jaden Harmon, kid out of Georgia. There’s players that are interesting for Ohio State. They’ve offered Gavin Nix at IMG Academy too. There’s guys, right? That’s my point. There’s guys that they would take and there’s guys that they would look at and say,
You know what? We can we can add a third linebacker here. But I wrote about this today for the site. And after the twenty four season, just Cody Simon and Court Williams are guaranteed to leave. So that’s going to leave you going into twenty five. CJ Hicks, Gabe Powers, Sonny Styles, Nigel Glover, Arvel Rees, Peyton Pierce, Garrett Stover. That’s seven. And then with Allford and with Lee, that’s eight. That’s nine. So do you want to have?
10 linebackers on the team? Like is 10 a number that you feel good about? Is 10 a number in this day and age that you wanna have on the team? I think it just depends. I think it depends on the type of player. I think it depends on the players that are the scheme that you’re looking at. I think it depends, frankly, maybe what happens in some other positions. If you really like somebody at, we’ll get down the line of safety or something like that. Or if there’s another player that’s a streaming take that you have to take.
Maybe that’s where you can just sit it to and be fine. So I think two is fine, two is adequate. I’ll put it like that. Would they like to add three, depending, you know, kind of considering their offer list, I’d say probably, but I also don’t think it’s crazy to say that their linebacker recruiting is done at two.
Stephen Means (17:07.604)
Those are our first two, we’ll get into one more here. I’m gonna save the defensive back guy for after the break here. So let’s get into Desi Jones next out of New Jersey. The first of two guys that got from the Paul Cossack over the weekend. Tell us more about, they lost Javon Boggs obviously a week and a half ago and now they replace him with Desi Jones as the lone wide receiver in the class.
Andrew (17:27.37)
Well, yeah, this was the one that this is the one that popped out of nowhere. This is the one that kind of happened. Does Joe, it’s Desi Jones, Des Jones. You know, you’ll hear me probably refer to him in a couple of different ways until I get a firm answer on what he prefers to be called. But he’s number three, three sixty six overall player in the two four seven sports composite, number 48 receiver, number 10 player in the state of New Jersey.
This was a commitment that, again, it kind of popped out of nowhere. He got an offer from Ohio State in September. Penn State had really kind of been the team that you looked at with him and went, that’s probably where he’s going to go. He he had visited there a few times. I know he visited there for a game. I think he visited there twice, actually, during the year. I would have to go check that. But he visited. I mean, that I mean, that area of New Jersey, I mean.
There’s not a lot of football played out there, with all due respect to Rutgers. So that’s Penn State territory. And you kind of figure that would be where he would land. He does have an official visit scheduled for Penn State in June. And then it popped. And then you get the Ohio State notifications. So this was a little bit unique. He’s listed at six foot 180, obviously coming on the heels of the Javin Boggs decommitment. Boggs, they kind of viewed him as a slot receiver.
You know, we talked about him and he talked about it and everybody kind of talked about it as the Jackson Smith and Jigba type of player, the Jackson Smith and Jigba type of trajectory. But obviously that didn’t happen. Obviously that didn’t work out. So now you get Jones. I think wide receiver is maybe the one position where people will see 366 next to his national ranking.
and maybe not freak out as much as they would at other positions. I mean, think, Steven, think about this. Imagine if Des Jones was an offensive tackle and Ohio State had signed his command or commitment from the number 366 offensive tackle. Everybody would be, oh, my God, what are they doing? Why are we taking this guy? Why can’t we recruit any better? And with 366 at receiver, you’re like, oh, James, our bright Harleys probably got it. But I know what he’s doing. We’re good. We’re we’re chill. We’re good. So.
Andrew (19:46.462)
I think he has earned that benefit of the doubt. I’m not begrudging that or anything like that. I just think that, you know, this is a player, when you look at it, you probably, you probably don’t need to worry about 366 too much, especially as his trajectory indicates, he’ll probably continue to rise. Ohio State, I mean, as we can talk about later if you want, they are in on a lot of other really talented receivers. Jimmy French, he’s a five-star player out of Florida. Ohio State has done pretty well recently with receivers out of Florida.
He’s number 16 overall player. Then you get to Corian Moore. He’s number three overall player. He’s what he was up here a week or so ago. He’s currently committed to LSU, but Ohio State is in his top four. They’re really in on him. Philip Bell, number 129, four star receiver. He was up here for the weekend. I’m trying to think there was another guy. They had it. Well, they had a bunch of 20, 26, five star guys up here that they’re good. It don’t worry about if you’re, if you’re all worried about 366 with Des Jones, don’t worry. He’s a really talented player.
And I think Brian Hartline, you trust the evaluation skills there.
Yeah, I’m actually pretty interested in how this 2025 wide receiver class is going to end up shaping out here. Obviously Brian Hartline has been in a class of his own at Ohio State as a recruiter since he was hired in 2019 as a full time wide receivers coach. But it doesn’t mean he’s every couple of years if you have a class where maybe it’s not the most explosive thing in the world, I don’t think that’s crazy. The 2022 class was sort of like that where you had Caleb Burton and Caleb Brown and Coach Arantwe.
Keon Grays, Caleb Burton has since transferred to Auburn and Caleb Brown is now at Iowa, which sees Kojo and Keon as the only guys left in that class. But none of those guys, by the time we got to signing day, were top 100 recruits. And so maybe that was a class you were looking at and going, okay, maybe it’s more of a long-term developmental class, but then what did you follow that up with the following year in 2023? You had Carnell Tate, you had Brandon Ennis, you had Noah Rogers, and you had Bryson Rogers, and you followed that up again in 2024 with.
Jeremiah Smith and Mylon Graham. And so it may be, I’m wondering if this 2025 class ends up being similar to 2022. Because 2026 is where it gets explosive again, where you’ve already got Chris Henry Jr. That’s the number two player in the top wide receiver in the country committee. He’s originally from Ohio, but now playing at modern day in California. You’re in on Devin Carter and maybe that class continues to build and high level stuff. I think that’s maybe something we could get into at a later date, but
You’ve brought this up before as well. At some point, your room is going to be so stacked that the best players in the country just don’t see a realistic path, right? And it’s not because they’re afraid of the competition. It’s just simply because, you know, there’s a better opportunity and a more, you know, straightforward opportunity for me to get on the field over here. And with wide receiver and quarterback, both of those positions have had their recruiting classes where in 2023, that was the case.
Stephen Means (01:57.025)
at quarterback in 2022, that was the case at wide receiver. And I am starting to wonder maybe that happens in 2025 or just maybe we get through these summers, these summer camps, Brian Hartline finds some guys he likes and then they go through their senior years and a lot of these guys pop up. But it’s, Brian Hartline typically has more work done by this time of year with his class. And that’s not necessarily panned out this way. And I don’t think it’s cause he’s doing anything wrong or anything differently. It just might be as a result of his own success.
Andrew (02:24.97)
Yeah, exactly. And I think, frankly, I think the Jeremiah Smith part of this conversation does play a big role because you’ve got somebody who is going to be a contributor for three years. And I use contributor in very, very light terms. I mean,
Andrew (02:51.69)
They’re going to be around in 2025, you know, and then that does. I mean, it’s kind of crazy because I’ve made I’ve made jokes about this before. Ohio State lost the top 50 receiver recruit on National Signing Day to Oregon, another big 10 team, a team that you play in 2024. And I would have to check future schedules, but. It didn’t really matter because you had Jeremiah Smith and you had Mylon Graham.
Like Mylon Graham, it feels like is kind of maybe the unforgotten or I guess not the unforgotten, the forgotten player of this 2024 class because he was a five star player. He is really good. I mean, you watch him play and he just he’s got elite athleticism. And he’s just behind Jeremiah Smith. And that’s not a knock against him. Yeah, so yeah, so yeah, I think that this could be shaping up to be a developmental class for Ohio State. Now, obviously,
Stephen Means (03:37.245)
He’s also just not in college right now. So that’s part of it.
Andrew (03:48.042)
If you can get to Corian Moore, like in Jamie French, like if both of those guys say, Hey guys, I want to come to Columbus. You’re not saying no to that. But I do don’t hate the idea of a developmental class just because you’re going to lose like Boca after the year. Uh, you know, Jayden Ballard, like the, there are four guys that could leave Ballard, Ibuca, Graze and Antwi. Like you are talking about a room with five players going into 2025. And it’s Rogers, Tate, Graham and Smith. I mean.
That’s pretty good. That’s really good, especially when you’ve got two starters kind of locked in going into 2025. So yeah, the development, I think we could be on that path here.
Stephen Means (04:29.933)
All three starters locked in. I think we know what the top four is in 2024 already. And if Emeka Ibuka wasn’t here, then Brandon Innis would just slide up a spot. I think in 2025, it’s just you’re outside guys or Jeremiah Smith and Cardinal Tate and then you’ve got Brandon Innis in the slot. Now I’m bringing that up solely in a world where maybe they don’t put De’Corian Moore and Land’Jaime Fritz. I’m fully aware that is still very much on the table that they end up getting both of those guys because De’Corian Moore, I believe, visited it.
during the spring and he would not have done that unless he had real interest. And I believe Jamie French was up here this past weekend with a bunch of the South Florida Express guys. So they wouldn’t be up here if they weren’t genuinely interested. I’m saying more in the world where they don’t get those two guys. We’re going to take a quick break there and then we’re going to bring in the net, the final commitment of the weekend. Another potential commitment based on some things that have happened in college football. And then we’re also going to have a discussion about Ohio State’s safety recruiting four months into the Matt Guerrero era here on Buckeye Talk.
So before I give my rant, Andrew, get the text 614-350-3315 and how I feel about some of these commitments that they’ve gotten over the weekend. I do wanna get into the final guy that did commit over the weekend, also from the DePaul Catholic in New Jersey, Deshaun Stewart, tell us more about him.
Andrew (05:42.934)
Yeah, also from DePaul Catholic, same school as Dez Jones, number 284 player in the 247 Sports Composite, number 24 safety, number eight player in the state of New Jersey. Again, this is a Penn State area, so he was talking about a Penn State visit. I actually spoke with him on the phone a couple of days before his commitment. He didn’t really give any indication that he was looking to make a commitment this early. I said, when are you looking to make a commitment? Do you have a timeline or anything like that?
And he said, you know, I would like to have it soon, but I’m not going to rush it. And well, here we are. So I thought that was pretty unique. But again, you’re talking about a guy, he’s a bigger guy, 6’2”, 185. You know, he said that he could make more plays at safety. You know, he said, you know, playing corner and playing safety has kind of taught him a lot about the back end. Said that Ohio State views him as a player that can kind of play anywhere in their secondary.
That is kind of the vibe that I’m getting from a lot of their safety recruiting. Like when they talk to anyone from Fahim Delane to Deshaun Stewart, a lot of times they say, look, a lot of this can be interchangeable and a lot of this we can move you around. So, you know, I think that this, you know, has the potential to be a, you know, a really solid, a really solid pledge here for Ohio State. You know, we will get into this about, you know, the rankings and
how people should feel about safety recruiting or how people should feel about the Stuart commitment or whatever. But I like this. I think that this is a solid, really nice baseline to have as a safety commit, your first safety commit of the class. And I think it kind of gives you a jumping off point to kind of move forward into these next couple of months.
Stephen Means (07:27.717)
So this is from the 419. It’s one of the main questions I had when Deshaun Stewart made this decision as the first safety to jump on. Obviously, Ohio State’s in the running for trade, but not the Ohio native from Shaker Heights. 20 number 27 player top safety in the country. And then Fahim DeLane, who I brought up earlier, number 29 player, number two safety out of Maryland. And then obviously Dorian Brew is still hanging around there. He’s listed as a cornerback, but he could very easily just end up playing safety as well. Originally from Ohio, has since moved to Texas. How does this impact?
Ohio State’s ability to get any collection, either all three of those guys or any just collection of those three guys.
Andrew (08:04.682)
doesn’t to some extent. I mean, I do think though that going into this going, we’re going to get all three of them might have been optimistic even for a program like Ohio State and how well you recruit. But I still think it leaves you in that ballpark for getting these players and for landing some of these guys because they’re all takes. They’re all players that…
If they come to you and say, I want to go to Ohio State, you’re not going to be like, actually give us a few minutes. We got to figure some stuff out. We don’t know if we can do this right now. There, there takes, um, you know, there’s Cano Winston, Kid Attica and Zaga in the DC area. Um, actually not in the DC area in Washington, DC. Um, you know, he’s up there. Um, we’ll, we’ll talk about Cody Hedon in a second. You mentioned for Heme Delane. You mentioned, uh, Trey McNutt, like there’s a lot of players that are really, really good.
in Ohio State’s kind of offer battleground prospect pool right now on their recruiting board that they’re interested in and that they would take. So yeah, I don’t think that this really impacts anything in that regard because just because you signed the number 284 player in the country, or I guess not signed, got a commitment from the number 284 player in the country, does not mean you’re going to turn down the number 27 or whatever that…
that Fahim Delaney is or some of these other guys are, right? That’s just not the way that this works. Fahim Delaney is the number 31 overall player in the country. You’re not turning him down because you had a commitment from Deshaun Stewart. So it does not impact these guys in any way, nor do I think it really says anything about that. I think that what you have when you have Stewart is you have a guy who you like as a player, number 284 in the class, and like I said, I think it gives you a good jumping off point because then you could be in a situation where it’s…
Okay, well, if we tell Stuart no, or if we tell Stuart to hang on and he decides to go elsewhere with his recruitment, and then all of a sudden we only have one guy, and it’s let’s say it’s Fahim Delain, and you get Fahim Delain, that’s great, but then who you’re talking for your second and maybe third safety’s down the line and maybe even maybe even a four, like you could be in some trouble here. So yeah, I don’t think it says much of anything at all about the other guys on their board.
Stephen Means (10:24.537)
We talked about four commitments. There was also one D commitment that matters to Ohio State. It wasn’t from a player in Ohio State’s recruiting class, but it is from a guy that Ohio State, it looks like it’s potentially going to flip for another Big Ten school. Can you tell us about the decision that Cody Haddad, the number 527 player, number 37 athlete who was expected to play safety. How big of a deal is that for Ohio State for a guy who was just on campus not too long ago?
Andrew (10:48.138)
Yeah, so, you know, this to me, I think kind of strikes me as a player that Ohio State wanted to get in on a little bit early. You know, they’re trying to at least, you know, he committed to Wisconsin on January 17th and Ohio State offered three days later. You know, I know that, you know, I know that he, you know, kind of battling through some stuff. It’s at St. Ignatius. But this is a guy who I think Ohio State really thinks is
kind of ascending as you look at his kind of path. I mistakenly sent a thing out to the texters on Monday that said he was at number 527 or 528 overall safety in the class. I didn’t mean 527 safety, I meant 527 overall. So for those of you that read that text and didn’t see my follow-up on Tuesday morning, I do apologize. There are not 527 safeties ahead of him. But I think that this is a guy who you kind of map out and you’re like, you know what?
This is a guy who Ohio State very clearly feels pretty solid with. I mean, there wouldn’t kind of be this level of interest if things were, if they were uncertain, I should say that. And again, I think this is another situation where probably doesn’t say much of anything about your interest in Fahim Delayn or where you think you stand with Fahim Delayn or,
Trey McNutt or any of these other guys, because if Fahim Delaney comes to you and says, I want to come, I’m ready to make my commitment, I’m ready to lock in, you’re saying yes. So that to me is kind of where I stand on this. I don’t think it really says much of anything about that or any of the other highly tatted guys. So Haddad, I think is a player that we’re going to have to monitor over the next couple of weeks and couple of months. And especially as his senior season starts at St. Ignatius where maybe this is a guy who can rise to rankings.
Stephen Means (12:45.885)
But one of our techs, 614-35L3315, I think brought up a very astute point. And I think I agree with him. And I wanna ask you this question and now we can get into this conversation. Why is it this great to land a three star, four star recruit this early in the process, Andrew? And that’s what we’re looking at here with both Haddad and Stewart. You’re talking about one guy. Right, but assuming that they get both of those guys.
Andrew (13:08.738)
To be fair, they haven’t had it at all, but yes, I know what you’re saying. Yeah, I wanted to be clear on that, yeah.
Stephen Means (13:14.049)
Stewart is in the mid 200s and Haddad is in the 500s. That’s potentially by the end of the spring where things look like they’re trending right now, as maybe even by the spring game, this happens. What Ohio State safety class is going to be? Understanding that more names are going to be added to that list, but watch the Ohio State fans be excited about what the safety recruiting is right now.
Andrew (13:37.622)
Yeah, you know, I look at this from a couple of different perspectives. I think the number one thing is they’re not final. Like these rankings are not, you know, these rankings are not, you know, something that are set in stone. You know, this is like something that is fluctuating, right?
We talked about this with Javan Boggs when he committed back in October. We’re like, hey, he’s probably going to going to rise up the rankings here pretty soon. And that’s kind of exactly what he did. I mean, Haddad, he I know he had some injuries that he was kind of dealing with in his junior year. You know, we missed some time. And that’s a that’s a situation where.
think you could probably argue that he would be higher if he had a full season of junior film if he didn’t have an injury to kind of work through. And I think that would be something to take note of. And I think that it’s reasonable to expect these guys to climb up the rankings. I think, I think that that’s fine. And I think you should also be excited for that reason, but for also because you’re in, it feels like on more guys than you were before.
Right? Like when we talked about KJ Bolden and kind of that recruitment and I guess, I mean, Stephen, you could probably speak to this, the Caleb Downs 1.0 recruitment and some of these other kind of high level safety recruitments. It kind of felt like it was that or bust. And I think that with some of these other guys, like if you don’t get Fahim Delain, you’ve still got Trey McNutt. And if you don’t get Trey McNutt, you’ve still got Kanoa Winston.
and there’s Masai DeLome, he’s a top 100 player out of Virginia too that Ohio State has offered. Like there’s players there that Ohio State likes and that are very highly regarded. And I made this point to a texter, which I get it. Like I understand looking at why should I care about the number 284 player? You know, what does this matter? Well, Ohio State’s not gonna go out, they’re not gonna sign the top three players at every position in every single cycle. Like that’s just not gonna work.
Andrew (15:53.418)
You’re going to have to sign players that you think maybe are undervalued or you think you have a good read on or you think can help you in a specific way. And I think that that’s kind of where we’re at with the safety recruiting right now, where look, if they don’t get for him to lane and Trey McNutt and can know Winston and beside alone and they’re none of you know, during brew doesn’t go to Ohio State. And there’s all these other players that turn out Ohio State and the number one safety in your class is rated like 250.
Yeah, OK, let’s have that conversation. But I think these rankings can change, number one. And number two, you’re talking about a situation where Ohio State looks in pretty solid spots to land at least one of those guys. And I would feel good about that. And I would feel really good about it because if you get the number 31 overall player in the class, and then even if you don’t sign anybody else, if you get number 31 and you have a high level player like that coming in, and then you have a 284 player coming in as the second safety, I think you can live with that.
especially with the way that this quarterback recruiting is going forward.
Stephen Means (16:56.005)
So here’s been the safeties recruits in the Ryan Day era. In the 2024 class, the highest ranked guy you had was Jalen McClain, he was number 370 and the number 36 safety in the country.
Stephen Means (17:14.693)
You also had Leroy Roker, the number 832 player, and number 88 safety in the country. Those are your safeties. You missed out on KJ Bolton. In the 2023 class, your highest rated safety was Malik Hartford, in-state kid, number 151, number 11 overall safety. Showed some promise as a true freshman. And if Caleb Downs is not here, he probably would be in line to be a starter in 2024, but Caleb Downs is here, so he’s probably not going to be a starter.
You had Jaden Bonsu, the number 274 player, and number 24 safety, also from New Jersey. So getting a lot of safeties from New Jersey. You also had Cedric Hawkins, the number, excuse me, 357 player and the number 35 safety in the country. You missed out on Caleb Downs. That was, to your point, that was a Caleb Downs situation and you missed out on him. Now, Nick Saban retired and so it gave you a second life to go get Caleb Downs, but the point is, you missed out on him. Those are Perry Elianos, two classes.
This is pre-Perry Eliano. This is the safety recruiting. In your 2021 class, you had one safety. His name was Jalen Johnson. He was number 406 player, number 30 safety in the country out of La Salle in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has since transferred. Your 2020 class, here are your safeties. Lathan Ransom, number 167 player, number 11 safety in the country out of Arizona, same high school as B. John Robinson. Pretty quality player, but not a top 100 recruit.
You had Legend Cavazos, number 383 player, number 29 safety, ended up playing cornerback for you, didn’t really turn out into much in a sense transfer to North Carolina. 2019, you had…
Stephen Means (18:56.313)
Ronnie Hickman, number 115 player, number 10 overall safety, ended up being a multi-year starter for, he’s a pretty decent player here while he was here. He led the team in tackles in 2021. And you had Bryson Shaw, number 571 player and number 45 overall safety. Was your starting safety in 2021 when Josh Proctor went down and it didn’t look great, he didn’t transfer to USC, which I’m not sure if he’s still playing college football or not. Then you get the Josh Proctor in your 2018 class.
as the last top 100 recruit Ohio State has had at safety. And he was number 76 player in that class, I believe. That’s my issue. And it’s been a constant theme of the Ryan Day era is not being able to get top 100 safeties and it feeling like if you don’t get Caleb down, you end up with what you’ve had the last couple of years is a bunch of guys in the 200s and lower. And it’s part of the reason why Perry Eliano is no longer here. Ryan Day said it when he got asked how he evaluates his staff. Recruiting is number one.
And the inability to go get a guy who isn’t in your backyard is probably reason number one why Perry Eliano was not retained. He wasn’t fired, his contract expired, and they just didn’t retain it. So now they brought Matt Grary in. It’s fine, I’m with you. I think that these are two quality early pickups for Ohio State. But Fahim Delane, Trey McNutt, Dorian Brew, can you get two of those three?
I don’t think I get from the four away. They’re the person that asked that question. Why is it great to land a three star, four star this, this early in the process? I agree with them. It’s a unique depth. Every to your point, everybody in your class is not going to be the number one player in America. That’s not how you build a roster. But you haven’t had a top 100 safety since 2018. And that was Josh Proctor. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that in a situation where it feels like you’re in the mix for.
three guys who are considered five-star recruits, one of them is in your own backyard and the other one is from DC and you feel like you’re already in the lead there, can you lock down two of those three? Matt Guerrero and Tim Walton. Can you do that? Because you’re doing it at corner. So half of your secondary is already getting five-star recruits, top 100 recruits from everywhere. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you do the same thing at safety.
Andrew (21:22.766)
That’s fair. And that’s fair. And I think, I’m trying to think of a good example like this. You’ve hit your singles, but now you gotta hit a home run, right? And now you gotta land somebody big. Now you gotta win a major battle, right? I guess the example would be, let’s use Ohio State as an example, because I believe that’s who we’re talking about anyway. You beat Indiana.
You beat Western Kentucky, you beat Youngstown State. Congratulations. You did things that you probably should do. Cody Haddad’s a kid that you should, that’s a kid that you should want. Now you gotta go beat a Notre Dame on the road. And now you gotta go win a tough battle on the road, right? You gotta go do that. You’ve got the kids that make sense and that, that like, again, a kid like Cody Haddad, if Ohio State wants him, Ohio State should get him. That’s the way that should work at St. Ignatius.
And Deshaun Stewart, again, a four star player, I think good upside, that’s a player that you should be able to get. 284 in the class, yep, absolutely. But now you gotta go win something big, right? And sometimes it’s a Notre Dame where you have a great win and you have a wonderful moment and everybody can rally around it and say, look at where things are headed. And then sometimes you have a Michigan where you’re looking at it like, oh God, where do we go from here? So you can do that. And I think…
It’s fair to bring up, but I do also think that it’s fair to give Macquarie a shot at these other guys that Ohio State has kind of been in on for a while. And I think that.
Stephen Means (23:03.273)
But he’s also not the control, but he’s not new to this, right? He was gone from Ohio State for a year. So he was here at the beginning of a lot of these recruitments in a different role, obviously, so he couldn’t leave out and go recruit on the road. But when they were on campus, he was just as involved with a lot of these guys. So it’s, it’s a little bit of a headstart in his recruitment.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, that certainly helps. But I do think, I mean, Fahim, I mean, that is a guy that, you know, I know Larry Johnson knows that school really well. I know Ryan Day knows that school really well. Like that, at Good Council, that’s an area that you have a good relationship there and you feel like you’re in a pretty good standing. And I mean, like if you add Fahim Delaney to this safety class, I mean…
I don’t think anybody should have any complaints about kind of where this group would be if, you know, especially because I think Haddad is probably the most likely riser of this of this class, like in general, just because I’m not talking offense, defense or safety recruiting or anything. I think he’s probably the guy who you’re going to see, you know, take a significant step forward in the ranking. So especially, I mean, as he gets on the field in his senior year, like if you see Haddad kind of rise up and then you have Haddad, Stewart and Delaney, and those are your three, I think you should be feeling pretty good about that.
It’s just you’ve got to make contact with a really good pitch. And you got to find a situation where you can land one of those big guys. And that’s the task now.
Stephen Means (24:34.617)
Mike Russell was the guy who was in charge of Haddad’s recruitment over at Wisconsin. That’s a name that Ohio State fans should know out there. Cody Haddad is probably not going to graduate in the 500s. That’s fair. I’m, we’re not sitting here saying he’s going to turn into a five star recruit over the next seven months here, but it does seem like that’s a guy who just looking at his offer list, he committed to Wisconsin.
And then it felt like Ohio State, maybe some other programs have started to notice him and get involved there. That’s why he committed so quick quickly. And so it does seem like he might be in for a jump. It may be ends up being a guy in the two hundreds. I’m just looking at Ohio State’s offer list right now and looking at the 2025 class and some of the talent in it. And I don’t think it’s an unreasonable thing to say that every single position should have at least one top one 50 player.
by the time we get to signing day. And that includes tight end because there’s a couple of tight ends. This is actually a pretty loaded tight end class. And Keenan Bailey looks like he’s doing work. It looks like Nate Roberts is there in the lead for that guy. The number one 18 player, number five tight end in the country. He’ll be here for the spring game. Luca Gilbert’s in like the top 250. There’s every position on Ohio State’s offer list, according to the composite, has at least one top 150 recruit. And right now, safety, just given the…
Andrew (25:35.502)
He’ll be here for the spring game, by the way. Big deal.
Stephen Means (25:52.317)
track record in offensive line. Offensive lines already got one in Carter Lowe, but I mean, they probably need more and they need to go get a guy who’s not from Ohio. But safety is the only one where we’re getting the signing day, whether it’s in the state or out of the state, I’m not all the way confident in saying they’re gonna be able to meet that. This is my own threshold. I’m not saying Ryan Day’s looking at composter rankings and no, they have their own rankings. But just for the sake of how we have to talk about things on this pod, every single position should have at least one top 150 player by signing day.
I don’t think that’s too much to ask. And safety is the one spot where, just because it hasn’t been done in quite some time, I’m confident that they’re gonna be able to do that in this class.
Andrew (26:30.134)
Well, and it’s a big deal to do that. I think it’s a better idea in theory, what you’re saying, because I think you could say, we really want a 150 player in every position. And I think that there’s obvious positions where you’re like, well, duh. Like at quarterback, yeah. At receiver, yeah. They’re just corner, yeah. Defensive line, yeah. There are just certain positions that are gonna make some sense.
But I think of a position like a tight end or like a linebacker or maybe even like a safety where one year you just might not have that strong of a class and like you might only have, you know, a handful of guys that are in the top 150 and you’re only interested in one of them. And if you swing and miss on those guys, which is allowed to happen, you know, Ohio State’s not gonna win, you know, McArary’s not gonna win every single safety recruiting battle. And James Laurinaitis is not gonna win every single.
Tim Walton and Brian Hartline, they’re not gonna do that every single time. So I think it’s a, if you’re talking about it every year, maybe, but I think if you’re talking about it on aggregate or not in aggregate, in the average, on the average, then I think that that’s a fair thing to say, because when the class is good, you got to load up. But every once in a while you’re going to miss and you got to kind of work in those misses and you got to kind of work in that, that level of error, basically, to say, you know what, if we miss here, we’re not in trouble.
And that’s where we talked about with safety recruiting before. Missing for a, for one year for a cycle is not a death knell for a coach. It doesn’t mean that things are collapsing. Yeah, we’re right. Like it doesn’t mean that, that everything’s going to hit the fan and we’re chicken little running around screaming skies falling and whatever. Like this is, this is something that you can manage, but the problem is like, for example, if Ohio state swings and misses on every single, you know, top recruit in the 2025 class.
man, you better come back with some heat in 2026 or else you’re in trouble. And that’s, I think, where you’re talking about, Perry Leonardo got in trouble and some of these other guys were maybe not at the level that you wanted them to be because you couldn’t stack those classes.
Stephen Means (28:37.277)
I just know Ryan Hart lines why only wide receiver commit right now. Desi Jones that we talked about earlier as a second lowest rated guy in the class. And none of us are worried, right? Whether that guy stays at 366 or he moves up the rankings over the next seven months. We’re not worried because he has a track record that he also goes and gets five stars. He also goes and gets top 100 recruits. Also goes out and get top 150 recruits. Eli Lee is the lowest rated guy in this class at 557. He’s an Ohio kid.
And Tommy Eichenberg was a lower rated guy as well. Yeah, so when you hear that’s the reason they’re in on him so quickly, okay, you can get behind that. But also James Lauren and I just pulled in TJ Alford out of Florida, a top 70 recruit. So you’re not, it’s not all, it’s not a all or nothing situation. Quarterback recruiting, nobody worries because they get highly rated quarterbacks every single year.
Larry Johnson typically goes out and gets highly rated defensive lineman. I know he had an off year in 2023, I believe that was, but he bounced back in 2024. He goes gets Edric Houston and he’s off to a hot start so far in 2025. Safety doesn’t have the track record built in right now to when you tell me their first guy on board is 284 and the guy who might be potentially second on board is in the 500s, you’re going, oh, we don’t need to worry about it. Until so right. So to the point.
This all stems from our texture from the 408. I thought it was a beautiful point to bring up right now and why is it great to land someone this lowly rated so early in the process? It only applies to safety. At other positions, it doesn’t necessarily apply the same way. Only applies to safety and probably offensive line until they start making some work happen. Maybe they get David Sanders in this cycle. So it’s not, I hope that wasn’t too negative.
It was just more pointing out the reality of we’ve been down this road before with safety.
where you’re getting guys in the 200s, you’re getting guys in the 300s, and it feels like you’re just waiting on that top tier guy to pop up in your class. And then you get to August and it hasn’t happened. And then you’re looking back on the safety class and wondering, man, this felt like it was all or nothing in this situation. That’s what Matt Marari stepping into, taking over as a safety coach. You’ll obviously have Tim Walton helping him out as well. And that probably helps because Tim Walton has gotten off to a hot start. But those are the new members of Ohio State 2025 recruiting class. Again, 11 commits.
The number two class nationally behind Notre Dame, which every year, man, Notre Dame seems to be high in the rankings before the actual big boys come to play ball in the recruiting rankings. Yeah. Notre Dame has 19 commitments. Ohio State has 11 commits. The more important thing is the average star rating where Ohio State’s 95.
That’s the highest in the country followed by LSU with 94.28 of guys who have 10 or more commitments. But get the text 614-350-3315. It does feel like Ohio State’s in the midst of a run right now. The spring games coming up quickly and there will be.
plenty of recruits at that game. And maybe there will be some commitments that come out of that as well, but that’s the first place we’ll go with that information. 614-350-3315, two week free trial, 399 after that. For Andrew Gillis, I’m Stephen Means, and that was Puck Eyes Off
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