The Hurry-Up is your nightly dose of updates from the Ohio State football recruiting trail, keeping tabs on the latest from commits and targets from around the country.
Prysock talks Buckeyes, top-10 list
A week ago today, Ohio State found itself on the top-10 list of under-the-radar 2022 cornerback Ephesians Prysock.
Prysock is a 6-foot-3, 170-pounder out of California’s Bishop Alemany High School in Mission Hills (not to be confused with Chris Olave’s alma mater, Mission Hills High School, in San Marcos, California), and he is rated as a four-star prospect. He currently sits at the No. 200 overall ranking, No. 25 at CB and No. 13 in California.
Ohio State is shooting to bring in three cornerbacks in this cycle, and with two already in the fold (Jaheim Singletary, Jyaire Brown) that leaves one spot left to fill. When we talk about the top targets at the position, it’s a trio of familiar names that we ran down last week (Toriano Pride, Ryan Turner, Austin Jordan).
As we’ve noted, though, that is not necessarily an exhaustive list, and Prysock is one of the lesser-talked about cornerback targets who remains on the Buckeyes’ radar.
Top 10 Happy birthday pops (recruitment still open) pic.twitter.com/nY6AveqHSl
— EPHESIANS (@ephe5ian5) March 9, 2021
Ohio State finds itself going up against USC, Arizona State, LSU, Notre Dame, UCLA, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Colorado as the other nine programs Prysock is eyeing. We didn’t have time to run through all 10 programs this week, but Prysock discussed a handful of these schools, with us choosing the five to prompt him on – starting, of course, with the Buckeyes.
- Ohio State – “They’ve been telling me how they want me at Ohio State. How it’d be a great fit for me and a great fit for them also. And how I’m a really nice corner and what they’re looking for and what they’ve been looking for in past years – a 6-3 and long corner who can move in and out of his breaks and things like that.
“Because I haven’t been on any visits that top 10 was really based off communication with schools and things like that. Ohio State has been talking to me more than some of those schools in the top 10. They would pretty much be in my next drop when that is, if I’m possibly able to go on a visit out there. But I really love them and my dad does too. He thinks very high of them. They can for sure get me to the next level past college with a great education and stuff like that.”
- Notre Dame – “Notre Dame has been talking to me a little bit more about Niuafe Tuihalamaka (Prysock’s teammate at Bishop Alemany). He’s one of the top linebackers, I think he’s the No. 1 inside linebacker in my class. Notre Dame has been coming real hard for me and him. He’s a really good guy. Like I said, most of these schools up here are really from communication. They’ve been talking to me a lot more than some of these other schools.”
- USC – “As a kid, USC’s always been a dream school because it was in my area, one of the biggest colleges. Now they’re a pretty big school recruiting me heavy. I feel like they can get guys out (to the NFL) to a certain extent, too.”
- LSU – “Shoot, they’ve been great at recruiting. They’re a really great DBU school, which I love. They were my second offer, and I was very excited about that because that same year they won the national championship, which was really crazy about it too.”
- Arizona State – “(Cornerbacks coach Chris) Hawkins is a great guy. He’s been recruiting me very hard, and they’re getting some other recruits and having them come talking to me to get me over there. It’s been really good, and I like them.”
A little bit from this weekend pic.twitter.com/QnTSrphVWl
— EPHESIANS (@ephe5ian5) February 17, 2021
Thus far, USC is the only school of the 10 that Prysock has had a chance to visit. When it comes to potentially making self-guided visits, he says that he’s unlikely to make any. Instead, he plans to wait for the dead period to be lifted as there is increasing optimism that it will end and that the NCAA will implement a quiet period.
Because he’s waiting for that to happen, there is no set timetable for his list to be trimmed further or for an ultimate college decision to be made.
“As of right now, I’m just waiting on things to open back up to where I could go on visits and stuff like that,” he said. “I’m just waiting to go out and see what I like and go on visits. So I don’t really have a timeline.”
Prysock hasn’t spoken with Ohio State’s staff too much about setting up a visit, just that when it gets closer to the summer that they will likely set one up. For now, it’s all about continuing to build a relationship between the SoCal athlete and the Columbus coaches.
“It’s really Coach (Kerry) Coombs that I talk to,” he said. “I talked to Coach (Ryan) Day a couple of days ago on a Zoom call. That’s really it, just them two. Coach Coombs, he’s very energetic. Coach Day is a real cool guy and just straight up about everything – from schoolwork to business and handling things in the classroom to handling things on the football field and how they can get you to the next level.
“They’re not cocky, but (they talk about) all the past dudes they’ve coached have been to the next level in the NFL and things like that.”
Coombs has discussed some of the players in the past that he’s helped develop into first-round NFL talent, and Prysock is fully confident that if he wound up at Ohio State that he would be next in line due to Coombs’ coaching prowess.
“I feel like he can just develop me to where I’m ready for the next level after a certain amount of time of balling on the college level and having people in the NFL looking at me,” Prysock said. “I feel like he could develop me pretty well and get me ready, really.”
In the end, this definitely has the look and feel of a recruitment that will see Prysock stay on the west coast. As we noted plenty of times last week, Ohio State definitely has that trio of Pride, Turner and Jordan highest on its board, but Prysock will remain an intriguing option, especially if he winds up making a visit this summer.
OSU offers younger Uiagalelei
Ohio State on Monday officially threw its hat into the ring for a familiar name – a familiar last name, anyway.
According to Rivals' Adam Gorney, the Buckeyes have extended an offer to 2023 four-star defensive end/tight end Matayo Uiagalelei.
#OhioState is the newest offer for 2023 Matayo Uiagalelei from Bellflower (Calif) St John Bosco. He plays defensive end and tight end. @JosephAHastings @COACH_T_BULLOCK
— Adam Gorney (@adamgorney) March 15, 2021
Uiagalelei, the No. 73 overall player and No. 5 weakside defensive end in the cycle, is the No. 5 prospect in the state of California out of powerhouse St. John Bosco – the same program that housed Wyatt Davis and Kourt Williams. He is the younger brother of Clemson quarterback and former five-star signee DJ Uiagalelei.
The Tigers, however, have not yet offered. They have only offered two players in the 2023 class. Uiagalelei also has offers from Alabama, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Oregon, Texas and USC.
Header photo: Ephesians Prysock – Lucas Aguilar/247Sports
