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.
In this edition of the temporarily not-nightly Hurry-Up, we share updates from a trio of prospects in the 2023 recruiting class who have each been talking with the Buckeyes and will be visiting Ohio State next month to participate in camps.
OT/DE A.J. Salley
A rising junior at Miamisburg High School, the same high school that produced Josh Myers, A.J. Salley announced Wednesday that he will be visiting Ohio State on June 16.
A lot has changed in the past few weeks, official June schedule
— aj salley (@salley_aj) May 12, 2021
Notre dame - June 6th
Cincinnati- June 10th
Ohio state - June 16th
Kentucky - June 22nd
Pittsburgh- June 26th@vincemarrow @OSUCoachKDub @Marcus_Freeman1 @BatesBacker @_maximus347
Salley does not yet have an offer from the Buckeyes, but he’s hoping to change that when he participates in the camp next month. A longtime Buckeye fan who describes Ohio State as “a dream school,” Salley said he had a 35-minute phone conversation with Ohio State offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson this past week.
“He wanted to get me up there on kind of like an unofficial visit type of thing and go up there and be in the camp for a little bit so he can see how I move, and then after that go and see the facilities and go see the coaches and all that,” Salley told Eleven Warriors. “And he said it would be around like a three- or four-hour thing.”
Although Salley, who is ranked by 247Sports as the No. 19 offensive tackle in the class of 2023, has played mostly on the offensive line so far in his Miamisburg career, he could end up playing defensive end in college and said the Buckeyes are looking at him on both sides of the ball.
At 6-foot-5 but only 235 pounds right now, Salley believes his ability to move will stand out when he camps at Ohio State, which he thinks his film showcases, too.
“In the spread, the offensive linemen, we move a lot, we’re always moving, always pass setting,” Salley said. “I’m always getting to the next level and getting to the linebacker.”
Salley will also be visiting Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Kentucky and Pittsburgh in June; he already holds offers from the Bearcats, Wildcats and Panthers, along with offers from Oregon, Tennessee, Toledo and Wisconsin. Because of the year-long dead period that’s prevented him from making any visits at this point, however, his recruiting process will really be just beginning when he goes on his June camp tour.
“Just a few months ago, I was unranked, I had no offers. And everything’s coming really fast. And I’m 100% humble and grateful for it. But I’m just excited,” Salley said. “The recruiting process has been fun, but it’s gonna take off to a whole nother level after June.”
As the recruiting process ramps up, Salley expects the relationships he builds with each coaching staff to be the biggest factor in his eventual decision.
“When it comes down to it, I’m gonna go wherever I feel like the coaching staff’s built the best relationship with me,” Salley said. “I have no clue where I want to go at this point. It’s so early. I’m just looking for a coaching staff to really invest in me as a player, and I want to go wherever I feel like I’m most wanted.”
One factor Ohio State will have going for it if it decides to offer Salley, though, will be his connection to Myers, who was selected in the second round of this year’s NFL draft by the Green Bay Packers after earning first-team All-Big Ten center honors for the Buckeyes last season.
“I’ve always looked up to Josh as a mentor,” Salley said. “I watched him play high school football here. I was in the stands screaming his name as a little kid, always looking up to him. He would come to my practices and I would always work with him when I was little. And I’ve talked to him on the phone a few times, I’ve talked to him in person about going forward with football and everything and I look up to him kind of like a big brother to me, and trying to follow in his footsteps, hopefully.
“And I see Josh and I see what he did and I see what they turned him into as a complete player. When he came in, he played offensive guard and he completely went through a whole body transformation at Ohio State and they crafted him into what he is today. And it feels like any player that goes to Ohio State, they just seem to do a really good job of transforming players.”
DT Keith Sampson Jr.
Another 2023 lineman who will visit Ohio State next month is New Bern, North Carolina defensive tackle Keith Sampson Jr., who will be camping at eight different schools during the month of June as well as Coastal Carolina in July.
— Keith Sampson Jr. (KJ) (@ksampson94) May 15, 2021
While Sampson doesn’t yet have a 247Sports composite ranking, he’s already accumulated an impressive list of offers that’s proof enough that Sampson is one of the most coveted defensive tackles in his class. He was offered by Ohio State in April, and also has offers from more than a dozen other schools including Alabama, Duke, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia Tech and East Carolina – the other schools he’s planning to camp at in June.
Like Salley, Sampson’s primary recruiter at Ohio State is Wilson, who he says he’s been talking to “at least once a week.”
“He’s just straight up. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything,” Sampson said of Wilson. “Outside of football, we talk about our families. Basically anything. It’s not just always about football with Coach Wilson. So that’s one of the main things that I like about him.”
Sampson said Ohio State, Duke, Alabama and South Carolina are the schools who he has had the most communication with.
He’s only spoken with Ohio State defensive line coach Larry Johnson once so far, but he’s excited for the opportunity to work with Johnson and get to know him better at next month’s camp. He said the Buckeyes’ coaches like “how quick I am off the ball, how I use my hands on getting off the blocks and how I play the game of football,” and he wants to show at the camp that he’s “in even better shape” than he was during the season while also getting the opportunity to see Ohio State for himself for the first time.
“I just want to see how the atmosphere is there, just to be able to walk around Ohio State and just feel how the vibe is there,” Sampson told Eleven Warriors. “Hopefully I’ll get to interact with some of the players, so I can get their point of view of how it’s going at Ohio State.”
Sampson says he wants to build relationships with not only coaches but also players on each team during the recruiting process, as he believes finding the right team culture fit will have a direct impact on how successful he is at the next level.
“At the end of the day, I just want everything to be like a brotherhood,” Sampson said. “Make sure we’re all disciplined, everybody’s disciplined on the team because if you’re not disciplined, then you’re not gonna really have a good team, honestly. Just make sure that the school and the area is best for me.”
CB Ethan Nation
Just days after picking up an offer from the Buckeyes on Monday, 2023 cornerback Ethan Nation has also scheduled a visit to Ohio State.
The 10th-ranked cornerback in the class of 2023 told Eleven Warriors that he will be visiting Ohio State on June 22, where he’ll also be working out at the last of the Buckeyes’ six one-day camps scheduled for June.
Nation’s father told 247Sports’ Steve Wiltfong that they also plan to visit Georgia, Clemson, Alabama, Florida, Notre Dame and LSU next month.
Clemson is the only one of those schools that hasn’t yet offered Nation, a native of Roswell, Georgia, who already holds more than 40 offers going into his junior year.
