Ohio State's 2023 recruiting class has suffered another blow.
Four-star Georgia cornerback Kayin Lee officially flipped from Ohio State to Auburn on Wednesday. This comes on the heels of Lee visiting Auburn in early December and sporting Tigers apparel as he prepared to play for a state championship the week after.
#wareagle lets do it pic.twitter.com/7aGuuz8YFs
— Luh Kay (@_kayinlee) December 21, 2022
Lee is the fifth player to decommit from OSU's current cycle, joining Brock Glenn, Dijon Johnson, Ty Lockwood and Mark Fletcher. This also marks another Signing Day where an OSU cornerback has flipped a commitment, as Terrance Brooks decided to flip to Texas a year ago.
The 5-foot-11, 185-pound cornerback has long been on Ohio State's radar, as he picked up his OSU offer in June of 2021. While Lee had always been intrigued by the Buckeyes, he committed to his hometown Georgia Bulldogs in September of that year. But Lee decommitted from Georgia in February, opening the door for the Buckeyes to re-engage with their former priority prospect.
OSU cornerbacks coach Tim Walton and Lee hit it off immediately, with Walton relating to Lee with his Georgia roots. Even more so, OSU's hiring of defensive quality control coach Miguel Patrick did wonders in helping OSU land Lee, as Patrick was Lee's former coach at Cedar Grove High School (Ellenwood, Georgia). Lee's recruitment the second time around was quick, as he committed to the Buckeyes in April.
But Patrick recently left OSU to become UAB's defensive line coach under new head coach Trent Dilfer, which did the Buckeyes no favors in their fight to retain Lee.
With Lee no longer in the picture, OSU is down to two cornerback commits in its current class, Calvin Simpson-Hunt and Jermaine Mathews. If it's any consolation to Buckeye fans, it could have been much worse, as Miami was making a heavy push to lure Mathews away with a rumored lucrative NIL offer. But Mathews dispelled any speculation and said he plans on honoring his commitment to Ohio State and enrolling in the University in January.
This also opens the door for OSU to be aggressive in the portal, as 247Sports' Steve Wiltfong has reported the Buckeyes have shown significant interest in Virginia cornerback Fentrell Cypress, who entered the transfer portal in early December. OSU hasn't been connected with Cypress much since that report, but with an open cornerback spot available, Ohio State may make him a much higher priority now.
With Lee no longer in the fold, Ohio State will have to act fast if it wants to recover from the latest blow to its 2023 class.
