We’re officially in official visit season.
Starting on Friday, Ohio State football will begin its first of four official visit weekends, with members of the coaching and recruiting staff ready to put a full-court press on various targets in the 2025 class.
OSU sits at 12 commitments total in the 2025 cycle and is No. 2 overall in 247Sports’ team recruiting rankings for the class despite having 10 fewer commitments than the current No. 1 team, Notre Dame. By the end of June, the Buckeyes hope their commitments will grow considerably.
Which brings us to the newest edition of the recruiting board.
As always, rankings for Eleven Warriors’ monthly recruiting editorial have no perfect formula but are based on a combination of many factors, including roster needs for the Buckeyes in future seasons, the caliber of the player and how likely that player is to come to Columbus on National Signing Day.
But for this month, we’re going to add a new wrinkle to keep it a little more fun. For the May edition of the Heat Check only, I’ve added another qualifier that the recruit has to have an official visit scheduled for June.
So for example, that means I’ve left off guys like Jaime Ffrench Jr., who would normally crack the top 12 but won’t take an official visit to Columbus until later this fall. Five-star safety Trey McNutt is another obvious omission, and while he likely will take an official visit to OSU eventually, he doesn’t have a date set at this time.
With the current change in mind, we have five new names compared to last month’s edition of the board.
| PROSPECT | POSITION | RANK | PREV. | RATING | OTHERS IN THE MIX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DAVID SANDERS JR. | OT | 1 | 1 | ★★★★★ | Clemson•Alabama•Georgia•South Carolina•Tennessee |
| FAHEEM DELANE | S | 2 | 6 | ★★★★ | Oregon•Alabama•Texas•LSU•Virginia Tech |
| JORDON DAVISON | RB | 3 | 5 | ★★★★ | Texas•Oregon•Texas A&M•Alabama•Georgia•USC |
| JUSTIN HILL | DE/LB | 4 | 4 | ★★★★ | Alabama•USC•Oregon |
| DORIAN BREW | CB/S | 5 | 7 | ★★★★★ | USC•Texas•Texas A&M•LSU•Oregon |
| DAKORIEN MOORE | WR | 6 | 12 | ★★★★★ | Oregon•Texas |
| TRAJEN ODOM | DT | 7 | NA | ★★★★ | USC•UCLA•Oregon |
| NATHANIEL OWUSU-BOATENG | LB | 8 | NA | ★★★★ | Notre Dame•Michigan•USC |
| MARIYON DYE | DE | 9 | NA | ★★★★ | Georgia•Florida State•Purdue•Tennessee•Penn State•Michigan |
| QUINCY PORTER | WR | 10 | NA | ★★★★ | Penn State•Michigan•Alabama•Florida State |
| BO JACKSON | RB | 11 | 9 | ★★★★ | Georgia•Alabama |
| JAYVON MCFADDEN | OL | 12 | 12 | ★★★ | Penn State•Colorado•Maryland•South Carolina•Texas A&M•Florida |
David Sanders Jr.
OSU official visit: June 21
Pretty easy decision here for the No. 1 spot. Ohio State has a legit shot at converting on the nation’s top offensive lineman, and the Buckeyes’ roster really, really could use a premier offensive tackle. After missing out on the upper-echelon tackles in the past few cycles, Justin Frye could really use this recruiting win.
Faheem Delane
OSU official visit: June 7
Delane has long been a coveted target for Ohio State, and you can expect Tim Walton and Matt Guerrieri to put a full-court press on the Maryland prospect next week. OSU has two safeties committed already for 2025, but Delane would be the premier headliner of that position should the Buckeyes land him. Ohio State has swung and missed a few times for elite safety prospects in recent recruiting cycles (even if Caleb Downs eventually ended up in Columbus anyway), but this feels like a really good chance to turn that narrative around.
buckeyes pic.twitter.com/E8nHR4qAqV
— Faheem Delane (@faheemdelane) May 3, 2024
Jordon Davison
OSU official visit: June 21
Davison has all the makings of finding himself near the top of the board. He’s a top-100 prospect, he plays a position the Buckeyes need an impact player at desperately considering what the position group may look like in 2025 and probably considers OSU the favorite in his recruitment. Other schools (mainly Oregon) aren’t going away and this recruitment is far from over, but at this point it would almost feel disappointing if he doesn’t eventually end up in the class.
Justin Hill
OSU official visit: Friday
Hill is down to four schools: OSU, Alabama, USC and Oregon. Oregon and Alabama are the biggest threat to the Buckeyes from that group, but Ohio State will do everything it can to keep the hometown hero in-state. Considering Hill is a perfect fit for the Jack position and Jim Knowles hasn’t really utilized that spot since arriving in Columbus, coaches will have to put in a little extra work to convince the Winton Woods product his best fit is with the Buckeyes. But it’s a winnable recruitment.
Dorian Brew
OSU official visit: June 21
Brew lands here for the upside more than anything else, even as other schools begin to surge in his recruitment. But I wouldn’t count Walton and OSU out yet. The decommitment of Blake Woodby might actually make the Buckeyes more appealing to Brew, even if his best fit in college could be at safety instead of cornerback. It might be an uphill battle to land the Ohio native’s recruitment, but the Buckeyes have at least a puncher’s chance here.
Dakorien Moore
OSU official visit: Friday
One school down, two to go for OSU if it wants to win Moore’s recruitment. Moore decommitted from LSU earlier this month and will now focus on the Buckeyes, Texas and Oregon. All three have a solid shot in the process, and similar to what we said about Brew, I wouldn’t ever count Brian Hartline out when it comes to a high-profile wide receiver recruitment.
Trajen Odom
OSU official visit: June 7
Odom took his second visit to OSU last weekend, a trip that by all accounts was very successful for both parties. He’ll make his return visit to campus in just a few weeks. The Buckeyes will need a strong interior defensive lineman for the 2025 class and while there will be strong competition from a handful of other programs, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Odom eventually fill that role for OSU.
Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng
OSU official visit: June 14
A highly productive unofficial visit earlier this month gave OSU a legitimate chance in Owusu-Boateng’s recruitment. With one linebacker spot left in 2025, Owusu-Boateng is the perfect potential addition to the Buckeyes’ recruiting class, as his speed could be lethal to pair with Eli Lee and Tarvos Alford. USC, Michigan and Notre Dame are all strong contenders here, and it’s worth noting that Owusu-Boateng’s older brother Jeremiah was a successful player with the Fighting Irish. Still, OSU has a real shot here.
Mariyon Dye
OSU official visit: June 14
The Buckeyes already have Zahir Mathis and London Merritt committed for 2025 so the positional need here may not be as high as it would have been otherwise. But Dye is still a potential impact defensive end and the Buckeyes have a terrific shot of keeping the Indiana product in the Midwest. They’ll face steep competition from Purdue, Georgia, Florida State and Tennessee.
Quincy Porter
OSU official visit: June 7
Beyond Ffrench and Moore, it’s hard to pinpoint what wide receivers are at the top of Hartline’s board for 2025. Porter, a top 45 prospect, would be an impact addition for the Buckeyes and there’s strong mutual interest from both parties. OSU’s fiercest competition for the New Jersey native may come from Big Ten rivals Penn State and Michigan. If Hartline goes all in with Porter, it’s hard not to love the Buckeyes’ chances of landing the 6-foot-3, 190-pound product.
Bo Jackson
OSU official visit: Friday
Jackson is still a top priority for Ohio State, but there’s been plenty of smoke connecting the in-state running back to Georgia the past few weeks. Jackson remains uncommitted after visiting the Bulldogs, though, and will take a visit to Columbus this weekend. Carlos Locklyn and OSU will have to pull out all the stops to turn around Jackson’s recruitment and keep the talented Ohio tailback home.
Jayvon McFadden
OSU official visit: Friday
McFadden may be a three-star prospect but he both plays better than his recruiting ranking on the field and plays a position of crucial need for the Buckeyes in 2025. Furthermore, OSU has a terrific shot of landing McFadden as he and Frye have developed a strong rapport. McFadden will be on campus this weekend, with the Buckeyes having an opportunity to put themselves further ahead in the driver’s seat in his recruitment, considering they're the only official visit McFadden has set up so far.
Honorable mentions
Dye and four-star defensive end Damien Shanklin are both priority defensive end targets for the Buckeyes in the 2025 cycle, but it’s unlikely that both will wind up in OSU’s class. Dye got the edge this month in OSU’s recruiting board simply because I like the Buckeyes’ chances of landing him over Shanklin slightly more.
Vernell Brown III, Phillip Bell, Taz Williams, Talyn Taylor and Daylan McCutcheon are all talented wideouts in the 2025 class that have official visits scheduled to OSU that I hated leaving off the board.
OSU has a terrific chance of landing three-star running back Isaiah West, but as a three-star prospect, some players are left on the board with a slightly higher prospect pedigree right now.
Micah DeBose and Jackson Lloyd are both highly touted offensive tackles scheduled to take an official visit to Columbus, but other schools are frontrunners for them at the moment. Offensive lineman Andrew Stargel has a good chance of ending up in OSU’s 2025 class, but we gave the slight edge to McFadden this time even though both could plausibly end up teammates in college.
Four-star linebacker Riley Pettijohn would make a perfect addition to OSU’s linebacker corps, but it will be tough to keep him from going to Texas. Madden Faraimo is another solid linebacker prospect worth considering, but Owusu-Boateng’s skillset would give OSU a bit more versatility.
Maxwell Roy is a standout defensive tackle who could be a good addition to OSU’s 2025 class and is a similar caliber prospect to Odom, but the latter made it a priority to visit campus recently.
Alabama high school teammates and defensive linemen Zion Grady and Malik Autry would each be high-profile additions to the class and made unofficial visits to campus earlier this month, but we’d like to see that momentum continue to surge a little more on the official visit before we consider either a favorite to land in Columbus.
