Ryan Day inherited a monster of a program, and he appears destined to keep it in the upper echelon of college football.
One of the main reasons he has impressed to such a degree in just his second full year as Ohio State’s head coach is his maintaining of the program’s status as a recruiting behemoth. The Buckeyes’ ability to bring in top-flight talent didn’t experience a drop-off whatsoever when Urban Meyer retired.
Day landed the fifth-ranked 2020 recruiting class a year ago, and on Wednesday he signed 21 prospects to what’s currently the second-best class in the 2021 cycle, per the 247Sports composite rankings. Much has been said and written about the latest signees, but I figured some additional context to this class and where it fits in in the modern recruiting era (2000-present) could help.
So, here are 23 tidbits on the Buckeyes’ 2021 recruiting class and the rankings within:
- The average Ohio State recruit has a rating of 94.56, per the 247Sports composite. That’s the second-best mark in college football, just 0.04 points behind Alabama.
- Ohio State secured the No. 1 players at three different positions: Wide receiver Emeka Egbuka, guard Donovan Jackson and running back TreVeyon Henderson. Only Alabama – offensive tackle JC Latham, weakside defensive end Dallas Turner and cornerback Ga'Quincy McKinstry – also signed three players at the top of their respective positions.
- Ohio State signed the four top-rated players in the state of Ohio – Jack Sawyer, Mike Hall, Jayden Ballard and Reid Carrico – for the second time in the modern recruiting era, following the 2014 cycle (Dante Booker, Marshon Lattimore, Erick Smith, Parris Campbell).
- Jack Sawyer is the second-highest-rated defensive signee in Ohio State history, trailing only Ted Ginn Jr., who moved from cornerback to wide receiver near the beginning of his college career.
- This is the third time in the modern recruiting era and second time in a row that Ohio State has landed two top-10 overall prospects in a class, with Jack Sawyer and Emeka Egbuka following in the footsteps of Chase Young and Jeff Okudah in 2017 and Julian Fleming and Paris Johnson in 2020.
- Kyle McCord is the first five-star quarterback to sign with Ohio State since 2011. You might have heard of the previous guy: Braxton Miller.
- Donovan Jackson surpassed Wyatt Davis as the highest-rated offensive guard to sign with Ohio State out of high school.
- By landing Donovan Jackson to follow Wyatt Davis, Nicholas Petit-Frere, Harry Miller and Paris Johnson, Ohio State has now signed a five-star offensive lineman in five straight recruiting cycles. Before this streak began in the 2017 cycle, the Buckeyes had only signed three five-star offensive linemen since the modern recruiting era began in 2000 (Alex Boone, Derek Morris and Mike Adams).
- With Emeka Egbuka following Julian Fleming and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Ohio State has now landed three five-star wide receivers in the last two classes combined. No college football program had signed three five-star wideouts across back-to-back classes since USC in 2004 (Fred Davis, Dwayne Jarrett) and 2005 (Patrick Turner).
- Ohio State is the first program to sign No. 1 wide receivers in back-to-back cycles – Emeka Egbuka and Julian Fleming – since USC in 2010 (Kyle Prater) and 2011 (George Farmer).
- For the first time in the modern recruiting era, Ohio State signed three wide receivers ranked top-100 overall in back-to-back classes.
- Ohio State landed either the No. 1 or No. 2 player in the states of Ohio, Washington, Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Kentucky.
- Ohio State and Texas A&M are the only two programs in the country to land at least one top-five prospect out of the state of Texas in each of the 2019, 2020 and 2021 cycles.
- In securing Jakailin Johnson and Jordan Hancock, Ohio State signed two top-four cornerbacks in a cycle, which had happened five times beforehand (2004 Florida State, 2010 Alabama, 2014 Alabama, 2017 Ohio State and 2018 USC).
- With TreVeyon Henderson and Evan Pryor, this is the third time in the modern recruiting era that Ohio State has signed two top-100 running backs out of high school in a single class, following 2001 (Lydell Ross, Maurice Hall) and 2018 (Jaelen Gill, Brian Snead).
- Ohio State signed a five-star quarterback (Kyle McCord), five-star running back (TreVeyon Henderson) and five-star wide receiver (Emeka Egbuka) in the same class. That had never been done by the Buckeyes – or any other Big Ten team – before in the modern recruiting era.
- The gap between Ohio State’s average player rating (94.56) and the second-best average player rating in the Big Ten (Michigan, 90.37) is 4.19 points. That’s the largest gap between the best and second-best average in the Big Ten in at least 15 years.
- Ohio State signed five five-star recruits. The other 13 Big Ten programs signed two five-star recruits (J.J. McCarthy, Michigan; Nolan Rucci, Wisconsin).
- Ohio State signed 12 top-100 recruits and 16 top-200 recruits. The rest of the Big Ten combined signed nine top-100 recruits and 16 top-200 recruits.
- Ohio State has five five-star recruits in its class. Eight of the 13 other Big Ten teams have four or fewer four-star recruits in their respective classes.
- Ohio State signed the highest-rated running back (TreVeyon Henderson), wide receiver (Emeka Egbuka), offensive guard (Donovan Jackson), defensive end (Jack Sawyer), defensive tackle (Mike Hall), linebacker (Reid Carrico), cornerback (Jakailin Johnson), safety (Andre Turrentine) and athlete (Denzel Burke) in the Big Ten.
- The gap between Ohio State’s average player rating (94.56) and Penn State’s average player rating (88.93, which ranks fourth behind Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin) is larger than the gap between Penn State’s average player rating and the worst average player rating in the Big Ten (Illinois, 84.16).
- Ohio State’s average player rating of 94.56 currently ranks second in team history behind the 2017 class’ 94.59 average player rating, and it would take the top spot if the Buckeyes can land five-star defensive lineman J.T. Tuimoloau.
