Kye Stokes didn’t even have a composite ranking when he committed to Ohio State on May 2.
On Wednesday, the four-star recruit signed his National Letter of Intent to officially become a Buckeye as the No. 17-rated athlete prospect and No. 357 player overall, and the one-time unheralded Stokes has plenty of potential to be a safety of the future for the Ohio State secondary.
The Stokes File
- Class: 2022
- Size: 6-foot-2/185 lbs
- Pos: ATH
- School: Armwood (Seffner, Florida)
- Composite Rating: ★★★★
- Composite Rank: 357 (17 ATH)
Stokes’ 6-foot-2, 185-pound frame jumps off the page, but that’s only compounded by the 10.8-second 100-yard dash speed that helped earn him offers from the likes of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, LSU, Miami, Notre Dame and Ohio State.all in the span of a week in late April.
The Seffner, Florida, native and Armwood High School product turned them all down in favor of the Buckeyes, though, and despite the wide-ranging positional versatility that Stokes showed off in high school, he appears likely to play a position that Ohio State hasn’t gotten much consistency out of in the past two years.
During his junior season at Armwood, Stokes played both on defense as a cornerback and safety and on offense as a receiver. Stokes picked off five passes and tallied 34 tackles while hauling in 170 yards receiving on seven receptions on the other side of the ball.
More recently, Stokes led Armwood with six pass defenses in seven games as a senior, and he recorded a pair of interceptions with two separate 50-yard returns to boot. Stokes finished with 25 total tackles, with two of those going for loss. On offense, Stokes caught four passes for 68 yards and even received one carry out of the backfield in his final year.
There won’t exactly be a lack of safeties on the Buckeye roster when Stokes enters the program, but the free safety position that Stokes looks poised to play has received no shortage of criticism since the departure of Jordan Fuller following the 2019 season. Marcus Hooker held the starting job in 2020 before losing it to Josh Proctor, but Proctor suffered a season-ending injury in Week 2 of the 2021 season that enabled Bryson Shaw to take over the reins to mostly mixed reactions the rest of the way.
Proctor could be the favorite to start again in 2022, as he is expected to return for another season, but Shaw will likely still be around while Jantzen Dunn – another four-star safety recruit – enters his second season after a season-ending injury of his own in early October.
The Buckeyes have also not shied away from giving free safety reps to players like Lathan Ransom and Cameron Martinez either in practice, warmups or games, despite primarily playing cover safety.
Matt Barnes and company may try Stokes at multiple spots in the secondary, given his track record and the staff’s willingness to move players around, but Stokes’ combination of speed and length certainly won’t hurt him no matter where he plays for Ohio State.
