Here's my stab at a basic review of both Urban Meyer's and Ryan Day's recruiting at Ohio State on the defensive side of the ball. I got the data for the 2012-2023 Ohio State 247 recruiting profiles and found the average recruit rating for each position group in each recruting class. And like the previous post I gave Urban the 2012-2018 recruting classes and Day the 2019-2023 classes. For each position group I found the average recruit rating for each year (if there was a recruit for that position group in that year). I also found the top 5-10 recruits in each position group under each coach.

Defensive Recruiting Overview

Disclaimer: ATH recruits were not included in the below calculations; they have their own section at the bottom of this post. I did check to see how the ATH recruits would've affected the defensive rating average based on it the recruit ended up playing on defense and it would change Urban's average defensive recruit's rating to 0.9292977 and Day's average to 0.932538 FWIW.

Disclaimer: Vonn Bell and Tyreke Johnson had the same composite rating so I broke the tie based on 247 rating.

I think this is going to be a surprise for most people (it at least was for me), but Ryan Day has actually had a higher average rating for defensive recruits as well when compared to Urban Meyer, even if Urban's top 10 consistently matches or bests Day's top 10. The biggest reason I can find for Day's higher average is that 8 Urban recruits (Damon Arnette, Tracy Sprinkle, Rashod Berry, Rodjay Burns, Tre Avery, Luke Roberts, DaVon Hamilton, Darius Slade) have a lower rating than Day's lowest rated recruit (Ty Hamilton). Even though 43.75% of Urban's defensive recruits are rated > 0.95 compared to 41% for Day, it wasn't enough to overcome the fact that 28.75% of Urban's recruits were also rated < 0.9 (compared to 25.64% for Day). Basically, Day's floor is higher for his defensive recruits but Urban's ceiling is a bit higher as well (at least as of this moment). 

DL Recruiting Overview

Disclaimer: The following positions in 247 were used for DL calculations: SDE, WDE, DT, DL, Edge. Since 24/7 moved to DL and Edge positions, I didn't calculate DE and DT calculations; instead I just did the DL as a whole.

Again to my surprise, Day's average DL recruit is rated higher than Urban's average DL recruit and it's not as close as I thought it would be. Again, the top 10 might be misleading due to the pure volume of Urban's DL recruits (32 DL recruits compared to 15 for Day). 53.3% of Day's DL recruits are rated over 0.95, compared to 46.875% for Urban. 25% of Urban's class is over 0.975 compared to 20% for Day but that wasn't enough to overcome the fact that 37.5% of Urban's DL recruits were rated < 0.9 (26.6% for Day).

We're still waiting for DL recruiting in the 2023 class to take off. There are a number of recruits the staff are currently actively pursuing (Keon Keeley, Matayo Uiagalelei, Jason Moore, Damon Wilson, etc.) who would all find themselves on Day's top 10 DL recruits leaderboard. Hopefully the staff can get the job done.

LB Recruiting Overview

At this point I just feel like I should've copy pasted what I was going to write because, once again, Ryan Day edged out Urban Meyer. This time for the average LB recruit's rating for each coach. 50% of Day's LB recruits have had greater than a 0.95 rating, compared to 42% for Urban. This was enough to overcome the fact that 25% of Day's LB recruits have had less than a 0.9 rating, compared to 15.79% for Urban.

Similar to the DL, we're still waiting on LB recruiting to take off for the 2023 class. Specifically, most fans are hoping for the trifecta of Troy Bowles, Tackett Curtis, and Arvell Reece, all of who currently have a rating > 0.9 and whose average would be 0.9473. With their current rating all 3 of these LB recruits would make Day's top 10 (with 2 of them being top 4). Fingers crossed Knowles and company can continue building on their momentum.

CB Recruiting Overview

Day's average CB recruit is also slightly higher rated than that of Meyer. This is helped by 50% of Day's CB recruits being rated > 0.95, comapred to 33% for Meyer. Day is being helped a bit here by sample size so it'll be interersting to see how CB recruiting goes in the next couple years. I for one am also interested in seeing Tim Walton getting the best out of our guys on the field; it already seems like he's been a great asset on the recruiting trail for us.

The 2023 class already has top 100 CB Dijon Johnson in the fold. Currently it looks like the staff are trying to round out the class with 3 more CBs and they've been actively recruiting a number of them (Jermaine Matthews, Kayin Lee, Calvin Simpson-Hunt, etc.). There even have been recent rumors that the Buckeyes have been trending upwards for the nation's 1 overall recruit in the 2023 class, CB Cormani McClain. It'll be fun to see how things shake out.

S Recruiting Overview

The first defensive victory for Urban! His average safety recruit's rating is clearly higher than that of Day. In fact, this might be our first position group where Ryan Day has recruited more players in number than Urban Meyer (10 v 8 recruits) (helped by the 0 S recruits in 2015 and 2016, Urban's S recruits those years were ATHs). 62.5% of Urban's S recruits were rated > 0.95, compared to 10% for Day. Hopefully Knowles can get this fixed QUICK, and he's trying to get his first elite S committment in the #1 S in the 2023 class, Caleb Downs. Downs is one of the most important recruiting battles of the 2023 class in my opinion when considering the need for elite safties (yes we have Sonny Styles but we need more imo) for Knowles defense and the importance the staff is putting on Georgia. Looking forward to the 2024 class, there are a number of elite safeties the staff are communicating with (Peyton Woodward, Zaquan Patterson, Mike Matthews, etc.). This continues for the 2025 class as well (DJ Pickett). Hopefully Caleb Downs can be the first domino to fall.

Secondary Recruiting Overview

I wanted to do a quick secondary comparison as well since the other two levels of the defense were compared. Due to the difference in safety recruits, Urban also has a higher average secondary recruit rating compared to Day. This is driven by 41.38% of Urban's secondary recruits having greater than a 0.95 rating, compared to 25% for Day.

ATH Recruiting Overview

I didn't include ATHs in specific positions so I've grouped all of them here at the bottom. The calculations above are for all ATHs recruited by each coach but I did some manual calculations based on if the recruit played on O or D. Urban's ATH recruits who ended up playing O had an average of 0.949375. This would have moved Urban's average offense recruit rating to 0.92604. Urban's ATH recruits who ended up playing D had an average of 0.89728, compared to 0.90016 for Day. This would change Urban's average defensive recruit's rating to 0.9292977 and Day's average to 0.932538.

If you've made it this far thanks for reading! Would love to hear your takeaway below!