The Hurry-Up: Ohio State Extends Offers to Samuel M’Pemba, Desmond Umeozulu and Armondo Blount

By Garrick Hodge on January 19, 2022 at 5:30 pm
Samuel M’Pemba
Twitter/@SMPEMBA5
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It was a busy day on the recruiting trail for Ohio State.

Ohio State offered three new prospects on Wednesday: Two from the class of 2023 and one from the class of 2025. One of those offers was to a premier five-star talent, so that seems like a good starting point for today. 

OSU offers M’Pemba

The most renowned prospect the Buckeyes offered Wednesday was five-star 2023 athlete Samuel M’Pemba. Normally I tend to stray away from the label “athlete” used to describe a player that plays multiple positions that recruiting networks tend to use, because to me, every recruit is a damn athlete. I’ll make an exception here. In his high school career at both Ladue Horton Watkins (St. Louis, Missouri) and IMG Academy (Bradenton, Florida) M’Pemba has played everything from outside wide receiver to defensive end to slot receiver to tight end.

M’Pemba is from St. Louis, but currently attends IMG Academy with many other Ohio State targets, including 2023 wide receiver Carnell Tate. The 6-foot-4, 230-pound standout has already put out a top 12 school list that didn’t include Ohio State, but the Buckeyes could easily climb into the race for the Midwest native. They are late to the party in the recruitment of M’Pemba, who’s considered the 15th-best prospect in the 2023 class per 247Sports’ composite rankings, so they’ll have lots of work to overcome the work put in by plenty of other schools. 

M’Pemba’s offer sheet is no small thing, with a list of 35 Division I schools that includes Alabama, Georgia, Florida, LSU, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Oregon, Penn State, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M and USC.

He could have play multiple positions at the next level, but with his size, tight end or defensive end seem to be the best fits for him rather than a true wideout. 

OSU extends offer to Umeozulu 

Another 2023 prospect who received an OSU offer Wednesday was four-star Maryland edge rusher Desmond Umeozulu. 

Umeozulu has 18 Division I offers this far, including Virginia, Virginia Tech, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Michigan State and Florida State. The 6-foot-5, 220-pound Umeozulu is ranked as the 307th-best player and the 25th-best edge player in the 2023 class. He helped lead Charles Herbert Flowers High School (Upper Marlboro, Maryland) to an 11-2 record this past season.

Blount picks up Buckeyes offer

Alright, there is simply no way in hell based on the size alone of new 2025 offer Armondo Blount that he could possibly be a current high school freshman. I refuse to believe this. 

Alas, he’s very much a freshman, yet the talented 6-foot-3, 230-pound defensive end picked up an offer on Wednesday from Ohio State.   

Other schools who have already offered include Florida State, Iowa State and Miami. Blount helped lead Dillard High School (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) to a 10-2 record a season ago. 

Blount is only the third prospect in the 2025 class to receive an offer from Ohio State, joining Ohio quarterback Ryan Montgomery and Pennsylvania safety Anthony Sacca.

Day visits Young

Ryan Day has spent a good chunk of his last few days in Ohio recruiting in-state talent. On Wednesday, Day paid a visit to one of the biggest targets the Buckeyes have their eye on in the 2023 cycle. 

Day went down to Lehigh Acres, Florida to visit five-star running back Richard Young at his high school.

Young is ranked as the 16th-best player and the top running back in the 2023 class. He most recently visited Columbus on Oct. 30 for Ohio State’s contest against Penn State.

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