Ohio State’s third official visit weekend of the summer is bringing plenty of star power to Columbus.
As with the last two weekends, Ohio State won’t host a large group of uncommitted prospects, hosting just four players who aren’t already committed to the Buckeyes. But their emphasis on quality over quantity with this year’s official visits is apparent once again as Ohio State welcomes a group that includes two of the top eight prospects in 247Sports’ composite rankings for the 2027 class.
No. 4 overall prospect DJ Jacobs, who’s been committed to Ohio State since December, will be back on campus this weekend for his official visit. So too will be No. 8 overall prospect Monshun Sales, the top uncommitted wide receiver in the class.
Caden Moss, who will likely be the only uncommitted offensive lineman to visit Ohio State this month, is also a top-100 prospect. Ohio State’s five offensive line commits are expected to be on campus, too, as the Buckeyes make a concentrated effort to convince Moss to be the final piece of their 2027 offensive line class.
Monsanna Torbert Jr. and Deontay Malone are two of Ohio State’s top cornerback targets in the 2027 class, while four-star linebacker Quinton Cypher has been a core piece of the class since his commitment to the Buckeyes in December.
As Ohio State welcomes another group of official visitors to campus starting Friday, we take a look at each of those visitors, why they’re important to Ohio State’s 2027 recruiting class and where things stand in their recruitments.
DE DJ Jacobs
While most of the attention around official visit weekends typically centers on the uncommitted prospects, there’s no more important task for Ohio State this weekend than keeping Jacobs’ commitment to the Buckeyes secure.
Jacobs has described himself as “100% committed to Ohio State,” but a recruitment is never truly over until signing day with a prospect of his caliber. Miami was viewed as the frontrunner to land him before his commitment, and the Hurricanes’ efforts to flip him continue. Oregon and Texas A&M, among other schools, have also continued recruiting despite his commitment to the Buckeyes.
Jacobs hasn’t made any other official visits this summer, which is a good sign for the Buckeyes that his commitment to Ohio State remains strong. Nevertheless, Ohio State will do everything in its power this weekend to make sure he has no second thoughts. Given that Jacobs is the No. 1 overall prospect in the 2027 class by 247Sports (fourth in the composite rankings), no one committed or uncommitted is more important to the Buckeyes’ class than the five-star Georgia defensive end.
WR Monshun Sales
There would be no bigger win for Cortez Hankton in his first recruiting cycle as Ohio State’s wide receivers coach than landing Sales, who’s been a top target for Ohio State since the Buckeyes officially offered him last May.
Ranked as the No. 2 wide receiver in the 2027 class behind only Texas commit Easton Royal, Sales has all the makings of a prototype X receiver at 6-foot-5 and 205 pounds. He’d be the perfect complement to longtime commit Jamier Brown, a projected Z receiver for the Buckeyes, and Ohio State has typically been successful recruiting top prospects from Indianapolis.
Indiana’s emergence as a college football power, however, changed the landscape of this recruitment. The Hoosiers are now viewed as the favorite to land Sales, while Alabama also lurks as a major contender.
As such, Ohio State appears to have significant ground to make up this weekend if it’s going to win the battle for Sales. But Ohio State has won plenty of hotly contested battles for elite receiver recruits in recent years, and this weekend gives the Buckeyes a prime opportunity to sell Sales on joining a program that’s produced six first-round NFL draft picks in the last five years at his position.
OT Caden Moss
As great as it would be for Ohio State to land Sales, Moss is arguably the most important uncommitted official visitor for the Buckeyes this weekend. Ohio State hasn’t landed an out-of-state top-100 overall prospect on the offensive line since Donovan Jackson in 2021, and Moss might be the Buckeyes’ only chance to end that drought this year.
Ohio State already has a solid class of five offensive line commits for 2027, including an in-state top-100 prospect in Kellen Wymer, but landing a true top-of-the-board tackle from outside the state of Ohio is a box Tyler Bowen still has to check in his second year as offensive line coach. For the past several months, those efforts have been focused almost entirely on Moss, the seventh-ranked offensive tackle and No. 72 overall prospect in the 2027 class.
Ole Miss is seen as the team to beat for Moss, a Mississippi native, but the Buckeyes still believe they have a fighting chance in this recruitment. And by making Moss the only uncommitted official visitor of the entire month along the offensive line, while also having their offensive line commits join him on campus this weekend, they’re doing everything they can to show the 6-foot-5, 320-pound four-star prospect just how badly they want him at Ohio State.
CB Monsanna Torbert Jr. and Deontay Malone
We’re grouping Torbert and Malone together because there are many similarities in who they are as prospects and in their recruitments. Both of them are four-star cornerbacks from Ohio – Torbert from Princeton High School in Cincinnati, Malone from Washington High School in Massillon – and Ohio State is viewed as the favorite in both of their recruitments entering this weekend.
Given that Ohio State doesn’t yet have any cornerbacks in its 2027 class, closing the deal with both Torbert and Malone this weekend is a top priority for Tim Walton and the Buckeyes. Ohio State is also well-positioned in the recruitment of Jaden Carey, who made his official visit to OSU last weekend, but they’re the only three clear targets still on the board for Ohio State at cornerback.
Bryce Woods, who was scheduled to visit Ohio State this weekend alongside Malone and Torbert, committed to Virginia Tech after visiting Blacksburg last weekend. Ohio State has been hoping to bring John Meredith III, the No. 1 cornerback in the 2027 class, to campus for a visit next weekend, but that visit probably won’t happen either, as Meredith told Rivals on Thursday that he doesn’t expect to leave the state of Texas and that he could commit next week.
As such, Ohio State will push to land commitments from both Malone and Torbert this weekend. The Buckeyes still face competition for both – Torbert is also considering Indiana, Michigan, Louisville and Maryland, while Michigan State is pushing for Malone – but the Buckeyes will do their best to convince them to shut down their recruitments after spending the weekend in Columbus.
LB Quinton Cypher
Cypher has been one of Ohio State’s most vocal peer-recruiters since his commitment to the Buckeyes in December, so having him on campus this weekend will be a valuable asset as Ohio State hosts four of its top remaining uncommitted targets.
There’s nothing to question with Cypher’s commitment entering his official visit, as the Buckeyes have built their linebacker class around him. The 20th-ranked linebacker in the 2027 class, Cypher has been all in with Ohio State since his commitment. They’ll nevertheless want to make sure he and his family have a great weekend in Columbus, but he’ll likely spend more time trying to convince other official visitors to become Buckeyes than Ohio State will need to spend convincing Cypher to remain a Buckeye.
OL Kellen Wymer, Brody McNeel, Jimmy Kalis, Mason Wilt and Davis Seaman
The five offensive linemen already committed to Ohio State in the 2027 class were originally scheduled to make their official visits next weekend, but multiple reports Friday morning indicated that they will now be on campus this weekend alongside Moss, whom they’ve been recruiting to join them as the Buckeyes’ final offensive line commit for the cycle.
As with Cypher, there’s no concern on Ohio State’s end about the strength of the commitments of the five offensive linemen who are already in the class. They’ve become a close-knit group since their commitments, and none of them have made visits elsewhere. Bowen and Ohio State are still working hard to make sure all of them feel valued as members of the class, but their presence on campus shouldn’t distract from Bowen’s primary objective this weekend of landing Moss, as the commits have expressed alignment with their coach in wanting Moss to fill out the class alongside them.
“We got five right now, which is pretty good, but we're trying to get Caden Moss,” Kalis said last month at the Under Armour Next camp in Pickerington. “I think we're really comfortable where we're at right now with the five, but I think Caden would be a great add-on for us.”
