If football is won and lost in the trenches, Ohio State is already well on its way to accomplishing its most important goal in the 2027 recruiting class.
Over the last four days, Ohio State earned two massive recruiting wins along the offensive and defensive lines. First, the Buckeyes landed their top offensive line target in the cycle with the commitment of four-star Mississippi offensive tackle Caden Moss, a top-75 overall prospect, on Friday. Ohio State followed that up on Monday by beating out Georgia, Texas and other powerhouse programs for five-star defensive lineman Marcus Fakatou, the No. 26 overall prospect in the cycle.
Ohio State is now tied with Texas Tech for the most five-star defensive linemen and tied with Texas A&M for the most top-100 defensive linemen in the 2027 class as Fakatou joins five-star defensive end DJ Jacobs and No. 82 overall prospect Wyatt Smith in Larry Johnson’s unit. The Buckeyes are also leading the race for four-star defensive tackle Karlos May, the No. 132 overall prospect in the class, which would complete Ohio State’s strongest defensive line class since the Buckeyes signed JT Tuimoloau, Jack Sawyer, Mike Hall and Tyleik Williams in 2021.
Along the offensive line, Moss is the first top-100 overall prospect from outside Ohio to commit to the Buckeyes since Donovan Jackson in the 2021 class. He leads a six-man haul that includes another top-100 overall prospect in Kellen Wymer, along with four other top-500 prospects in Brody McNeel, Jimmy Kalis, Mason Wilt and Davis Seaman.
| Player | Pos | Ht/Wt | Stars | Natl Rank | Pos Rank | High School |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DJ JACOBS | DE | 6-5 / 235 | ★★★★★ | 4 | 1 | Blessed Trinity Catholic (Roswell, GA) |
| JAMIER BROWN | WR | 5-11 / 192 | ★★★★★ | 24 | 4 | Big Walnut (Sunbury, OH) |
| MARCUS FAKATOU | DL | 6-6 / 275 | ★★★★★ | 26 | 2 | Sierra Canyon (Chatsworth, CA) |
| KELLEN WYMER | OL | 6-5 / 265 | ★★★★ | 67 | 4 | Liberty Center (Liberty Center, OH) |
| CADEN MOSS | OT | 6-5 / 320 | ★★★★ | 74 | 7 | Jackson Academy (Jackson, MS) |
| WYATT SMITH | DE | 6-6 / 235 | ★★★★ | 82 | 11 | St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale, FL) |
| PRINCE GOLDSBY | LB | 6-3 / 205 | ★★★★ | 96 | 6 | Blue Springs South (Blue Springs, MO) |
| ELI JOHNSON | S | 6-3 / 200 | ★★★★ | 208 | 17 | Cibolo Steele (Cibolo, TX) |
| BRADY EDMUNDS | QB | 6-5 / 220 | ★★★★ | 251 | 19 | Huntington Beach (Huntington Beach, CA) |
| QUINTON CYPHER | LB | 6-2 / 220 | ★★★★ | 253 | 21 | Millbrook (Raleigh, NC) |
| DEONTAY MALONE | CB | 6-0 / 182 | ★★★★ | 285 | 33 | Massillon Washington (Massillon, OH) |
| BRODY MCNEEL | OL | 6-5 / 285 | ★★★★ | 310 | 29 | Godwin (Richmond, VA) |
| JIMMY KALIS | OT | 6-7.5 / 290 | ★★★★ | 323 | 33 | Central Catholic (Pittsburgh, PA) |
| MASON WILT | OL | 6-5 / 295 | ★★★★ | 364 | 18 | St. Clairsville (St. Clairsville, OH) |
| JADEN CAREY | CB | 5-11 / 175 | ★★★★ | 382 | 41 | St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale, FL) |
| DAVIS SEAMAN | OL | 6-3.5 / 290 | ★★★★ | 422 | 23 | Bishop Watterson (Columbus, OH) |
| ANGELO SMITH | S | 5-10 / 170 | ★★★ | 876 | 86 | Chaminade-Madonna (Hollywood, FL) |
| JORDAN DONAHOO | WR | 6-4 / 185 | ★★★ | 1206 | 153 | Oviedo (Oviedo, FL) |
| Data via 247Sports | ||||||
Assuming they sign with the Buckeyes and their rankings don’t fall, Moss and Wymer will be the first pair of top-100 offensive linemen to sign with Ohio State in the same class since 2018. It’s also the first time Ohio State has signed six offensive linemen in one class since 2020. Ohio State is one of just four schools, along with Texas A&M, Notre Dame and Florida, that currently have two top-100 commits along the offensive line in the 2027 class.
While Ryan Day has consistently signed elite recruiting classes, including seven straight that ranked in the top five of 247Sports’ composite rankings, one critique of his recruiting has been that the Buckeyes have focused too heavily on landing skill-position players rather than standout linemen. From 2020-26, Ohio State signed 26 offensive skill-position players and 11 defensive backs who were ranked as top-100 overall prospects in the 247Sports composite rankings, but only nine defensive linemen, five offensive linemen and five linebackers.
The drawback of prioritizing skill-position talent over big bodies was never more evident than in Ohio State’s two postseason losses last year. While the Buckeyes had college football’s best wide receiver (Jeremiah Smith), best defensive back (Caleb Downs), best linebacker duo (Arvell Reese and Sonny Styles) and most accurate quarterback (Julian Sayin), they lost the battle in the trenches to Indiana and Miami as the Hoosiers and Hurricanes – the two teams that went on to play for the national championship – combined for 10 sacks against the Buckeyes.
In the biggest games of the season, Ohio State’s offensive line proved to be its biggest weakness. The Buckeyes’ defensive line was good for most of the year, leading the way up front for Ohio State to have the best defense in the country, but its limited depth was exposed down the stretch as the Buckeyes never got much production from anyone behind Kayden McDonald, Kenyatta Jackson Jr. and Caden Curry.
Six months later, the makeup of Ohio State’s 2027 recruiting class is a clear sign that the Buckeyes are placing a bigger emphasis on the trenches in response to how last season ended.
While Ohio State would love for its recruiting class to be loaded at every position, the reality of modern recruiting forces teams to choose where they allocate their revenue-sharing and NIL resources. While Ohio State has far more to sell to recruits than just money, you don’t pull prospects like Jacobs out of Georgia, Fakatou out of California or Moss out of Mississippi without being competitive on the NIL front.
That partially explains why Ohio State’s current recruiting class isn’t quite as loaded at positions where the Buckeyes have typically stocked up on top prospects like wide receiver, where Jamier Brown is the only commit so far that’s ranked in the top 1,000 prospects in his class, and defensive back, where the Buckeyes don’t currently have any commits ranked in the composite top 200.
That’s not to say that Ohio State isn’t still investing in and chasing top talent at those positions. Brown will be well-compensated as a five-star recruit, and Ohio State is still pursuing another five-star wide receiver in Monshun Sales. The Buckeyes are recruiting five-star running back David Gabriel Georges harder than any other prospect in the class, and beating out Tennessee to land his commitment won’t come cheaply. In the secondary, Ohio State is continuing to recruit top-five cornerback Gabriel Osborne even though he recently committed to Oklahoma.
But after years of near-misses in recruiting along the offensive and defensive lines, in which the Buckeyes were frequently outbid by their competitors for their top targets in the trenches, Ohio State needed to make a bigger investment in offensive and defensive line recruiting to position itself to win another national championship like it did when Jackson, Sawyer, Tuimoloau and Williams were leading the Buckeyes in the trenches. With the commitments they’ve landed on both sides of the line in the 2027 class, that investment looks poised to pay big dividends.
