Skull Session: Ohio State is Building the Trenches Through Its 2027 Recruiting Class, Ross Bjork Thinks the Buckeyes Will Have a $500 Million Athletics Budget “Very Soon”

By Chase Brown on June 30, 2026 at 4:55 am
Larry Johnson
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Welcome to the Skull Session.

This tweet won Monday:

Have a good Tuesday.

 ANOTHER BIG BOOM. My goodness, Larry Johnson has done it again.

Five-star defensive lineman Marcus Fakatou, the No. 26 overall prospect in the 2027 class, committed to Ohio State on Monday. His pledge gives the Buckeyes three — yes, three! — top-100 defensive line recruits in the cycle, joining five-star defensive end DJ Jacobs (No. 4 overall prospect in 247Sports’ composite rankings) and five-star defensive end Wyatt Smith (No. 82).

That’s insane.

When you combine Ohio State’s defensive line class with its offensive line haul — four-stars Kellen Wymer (No. 67), Caden Moss (No. 74), Brody McNeel (No. 310), Jimmy Kalis (No. 323), Mason Wilt (No. 364) and Davis Seaman (No. 422) — the Buckeyes have absolutely dominated the trenches in the 2027 cycle.

Remember when we used to pray for times like this?

Back when Ohio State could land five-stars at quarterback and wide receiver like it was routine, but always seemed to come up short on elite offensive and defensive linemen? Those days feel like they’re in the rearview mirror, and I couldn’t be happier.

Dominate the trenches. Win the game.

 ANOTHER DAY IN THE OFFICE? You may not like him, Ohio State fans, but you can’t deny it: Curt Cignetti has a certain style.

In an interview with On3’s Chris Low last week, the Indiana head coach said he’s always looking for “that chip on my shoulder” and ways to stay “a little angry.”

“I guess I’m just wired that way, striving to get better, process-oriented,” Cignetti said. “You find a little something on every team to get you a little extra motivation. When I grew up, you didn’t have computers and all this stuff. You played baseball, created games to compete. I’ve always enjoyed competing, and every game and every year is new. … I compete my best when I’m a little angry at my opponent, and I’m always going to find something.”

Cignetti reflected on two games from Indiana’s season where he felt an extra edge: Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game and Alabama in the Rose Bowl.

Before the Hoosiers took the field against the Buckeyes, Cignetti told his team he didn’t want to see anyone pointing or sticking fingers in the air as they ran out of the tunnel.

“Act like we’ve been there before because we have,” Cignetti said he told them.

Indiana beat Ohio State 13-10 to win its first Big Ten title since 1967 and earn the No. 1 overall seed in the College Football Playoff.

Cignetti summed up the moment like this: “Just another day at the office because it was.”

Man, that’s cold.

I can’t wait for Oct. 17 in Bloomington. The rematch between the Buckeyes and Hoosiers should be absolute cinema.

 I’LL TAKE OPERATIONS BUDGET FOR $500M, ALEX. Were you surprised this section wasn’t titled Money, Money, Money, Money… Money! Me too. Despite the curveball, this section is all about the dollar dollar bills, y'all, as Ross Bjork said last week he expects Ohio State to become the first school to have a $500 million annual operating budget for its athletic department.

Ohio State set a school record with $336 million in revenue during fiscal year 2025, which included the football team's national championship season. The Buckeyes also reported just over $320 million in operating expenses that year.

Bjork's comments Thursday suggest those figures continued to climb in fiscal year 2026, and he expects Ohio State's athletic department to surpass a $500 million operating budget in the not-too-distant future.

“It’s going to happen,” Bjork said. “It could happen three years from now, two years from now, five years from now, but we will have a $500 million athletic budget at some point in time very soon. We have that capability.”

To reach that milestone, Bjork said Ohio State will need continued support from its fan base through the Buckeye Club and other donations. Citing the Buckeyes' estimated 12 million fans, he said there's "no ceiling" for how much the athletic department can raise to support its 36 varsity sports.

“There’s a lot of data that shows we have 12 million fans,” Bjork said. “If 1 percent of those people would join Buckeye Club, that’s 120,000. Right now we have about 25,000 donors and that’s a great number, but if you think about how we take the size and scale of Ohio State and maximize it, there really is no ceiling for our program from an engagement enterprise, value, revenue and all of those things. That’s what we’re going to focus on is taking vision and turning it into action.

“We have to make sure we’re nationally competitive and make sure we have a financial and sustainable model.”

Half a billion dollars sounds absurd. Then again, so does the current state of college athletics. If Ohio State wants to remain one of the sport's premier programs, Bjork clearly believes standing still isn't an option, and I agree with him.

 A GREAT BUCKEYE, & A GREATER MAN. When I worked for Buckeye Sports Bulletin, I interviewed Clark Kellogg for the publication's annual Interview Issue. The Ohio State legend was eager to share his favorite Buckeye memories, and he did. But he was just as passionate, if not more so, about discussing his heart for Central Ohio, especially its underprivileged youth.

Kellogg is the kind of person whose words aren't empty — they're backed by action. And that's exactly what's happening this summer in Columbus, as he was named chair of the launch campaign for the Columbus Masters Preparatory Academy, a planned boarding school aimed at producing "transformative outcomes for young Black men."

The school, which founder Robert Murphy hopes to open by fall 2028 after acquiring a Central Ohio campus, resonated with Kellogg because of his own experience attending a single-gender school while growing up in Cleveland.

"As it relates to our young Black men, there's clearly some value in being connected to a cultural environment that's nurturing and understanding and empathetic and challenging," Kellogg told The Columbus Dispatch's Cole Behrens last week. "To see development in education in a holistic manner in this type of unique environment is worth pursuing and making happen."

Murphy, a former Columbus City Schools principal, has spent several years working to launch the academy. His vision is for it to become a beacon of hope for young Black students facing significant challenges.

“If I get a young man here today, and he’s not there tomorrow when he comes to school because he’s been in the neighborhood — maybe he doesn’t have a good home life, or is homeless, so it’s hard to build upon what we did that day,” Murphy said. “So the boarding school mitigates all of that.”

Because there is no provision for charter boarding schools, Murphy said the academy will open as a private school. He added that approximately 30% of the student body is expected to be foster children served by Franklin County Children Services.

How cool. And how cool that Kellogg is using his platform to get this project off the ground. That’s what Woody Hayes would call paying it forward.

 SONG OF THE DAY. "The Older I Get" - Alan Jackson.

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