Ohio State recruiting: State Secrets, 4/4 - Hale Hentges visits

It has been a pretty quiet last couple of days when it comes to Ohio State football recruiting. However, a lot could happen in the next few weeks. Today we're going to take a look at yesterday's events and the weeks ahead for the Buckeyes in recruiting.

Standout offensive tackle Sterling Jenkins names top two

According to Adam Friedman of Rivals, Pittsburgh (PA) Baldwin offensive tackle Sterling Jenkins has a top two of Penn State and Ohio State. Jenkins to make the trip to Columbus to see what the Buckeyes have to offer on April 11th, then will make the trip to Happy Valley the very next day to see the Nittany Lions' spring game.

While it's great the Buckeyes made the cut for Jenkins, I think it's pretty doubtful that he ends up with the Scarlet and Gray. I look for him to commit to Penn State sometime in the next month.

Top tight end target Hale Hentges on campus

Ohio State hosted a big time visitor yesterday in the form of Jefferson City (MO) Helias tight end Hale Hentges, who is probably the top target for the Bucks at the tight end position as Chris Clark is kind of off the board.

Following the visit, Hentges tweeted that he had a good time on his trip to Columbus. He previously visited for the Ohio State-Penn State game last fall.

While he left without committing, I wouldn't rule out a commitment from him in the next month or so. He's one of many current targets that I would put on commit watch. He's planning on visiting Michigan and Michigan State this weekend. He visited Alabama last weekend.

We hope to have more on Hentges' visit sometime this weekend.

New in state offer

Ohio State handed out an in-state offer for the 2016 recruiting class yesterday when Cincinnati (OH) Elder offensive tackle Tommy Kraemer picked up a scholarship offer while on an unofficial visit to Columbus.

I think the Buckeyes are the early leaders to land his commitment, but there's still quite a bit of time left in the 2016 recruiting cycle. He is the second in-state offensive lineman to be offered in the last as Cleveland (OH) St. Ignatius offensive guard Liam Eichenberg received an offer way back in June of 2013.

I'll try to catch up with the standout offensive tackle this weekend to learn more about his big offer from the Scarlet and Gray.

Quiet before the storm

Like I mentioned in the lede, there wasn't too much big news over the last week, except for a couple of offers handed out and a few visitors. I expect this all the change in the not too distant future as there are many commit watch players expected to be on campus to take in the spring game.

A couple of years ago, the Buckeyes had a huge recruiting day for the Spring game when they landed commitments from Joey Bosa, Alex Anzalone, and Lewis Neal. In the weeks after, Anzalone and Neal decommitted, but just landing Bosa was huge.

Last year, the spring game went to Cincinnati and wasn't near as big from the recruiting side of things like it had been the year before, though many local prospects were at the game. This year the game is back in Columbus and many big visitors are expected to be in town to take in the game.

Of the impressive list of visitors, there are I couple that will definitely be on commit watchheading into the weekend. This list includes the likes of Van Jefferson, Dre'Mont Jones, Liam McCullough, and Sh'mar Kilby-Lane (if he ends up making the trip). Also on campus will be OSU commit Ben Edwards, who's planning to visit Auburn the weekend after the OSU spring game. It would be big if the Buckeyes were able to get the standout safety to cancel his visit to AU.

Then there's always the surprise commit that we could see over the weekend and also guys like Hale Hentges who could pledge in the next month or so. Either way, it will be an interesting weekend to monitor and odds are the Bucks net at least one commitment, which should hopefully put the worries some have about only having three commitments to rest.

It's important to remember that Urban Meyer has never won the Big Ten spring recruiting championship, but has finished with the conference's best class every year he's been at the helm of the Ohio State football program.

Land-Grant Holy Land will have plenty of updates from spring game visitors, so make sure to stayed locked to the site.

Other recruiting news

- Apopka (FL) FB/ATH Chandler Cox will be visiting Ohio State sometime next week according to Mike Farrell of Rivals. Cox will also take visits to Tennessee, Auburn, and Kentucky.

Ohio State would use Cox as an h-back if he decided to play his college ball in Columbus. I'll try to catch up with Cox in the next week to learn more about his interest in Ohio State.

- Ohio State will host top players from Cass Tech High School on Saturday, for what is being called "Cass Tech Day".

Cass Tech is home to some of the nation's top talent including the likes of 2014 Ohio State signee Damon Webb, 2015 standouts Mike Weber and Joshua Alabi, and many others.

- Check out a scouting report on 2015 athlete target Shawn Burgess-Becker, courtesy of SB Nation recruiting analyst Bud Elliott.

- Stay locked to Land-Grant Holy Land for weekend updates

Important Dates

• March 6th visitor(s): LB Nick Conner, ATH Eric Glover-Williams
• March 18th visitor(s): QB Tommy Stevens
• March 20th visitor(s): LB Josh Barajas, DE Jonathon Cooper (2016), ATH Jerome Baker
• March 21st-22nd visitor(s): RB Larry Scott, WR Steven Smothers (2016), WR Van Jefferson, OL Patrick Allen, OL Simon Stepaniak, OL James Daniels, DE Dre'Mont Jones, LB Anthony McKee, LB Justin Hilliard, DB Jordan Whitehead, ATH Brian Cole
• March 25th visitor(s): LB Ethan Tucky (2016)
• March 26th visitor(s): TE Jake Pickard
• March 27th visitor(s): QB Danny Clark (2017 commit)
• March 28th-29th visitor(s): WR Jabari Greenwood, TE CJ Conrad, OL Tyler Gerald (2016), OL Jake Fruhmorgen, OL Quinn Oseland, OL David Robbins, DE Darius Fullwood, LB Chris Green, ATH Denzel Ward
• April 2nd visitor(s): OL Gabe Megginson
• April 3rd visitor(s): TE Hale Hentges, OL Tommy Kraemer
• April 4th-5th visitor(s): OL Austin Clark, OL Emani Mason, ATH Malik Hooker (2014 signee)
• April 5th visitor(s): Cass Tech Day
• April 11th visitor(s): OL Sterling Jenkins
• April 12th/Spring Game visitor(s): QB Danny Clark (2017 commit), WR Van Jefferson (maybe), OL Sterling Jenkins, OL Larry Wells, LB Nick Conner, LB Sh'mar Kilby-Lane (maybe), DE Dre'Mont Jones, DE/LB Jonathon Cooper, LB Jeffrey Holland (maybe), CB Minkah Fitzpatrick, S Ben Edwards
• May 24th visitor(s): Core 6 Day