Ohio State makes offer to 2020 safety

Things have been a little quiet for the Ohio State Buckeyes on the recruiting trail. With gameday against Purdue approaching, some of the focus shifts to game prep and getting ready for this primetime battle in West Lafayette, Ind.

Since we did the recruiting mailbag on Wednesday, let’s get you caught up on the last couple days of recruiting news for the Scarlet and Gray football program.

Sunshine Time

Ohio State recruiting efforts have done well in Florida over the years. Just in the past two classes, a handful of recruits have come from the talent rich Sunshine State. The 2018 class featured five-star Nicolas Petit-Frere, who comes from Tampa Bay; Sevyn Banks, who hails from Orlando; and Brian Snead is from Seffner. Shaun Wade was one of the five-star highlights of the 2017 class—and surprise, surprise, he’s from Jacksonville.

The Buckeyes are hoping to get another star prospect from Florida, as they offered three-star safety Jaiden Francois (Homestead, FL / South Dade) of the 2020 class. The Homestead, Fla., recruit verbally committed to the Miami Hurricanes back in July, but could the Buckeyes swoop in for a flip?

Currently, the Scarlet and Gray have a safety in the ‘20 class with four-star Lejond Cavazos, but if they were looking to add another member to their defensive back unit, going after Francois isn’t a bad move. According to 247sports, seven safeties in the 2020 class have OSU offers. Not counting Cavazos and Francois, there are five other safeties; of those five, three are leaning toward schools not named Ohio State—with two of them having crystal ball predictions for Penn State and Michigan.

Francois stands at 6-foot, 184 pounds, and holds 10 offers, according to his profile page on 247sports. Going back to the question of if the Bucks could get a flip: it’ll be an uphill battle, at least, in the short term. Since his late-July commitment, he’s made four unofficial visits to the Hurricanes, and the coaching staff made a visit in September. The connection has to be strong for those kind of visits, and to break that, OSU has to go on an all-out attack with coach visits/communication in the hopes of getting him to Columbus for a visit. What Miami has going for them is proximity. If the Buckeyes were really committed to flipping Francois to the Scarlet and Gray, they’ll need to combat the problem of geography, too.

But, recruiting is weird, and things happen. Coaching changes could deter recruits, and decommitments do happen time from time. With so much time left until National Signing Day 2020, anything can happen. If they do change, we’ll keep you posted.

Quick hit

• On Tuesday, the Buckeyes received a preferred walk-on commitment from offensive/defensive lineman Ryan Smith. Smith comes out of Buckeye High School, and made the commitment known via Twitter.

The Gazette wrote a piece on Smith about his recruitment and commitment to the Bucks. You can read it here.