Ohio State recruiting: Buckeyes claim the top overall prospect in the 2021 class

Fall camp for the Buckeyes is nearing and the highly anticipated 2019 season is about to get underway. With the staff and players getting ready to take the field, recruiting is still a top priority for both the 2020 and 2021 classes. As the staff makes their pitch to sway their top targets, none may have been a better pitch than yesterday’s news concerning former Ohio State star Michael Thomas. It’s been discussed many times already, but the way Ohio State develops their players for the NFL is top notch to say the least. It really is one of their best selling points in recruiting. Yesterday, was much of the same when Saints receiver, Michael Thomas was given a new deal making him the highest paid receiver in the NFL.

It helps that the Buckeyes win on the field, but when you can boast the highest paid WR in the NFL, you use that as much as you can.

Buckeye commit is the best in the land

Ohio State’s top priority on the recruiting trail right now is of course their 2020 class and finishing that off with a bang. The 2021 class though is also a priority as before you know it will be the current cycle the staff is recruiting in. Fortunately for Ohio State, their momentum from 2020 has carried right into next year’s class that gives them one of the current top overall 2021 classes in the country, according to 247Sports, already with four verbal commitments. Thanks in large part to their top ranked commit, Jack Sawyer, Ohio State will be right at—if not at—the top of the class rankings at the end of the 2021 cycle.

With the updated 247Sports rankings for the 2021 class being unveiled earlier in the week, Ohio State saw some significant bumps for the guys already in the fold. Yesterday, though, the Buckeyes got some more good news when Sawyer was pegged as the top player in the country regardless of position in the 247Sports composite rankings. A huge honor for the nation’s best, Sawyer has been a Buckeye commit since February 2019 and has already begun the work as one of the class’s early leaders.

A can’t miss target from their backyard, Ohio State and the rest of the country knows how solid he is on the field. Standing at 6-foot-5, 220 pounds, Sawyer already possesses the size and skill to be an electric player on Saturdays. Taking into consideration that he still has two years of prep ball to play and two years to grow physically, the Buckeyes and Larry Johnson are more than excited to see him on their defensive line.

When Zach Harrison chose to stay home and suit up for the Buckeyes, it was a huge win for Ryan Day; you could say it was his first huge recruiting win as head coach of the program. The key to this though is that Harrison was also the No. 1 player in Ohio and of the same position as Jack Sawyer. If the two can be on the same defensive line for the Buckeyes, which is likely to be for at least one season, the top over player in Ohio for 2019 and the top overall player in the country for 2021 would be on opposite sides of each other. Basically, look out to every quarterback the Buckeyes will face.

The future is very bright in Columbus thanks to incredible recruiting efforts.