Buckeyes offer four-star 2022 athlete, pair of top power forwards

Whether there is any college football or basketball to be played by any conference this fall, one thing is for certain: recruiting will go on. Both Ryan Day and Chris Holtmann have been hitting the trail hard to prepare their teams for whatever future lies ahead, and that process starts with scouting talent and sending out scholarship offers.

On the football side of things, Ohio State has offered four-star athlete Dallan Hayden. The Tennessee native announced the offer via Twitter on Tuesday, which came courtesy of running backs coach Tony Alford.

At 5-foot-11, 192 pounds, Hayden is listed as the No. 18 athlete and the No. 10 player in the Volunteer State, coming in at No. 300 overall in the class. He has already compiled over 25 official scholarship offers thus far, including the likes of Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Notre Dame and Tennessee, among many others.

Playing at Christian Brothers High School, Hayden takes snaps at both running back and defensive back for the Purple Wave. He began his junior season this past Friday with a phenomenal showing, rushing for 260 yards and three touchdowns in his team’s 24-14 win over Houston High School. With Alford being the one to offer Hayden, it is clear that Ohio State sees him as more of a RB than a DB, and he showed why last time out.

Hayden is a Tennessee legacy, as his father, Aaron Hayden, played for the Volunteers back in the early ‘90s. The Vols were also the first team to offer the younger Hayden back in July 2018, and so it makes sense that the lone Crystal Ball in the for talented athlete is in favor of Tennessee. However, there is still a bunch of time left in this recruitment, and with the way Ohio State has been producing NFL running back talent as of late, I wouldn’t count the Buckeyes out in this one by any stretch.

Moving over to the hardwood, Holtmann and his staff sent out a pair of offers on Tuesday afternoon. The first went to five-star 2022 power forward AJ Casey.

Casey, a 6-foot-8, 180-pound big man out of Tinley Park in Chicago, is the No. 5 PF in the class and the No. 20 player in the country overall. Even with such high status, Ohio State is one of the early offers for Illinois’ top prospect. He has compiled just 10 official scholarships thus far, including Indiana, Louisville, Purdue, Kansas and others.

As a sophomore, Casey averaged an impressive 22 points and 10 rebounds per game, in addition to three assists and a trio of blocks per contest. The forward features a solid combination of size, skill and athleticism, which should make him a hot commodity for any top basketball program. Look for his recruitment to really heat up over these next few months and well into his junior year of high school ball.

The other Ohio State hoops offer on Tuesday went out to four-star power forward Isaac Traudt, the No. 12 PF in the 2022 class and the No. 66 player in the country overall.

Hailing out of Grand Island, NE, the 6-foot-9, 195-pound forward already holds at least 19 official scholarship offers, including from some of the nation’s top programs like Creighton, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oregon, Wisconsin and others.

Traudt’s recruitment really heated up this summer after his dominant play in the Twin Cities tournament, where he helped lead his Lincoln Supreme team to a pair of wins despite playing up an age level. Personally, he describes himself as a “versatile wing that can do everything defensively.” He also said he is a pretty good rim protector and is “getting better,” at defensive rebounding as well.

Traudt has been tearing up the prep hoops circuit, and teams around the country are taking notice. Check out some of these highlights from his efforts with the Supreme 16s:

Quick Hits

• Rivals recently released its updated Rivals250, and 14 of Ohio State’s 18 commits in 2021 made the cut. The highest-rated future Buckeye is still Jack Sawyer, who remained at No. 8 overall in the class. Some of the biggest movers were Evan Pryor, who jumped from No. 79 to No. 61, and Jordan Hancock, who moved from No. 142 to No. 117. Somewhat surprisingly, TreVeyon Henderson ranks No. 69 on Rivals, despite being a top-10 player on every other recruiting site.

• Ohio State added yet another scholarship offer on Tuesday night, with 2022 offensive tackle George Fitzpatrick the latest to get the Buckeye nod. A second Alford offer on the day, the three-star OT announced the news via Twitter. Fitzpatrick is the the No. 2 player out of Colorado and the No. 45 OT in the class.