Ohio State’s Day, Johnson set to visit a pair of five-star edge rushers during off week

Ohio State is 6-0 following another dominant win at Michigan State. The Buckeyes traveled to East Lansing for their first away game of the season, and the end results were the same as the team’s first five games. The Buckeyes now face a bye week before playing host to Iowa, and the coaching staff is already using this extra time to make the recruiting headlines.

Buckeyes visit with 2 elite DE’s

The Ohio State coaching staff has some extra time on their hands this week with no game to prepare for. Ryan Day and his guys wasted little time as they traveled to Florida Monday to visit with their top two remaining targets in this year’s recruiting class.

Ohio State’s 2023 class is close to full, and the staff has zeroed in on the defensive end position to finish the haul. The Buckeyes are looking to add two more DE’s to the class, and seem to be focusing on a trio of five-star’s in Damon Wilson (Venice, FL / Venice) Keon Keeley (Tampa, FL / Berkeley Prep) and Matayo Uiagalelei (Bellflower, CA / St. John Bosco).

A mere couple months ago, it was looking like Wilson was favoring Georgia, Keeley was favoring Alabama and Uiagalelei was favored to Ohio State. However, things have changed as of late, because the Buckeyes have been making big pushes to land both Wilson and Keeley.

Keeley is fresh off of two visits to Ohio State — one in the official capacity and the other on his own dime. The two visits immediately put the Buckeyes into legit contender status for him, but the looming official visit to Alabama kept them from being viewed as the favorites to land him. He took the official visit to Alabama this past weekend, and all signs point to it going as well as possible.

The good news for the Buckeyes is he did not commit to the Crimson Tide following the visit, as some viewed as a possibility.

Wilson is the other DE that the Buckeyes have been giving a lot of attention to as of late. He took an official visit to Columbus last month and then officially visited with Georgia this past weekend. While Alabama is still heavily involved in his recruitment, many believe Georgia and Ohio State hold an edge over the Tide, including Chad Simmons of On3.com.

On Monday, Ohio State hit the recruiting trail and traveled to Florida to visit with both Wilson and Keeley, as both are coming off of huge official visits with the Buckeyes biggest perceived competition for both.

There have been rumblings that neither Keeley or Wilson want to drag out their recruitments any longer than necessary. However, don’t expect commitment announcements anytime soon either. Both players will likely take a few weeks at least to mull over their recent visits in an effort to decide the best school for them. Before they do, expect all of the above schools to be in their ears the entire time.

Uiagalelei looked like Ohio State’s best chance of the three earlier, but the momentum between the two has seemed to dwindle a bit as their efforts in recruiting Wilson and Keeley has intensified. Oregon and USC have both taken advantage of this time, hosting him on official visits and cementing themselves as contenders for him.

The Buckeyes again are looking to add multiple commits along the defensive line to finish this class off, and it appears they have made their intentions known on who they prefer those spots to go to. That being said, they are still involved with some other DL targets in Jason Moore, Jordan Hall and Kayden McDonald. Hall is scheduled to officially visit Ohio State the weekend of Nov. 25 when Ohio State plays host to Michigan, and has also been trending towards Ohio State.