Ohio State Football: Top running back recruit has Buckeyes in top 5

After only having one three-star running back in the 2020 class, the Ohio State football program has a chance to get one of the country’s top backs in 2021.

The Ohio State football program’s future running back classes are slim right now as Miyan Williams – a three-star from Cincinnati Winton Woods – is the only back in the 2020 class, and they don’t have one in the 2021 class yet.

However, the Buckeyes received big news on Friday that the seventh-best running back in the 2021 class, Lovasea Carroll, put Ohio State in his top five, along with Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Auburn.

Carroll is a four-star back, according to 247Sports, with a composite rating of .9553.

From Warrenton, Georgia, the six-foot, 189-pound back is the 15th-ranked recruit in all of Georgia and the 101st-ranked recruit in the country. According to The Ozone, he ran for 1,400 yards as a sophomore at Warren County High School and then transferred to IMG Academy prior to the 2019 season. He was second on the team in rushing in 2019 with 571 yards on 57 carries.

With J.K. Dobbins graduating, Ohio State’s future at running back for the 2020 season is clear as Master Teague ran for 789 yards during his redshirt freshman season last year. After 2020 it is unlcear though, as Marcus Crowley ran for 237 yards in seven games as a freshman and Steele Chambers ran for 135 yards in three games on 19 attempts this season.

If Teague has a big year next year, he could go to the draft and then the Buckeyes will have to choose between Crowley, Chambers, 2020 recruit Williams, or whoever they get in the 2021 class to carry the ball in 2021. That would be, however, a lot to ask of a true freshman in the 2021 class.

The Buckeyes are also in on a few other top backs in the nation, so it will be interesting to see which ones actually sign with the Buckeyes, but I am sure that Ryan Day and his staff would love to sign a guy like Carroll.