Ohio State football: Recruiting dead period hurts OSU

The Ohio State football team got some bad news today when the recruiting dead period was recommended to be extended until June.

The Ohio State football team has just one recruit left that they are trying to grab for the 2021 class. It’s a big one. It’s DE J.T. Tuimoloau. He is the third-best player in the country and had decided to wait until April to make his decision on where he will attend school.

That decision may have to come sooner and it might not go the way the Buckeyes want it now. The NCAA Football Oversight Committee recommended to extend the recruiting dead period until May 31st, which is still a full three-plus months away.

Tuimoloau hasn’t visited Ohio State yet. In fact, Ohio State is the only place in his top five that he has not been able to visit. The biggest reason why he hasn’t made a decision yet is because he wanted to visit Columbus and get a feel for campus life.

If this decision goes through, this immensely hurts Ohio State’s chances to grab him. Even though my sources told me the Buckeyes believe they have him locked up, that was when they thought he was going to be able to visit in April before he had to make a choice.

Tuimoloau is still projected to go to Ohio State as of now. But we don’t know if his mind will change now that he won’t be coming to Columbus before he has to decide. There’s no way he can wait until June 1st to make a decision. Fall camp starts at that time. It is too late to decide.

We will be following developments on this as they come in. It seems a little much that the dead period is extended that much with vaccine rollouts occurring and already 10% of the population vaccinated. The Buckeyes have no control over this though.

We will see what happens with this decision and what Tuimoloau ultimately decides to do if this dead period extension happens.