Ohio State football: The impact of McCullogh’s decommitment

The Ohio State football team lost a top recruit over the weekend to a rival Big Ten school. We take a look and see how that affects the Buckeyes moving forward.

Ohio State’s 2022 recruiting class certainly suffered a blow when outside linebacker Dasan McCullough flipped his commitment to hometown school Indiana so he could join his dad and two brothers on the team. McCullough is rated as the nation’s number six Athlete and a is Top 50 player nationally. The question is how big of a blow is this?

While Buckeye haters out there are doing cartwheels because they think this shows some sort of chink in the recruiting armor, their celebrating is a bit premature. The Buckeyes still have the numbers two and three outside linebackers in the country.

C.J. Hicks of Archibishop Alter in Kettering and Gabe Powers of Marysville also happen to be the top two recruits in the Great State of Ohio. The de-commitment of McCullough leaves a hole, but it isn’t one Ryan Day and linebackers’ coach Al Washington, Jr. can’t fill.

One option is certainly the possibility of Henry To’o To’o deciding to transfer to the Buckeyes (I looked at this situation recently, you can read that article here). Washington is working hard to land the former Tennessee player.

While he would be a very welcome addition, To’o To’o is a redshirt junior, so I don’t see him as long-term solution to the depth situation at this position. OSU lost four linebackers to graduation, but only signed one in its latest class (Reid Carrico of Ironton). The Buckeyes need to restock the cupboard.

In looking around at various recruiting sites, the names I see mentioned most often are Justin Medlock of Manvel, Texas and Shawn Murphy of Manassas, Virginia. Both play inside. Medlock (6’1”, 210 pounds) is thought to be leaning towards Oklahoma, but the Buckeyes are not far behind.

There are no reports of where Murphy (6’2”, 215 pounds) may be leaning, but Washington has remained in contact with him throughout the recruiting process. Murphy is a Top 100 player nationally and the number two inside linebacker.

When looking at potentials at outside linebacker the list gets too long in a hurry and there don’t appear to be any firm targets right now. I don’t doubt some will emerge far sooner than later.

Despite this setback, the Ohio State football program’s recruiting class is still third overall and leads the Big Ten by a wide margin. No need to panic, there is a long way to go to finish this class.