Ohio State Football: A check of Big Ten recruiting
By Ryan Stano
We know that the Ohio State football program has the best recruiting class for the 2023 class right now. I say right now because they keep flip-flopping with Notre Dame for that top level. Either way, they have the best recruiting class in the Big Ten.
What about the rest of the Big Ten though? We told you how terrible TTUN’s class is, but how are the other schools doing? I can tell you that only one other program is sniffing the same stratosphere for recruiting that the Buckeyes are right now.
That program is Penn State. Right now, they are 4th in the rankings. They are the second-highest ranked Big Ten school. Only Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Texas have better recruiting classes right now. The Nittany Lions have 1 five-star, 12 four-star, and 6 three-star recruits.
After that, you have to go all the way to 18th and 19th to find the next two Big Ten programs. Those are Northwestern and Iowa respectively. Northwestern doesn’t have any five-star kids, while Iowa has one. Iowa has more of a chance to move up than Northwestern does.
The only other Big Ten programs in the top 30 in the recruiting rankings are Michigan State (25), Purdue (28), and Nebraska (30). That means that half of the conference has a top-30 class right now, and Minnesota sits just outside that ranking at 31.
As you can see, the Ohio State football program is light years ahead of the rest of the Big Ten programs when it comes to recruiting. That’s what has enabled them to have the sustained success that they’ve had in the conference. Penn State continues to be their chief rival in recruiting.
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That doesn’t mean the Buckeyes can’t get beat though. TTUN beat them because they were tougher and executed their gameplan better. Recruiting is only half the battle.