Ohio State Football: Day surprises in picking St. Clair over Montgomery

The Ohio State football team welcomes quarterback Tavien St. Clair to its 2025 recruiting class last night. This is a surprising move.

The Ohio State football program found its 2025 quarterback in Tavien St. Clair, a three-star recruit from Bellefontaine, Ohio. But prior to two weeks ago, it seemed as if another in-state QB was in line to be the Buckeyes 2025 quarterback commit.

Ryan Montgomery, of Findlay, Ohio, and brother of Buckeye offensive tackle, Luke Montgomery, was penciled in as the favorite for Ohio State. Ryan, a four-star top-200 national player, has been linked to the Buckeyes for two years now and it’s a bit surprising that he did not verbally commit already. Maybe this had something to do with Ohio State taking a liking to St. Clair.

But it sounds as if Ryan Day and quarterback coach Corey Dennis really like the progress that St. Clair has made recently, and they told him that he was their preferred QB for 2025. It did not take long for this rising prospect, who had recent offers from Florida, Alabama, and Michigan, to choose the home state school and help build this 2025 class for the Scarlet and Gray. Here is what St. Clair told Eleven Warriors:

"“Listening to the coaches tell me that I was their number one priority and that they wanted me to be a Buckeye, I just kind of felt like it meant more to me.”"

Is there still room for Ohio State to add Montogomery to the class? It does not sound like it. Montgomery went on to say this, via Eleven Warriors as well:

"“Ideally, I would like to be just the only guy,” Montgomery said. “I haven’t really thought about that yet. Obviously, whichever school that I’m going to pick is because that’s where I feel most comfortable and if that happens to be a place where there’s two quarterbacks, then so be it. I’m gonna go in there and compete.”"

Montgomery is good enough that he should be the lone QB in a recruiting class. This was probably a combination of Montgomery taking his time to commit, culpable with the fact that Ohio State saw this in-state kid from just down the road in St. Clair really start to take form and show incremental improvement.

Regardless, the Buckeyes got their quarterback and Montgomery is going to be just fine with offers from the likes of Georgia, Notre Dame, Michigan, and Penn State. But from where the 2025 QB recruiting was just a few weeks back, this is very surprising. It just goes to show that recruiting, especially at the quarterback position, can be a long winding road.