Heading into Saturday night, the Ohio State football program was hoping to land a five-star recruit in the 2027 recruiting class. As they try to improve their 2026 recruiting class, they are still paying attention to next year's recruiting class. Jalen Brewster was a recruit they were hoping to get.
Brewster is a five-star defensive line recruit who had the Buckeyes in his top five. He was choosing between the Ohio State Buckeyes, Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M. All of those programs are uniquely different, but Brewster is someone all of those programs would love to have.
Brewster made his decision on Saturday night during the Ohio State game against Minnesota. While it would have been nice for the Buckeyes to land him, he chose Texas Tech. For once, the Buckeyes can't blame Ross Bjork for losing this recruit because of a bad NIL offer.
The Ohio State football team loses out on Jalen Brewster
Rumor has it that the Buckeyes offered Brewster over $1 million in NIL. That's extremely rare for the Buckeyes to offer that sum of money to a high school recruit. The Buckeyes have been very careful with how much money they offer to unproven high school recruits.
There's nothing that Ohio State can do in this situation. Texas Tech has been offering large bags to recruits, and there's just simply nothing Ohio State can do about that. There's only so much money to go around, especially with the new NIL rules that have just been approved.
It's unfortunate that the Buckeyes didn't land Brewster, but they will move on to another highly-touted recruit to give that kind of money to. It's at least a good sign that Bjork was willing to actually give up some money for a recruit, something he was unwilling to do for the last few months.
Ohio State will keep trying to add to its 2027 recruiting class, as it also tries to fix its 2026 recruiting class late in the cycle.