Another elite edge rusher locks in fall gameday visit with Ohio State

Ohio State is off to a strong start in the 2027 recruiting class with two commits, but next year’s recruiting cycle is only just getting underway. The next step for high school juniors is to schedule their fall gameday visits, and Ohio State continues to secure elite recruits for trips to Ohio Stadium. 

Five-star edge rusher Chris Whitehead has his trip to Columbus on the books after reportedly scheduling a visit with the Buckeyes for their Week 1 matchup against No. 1 Texas. Whitehead will be one of many top recruits on the sidelines for one of the biggest games of the season and a rematch of last season’s College Football Playoff semifinal at the Cotton Bowl. 

Chris Whitehead is a key target for Ryan Day in the 2027 class

It’s never easy to restock on the defensive line, but it’s even more difficult when you’re attempting to replace four NFL Draft picks. That’s the task for Ryan Day and his coaching staff in Columbus this offseason, and long-term, after losing Jack Sawyer, JT Tuimoloau, Tyleik Williams, and Ty Hamilton from last year’s national title team. 

For the short term, Day and new defensive coordinator, Matt Patricia, plan to develop young players like Eddrick Houston to supplement Kenyatta Jackson Jr. and offseason Transfer Portal addition Beau Atkinson. However, for the long term, the Buckeyes need to start recruiting the edge rusher position at an elite level again. 

Houston, in the 2024 recruiting class, was the last five-star defensive lineman to commit to the Buckeyes and the only composite five-star defensive lineman Day has landed since Tuimoloau and Sawyer arrived in the 2021 class. That’s a significant dry spell for a program with a reputation for developing high-level defensive linemen, most notably, the Bosa brothers and Chase Young, who were all top-three NFL Draft picks in a five-year stretch. 

Whitehead is currently the No. 21 overall player in the 2027 class according to 247Sports Composite rankings, a five-star, and the fifth-best edge rusher in the class. The 6-foot-5, 210-pound Chesterfield, Virginia, product does an excellent job converting speed to power off the edge and has the wheels to chase down any quarterback at the high school and maybe even the college level. 

Whitehead will only get better as he continues to grow into his lengthy frame and become more technically refined as a pass-rusher. He’s the type of dominant edge that could eventually be a field-tilter in college, constantly forcing the offense to account for him with double teams and chips, the type of pass rusher that Ohio State could lack in 2025. 

One of the biggest reasons that Ohio State morphed into a rolling ball of chainsaws in the College Football Playoff is that Sawyer and Tuimoloau hit another level, and the defensive line as a whole took over football games. The 2025 roster isn’t built that way, and it could take a few years for Day and his staff to fully restock in the trenches.