The Ohio State football team is projected to lose yet another defensive end recruit that they have been trying to land. This time, they are projected to lose out on KJ Ford, a player that they tried to get late in this cycle. They are desperate to add defensive ends at this point.
ON3 is predicting that Ford is going to end up at Florida, which would be devastating for the Buckeyes. They are striking out left and right at defensive linemen, which is a major problem. Larry Johnson has struggled to be able to recruit in the NIL era.
Fans of the Ohio State Buckeyes were split when Johnson decided to stay for another year. Johnson was contemplating retirement, but decided to come back. If Ryan Day is smart, he will make sure that this is the only extra year that Johnson will be getting.
Another DE is expected to rebuke the Ohio State football team
Ford is a four-star recruit, so losing him would be another blow to a 2026 recruiting class that has slid down the rankings in recent weeks. They now have just the fifth-best recruiting class in the country. Just a couple of months ago, they had the second-best class.
At that time, there was talk that the Buckeyes could possibly win a recruiting national championship for the first time. Now, they are staring down the barrel of the lowest-rated recruiting class in the Ryan Day era. The fact that it is coming close to happening the year after a national championship is mind-blogging.
Ohio State will have to pivot to some different options at DE, but those options are becoming slimmer as the summer goes on. There are still six months before these kids sign with a program, so fans shouldn't panic yet. Still, this is a bad pattern from Johnson.