As the season winds down in the final month of the regular season, the Ohio State football team continues to try to find wins on the recruiting trail, just as they have on the field. They have been trying to flip some recruits with Early Signing Day just three weeks away.
They have had some success, most recently flipping a four-star cornerback recruit from Florida State. The Buckeyes are now eighth after now after once having a top-five class in the Spring. They were stuck at ninth for quite a while.
On Sunday afternoon, the Ohio State Buckeyes were hoping to land four-star defensive lineman Emanuel Ruffin after he made the decision to de-commit from Deion Sanders and Colorado. He was choosing between Ohio State and Missouri for his final decision.
Ohio State football program gets four-star defensive line recruit
The Buckeyes have been able to make a strong push in the last few months for some of these recruits after Ross Bjork made a decision to start offering some higher-valued NIL deals. The fact that Ohio State is still undefeated and ranked number one in the country doesn't hurt, either.
Adding Ruffin to this class gives the Buckeyes a pretty stout defensive line recruiting class for the first time in a few years. Larry Johnson has had a nice bounce-back recruiting class after having low numbers for the last couple of years. It's still unclear how much longer he will coach.
Adding solid players in the trenches is never a bad thing, especially when they are as good as Ruffin is. He stands at 6'4 and 295 pounds, so he has plenty of size inside. Adding Ruffin now gives Ohio State five defensive linemen in this class, which is a good haul.
Day wants to build up the trenches so his team is tough enough to survive the marathon that the college football season has become. He's done a good job of doing that in this class.