The Ohio State football team has had a top-five recruiting class in every season that Ryan Day has been leading the program, save for the 2019 class, when it was a transition between Urban Meyer and Day. He simply does not mess around when it comes to the recruiting trail.
This season has been a much different story. As of right now, the Ohio State Buckeyes have the ninth-best class in the country. At one point, they had the second-best class. They seem to be in a free fall, and the fact that it's coming a year after winning the national title is very concerning.
Day is still one of the best coaches on the recruiting trail in the country, but the results are not there. Ohio State football fans are starting to realize this and have started turning on one person who is new to the equation: Athletic Director Ross Bjork.
Ohio State football fans have started blaming Ross Bjork for poor 2026 recruiting class
Bjork has failed to pay up for recruits and has shut down outside collectives. Meanwhile, other schools continue to use those programs to help fund the recruiting class. Fans of the Buckeyes are starting to catch on, and they aren't happy about it.
Long way to go until December for recruiting. Ohio State's recruiting class is on the brink of falling out of the top 10 for the first time since Ryan Day took over for Urban Meyer in 2019.
— JBook. (@JBook_37) August 19, 2025
The Math is not Mathing.
— Official Ohio State DG (@DylanEveryday) August 19, 2025
Ohio State adds Ross Bjork, and suddenly this is on schedule to be Ohio State’s worst class under Ryan Day pic.twitter.com/typ6fMqelk
Ohio State President Ted Carter Jr. hired Bjork because he proclaimed that he was going to embrace the NIL era. Since he's gotten to Columbus, he has fallen behind at every step. The spending on last year's team was only done after the Buckeyes were slow to create NIL collectives in the first place.
This year, he has abandoned those collectives because he believes the College Sports Commission will eventually outlaw them as part of the settlement with the NCAA. They might eventually do that, but there's no reason not to use them while they are still available.
Unless Bjork somehow changes his tune in the next few months, there is no chance that the Buckeyes will be able to have a top-five class, as they have with every other Ryan Day recruiting class. Coming off a national title, that's not acceptable.
Bjork hasn't caught a ton of flak early in his tenure as AD, but his mistakes are mounting. Changing beloved gameday traditions is one thing, but hindering Ohio State's ability to compete on the football field will make a whole lot of fans mad. He needs to get with the times.