Ohio State football gets chomped by elite recruit's collegiate decision

The Ohio State football program is starting to host some recruits on visits for spring practices. With just a couple of weeks until the Spring Game, the Buckeyes are hoping to land a couple of commitments. Those will likely pick up once the Spring Game actually arrives.

Maxwell Hiller had been an elite recruit that the Ohio State Buckeyes had been hoping to land. In fact, he had already made a visit to Columbus. After that visit, Ryan Day and his staff felt good about where things were at. He would have been Tyler Bowen's first huge recruit.

Unfortunately for the Buckeyes, Hiller decided on Wednesday where he decided to play college football, and it's not for Ohio State. Hiller had been considering Ohio State, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida. Ultimately, he decided to pick the Gators.

Ohio State recruiting target picks Florida over the Buckeyes

Hiller is rated as the number one interior offensive lineman in the country. It would have been really nice for the Buckeyes to land him. However, it was always going to be hard for them to seal the deal. Hiller had all SEC teams as finalists except for Ohio State. That makes it tough.

Right now, the Buckeyes have the third-best recruiting class in the country for 2027. Adding Hiller to that list of already talented recruits would have been nice. Still, the Buckeyes have plenty of time to land one of the best classes in the country once the summer rolls around.

Ohio State has just nine commitments so far for the class, which might be good. They don't want to have too many commitments early in the class because they could get flipped late. At the same time, they want to be able to have kids who are choosing Ohio State.

Bowen still has a lot of irons in the fire when it comes to the offensive line. Ohio State fans shouldn't worry about missing on HIller.