The Ohio State football program has struggled to land the same kind of recruits they have in past years. They only have the ninth-best recruiting class in the country, which would be the worst recruiting class in the Ryan Day era, minus the transition year in 2019.
What's so disappointing about this is that the Ohio State Buckeyes are coming off a national championship. They should have all of the momentum in the world coming off that title. Instead, they are going backwards on the recruiting trail. That continued on Thursday night.
Five-star recruit Bralan Womack was favored to choose the Buckeyes for months. He is the top recruit in the country at that position. Instead of choosing Ohio State, he chose Auburn. Once again, there is only one person to blame for not being able to land yet another five-star recruit in this cycle.
Ross Bjork continues to cost the Ohio State football program top recruits
AD Ross Bjork failed to pony up the requisite funds for Womack once Auburn upped his offer. Womack is already a southern kid, so it wasn't a hard sell for him to stay closer to home and make more money. Ohio State had him wrapped up until Bjork cheaped out again.
This is becoming a deeply disturbing pattern. This is why the Buckeyes lost out on Savion Hiter to TTUN, Felix Ojo to Texas Tech, and why they lost several defensive end recruits. For some reason, Bjork continues to cheap out on NIL when he could be using outside collectives to help out.
Ryan Day needs to get in his ear before this class completely spirals out of control. The Buckeyes are good enough to win back-to-back national championships, yet they can't seem to recruit at the same level they've been at for the last five years. This is a Bjork-created problem.
Ohio State football fans are starting to catch on. Bjork might end up wearing out his welcome relatively soon if he's not careful. He's already messed around with game day, and he continues to screw around with recruiting. That is not a recipe for success in Columbus.
Bjork was pushed out of two other universities in relatively short order after arriving there. If he's not careful, that number could increase. His job is safe as long as the football team keeps winning and prices don't get too high. He'd better not press his luck.