As the summer continues to roll along, the Ohio State football team was able to land another offensive line recruit on Wednesday night. Grabbing Aaron Thomas gave them their fourth offensive line recruit of the 2026 recruiting class, by far the most of any position group.
They were hoping to keep that momentum rolling along on Thursday afternoon. Four-star offensive lineman Drew Evers announced his collegiate decision on Thursday. It was widely expected to come down to the Ohio State Buckeyes and Penn State. Both have been recruiting him hard.
Instead, the tackle from Flower Mound, Texas, surprised everyone by deciding that neither Big Ten program was where he wanted to go to school. Instead of those schools, he decided to stay closer to home and picked SMU as his school, so he will now play in the ACC.
Drew Evers picks SMU over the Ohio State football program
This was a pretty surprising choice by Evers. It seemed like he was poised to move East to play for either the Buckeyes or the Nittany Lions. Even Texas A&M was in the mix for him, which would have been closer for home. Instead, he opted for a smaller program in the state of Texas.
Had Ohio State not been able to land Thomas, this would have been a much bigger deal. The Buckeyes now have four offensive linemen in the class, so they can afford to miss out on Evers. They still are awaiting a decision from five-star tackle Felix Ojo, too.
Landing Ojo will determine whether or not Tyler Bowen gets an A+ for his first full recruiting class with Ohio State. Right now, he's still done a pretty good job. He has added a lot of depth, although questions remain if that is the right strategy right now.
Losing out on Evers is not the worst thing in the world. Bowen has a lot of other offensive linemen that he has offered scholarships to, so they very well could take a total of five or six linemen in this class. That won't become normal for the Buckeyes, though.