The Ohio State football program has been trying to beef up its 2026 recruiting class as the summer continues. They continue to try to land some of the biggest recruits left on the board, despite some lacking NIL plans. The Buckeyes had the fifth-best recruiting class heading into Sunday.
Five-star linebacker Xavier Griffin made his recruiting decision on Sunday afternoon. He was choosing between the Buckeyes, Texas, Alabama, and Florida State. Heading into the day, he was an Alabama lean, but Ohio State was hoping they did enough late to grab him.
Griffin is listed as the second-best linebacker in the country. He stands at 6'3 and 200 pounds and is from Gainesville, Georgia. Ohio State was the only northern team that he had in his final list of schools. That was always going to be hard to overcome. In the end, it was too much to overcome.
The Ohio State football team loses out on five-star linebacker Xavier Griffin
Instead of picking the Buckeyes, Griffin decided to commit to Alabama. The Crimson Tide were the favorites to land him, so they ended up with him anyway. Ohio State would have loved to have gotten Griffin, but they weren't expecting to land him, nonetheless.
If the Buckeyes are going to land another five-star recruit in this class, they would prefer it to be Felix Ojo, the second-ranked tackle in the country. Even though he had a bad day during a recent Rivals camp, he is still good enough that he could start day one if they needed him to.
James Laurinaitis has done enough recruiting in the last couple of years to know that he certainly can recruit at an elite level. Losing out on one recruit isn't the worst thing in the world. He landed a five-star recruit just last year.