Since Justin Frye left for the Arizona Cardinals, the Ohio State football team has done a great job of recruiting on the offensive line. Tyler Bowen has done a fabulous job of bringing in talent in his first year as the offensive line coach since being hired a couple of months ago.
Bowen has already landed three offensive linemen in the 2026 class for the Buckeyes. He hasn't landed a truly great recruit yet, but he was hoping to do so by landing Jackson Cantwell. Cantwell is the best recruit in the country in the 2026 class and is the number-one tackle.
Cantwell visited the Ohio State Buckeyes a couple of times and seemed to like what they had to offer. There were reports that Cantwell didn't want to play in a big city, and Columbus seemed to fit that bill. Unfortunately for the Buckeyes, those reports were false because he chose to play in a big city, but it's not Columbus.
Ohio State football recruiting target chooses Miami over the Buckeyes
Cantwell chose to play for Miami instead of Ohio State. He was also considering Georgia and Missouri in his final list of schools. Cantwell had interesting comments about his choice of school, saying he chose the Hurricanes because of Mario Cristobal's history of developing offensive linemen.
Five-Star Plus+ OT Jackson Cantwell on his decision to commit to Miami 🙌
— Hayes Fawcett (@Hayesfawcett3) May 13, 2025
Development was a huge factor and told me multiple times there’s not a better OL Coach/Developer in CFB than Alex Mirabal https://t.co/5y15Hop09Q pic.twitter.com/XqlRuto15h
This is certainly disappointing for the Buckeyes, but hardly unexpected. Miami made a large push in the last couple of weeks, driven by NIL money. Ohio State decided to take a step back once they saw that it was becoming a driving factor in Cantwell's decision.
It would have been nice for the Buckeyes to land their first five-star offensive lineman in over five years. Still, Bowen is confident in the group that he has for the 2026 recruiting class. The Buckeyes are still in the process of building up the depth up front, because they clearly need it.
Perhaps Bowen will be able to land a five-star recruit for the 2027 class. It will be interesting to see how he attacks that class, because he only has one more chance in this class to get one.