Ohio State has been handed an inexcusable loss at the hands of another Big Ten team without playing a game in Week 8
The Ohio State Buckeyes just took a loss to Penn State that just shouldn’t happen at this point.
The Ohio State Buckeyes are deep into their bye week. Much of the focus has been on getting the offense ready with a new starting quarterback following the Julian Sayin injury, but the week off has also given Ohio State more time to put toward recruiting.
Ohio State hoped to add a class of 2027 running back commitment on Saturday. Instead, the Penn State Nittany Lions landed the Ohio State in-state target.
Ohio State is still trying to make up for losing David Gabriel Georges to Tennessee. Running backs coach Carlos Locklyn still needs a running back in the 2027 class, and the top name left on the board just went elsewhere.
Jordan Hall picks Penn State over Ohio State
Three-star running back Jordan Hall out of Cincinnati picked Penn State over Ohio State on Saturday. Hall is a former Miami (Ohio) commit who picked up late buzz in his recruitment.
Hall is 5-foot-10.5 and ranked as the No. 60 running back in the country, according to the 247Sports Composite. Ohio State was never going to replace Gabriel Georges in this class. No one else on the board was close to the level of the Tennessee pledge. Still, the Buckeyes need a running back, and losing their in-state target stings.
Hall may have been the top running back on Ohio State’s board, but he is a replaceable talent. The Buckeyes can likely go find someone better in the transfer portal in January. The bigger issue is how this one happened, as Ohio State allowed Penn State to come into its own state and take the top running back target it had left.
Ohio State still has running back options in the 2027 class
The Buckeyes still need to land a player at the position, and a few names out there make sense. Ohio State has recruited all of these prospects this fall; Alabama running back commit Nigel Newkirk, Wisconsin running back commit Kingston Allen, and Florida State running back commit Jayden Miles.
With Hall now out of the picture, Ohio State could turn up the heat on any of the three. Flipping a committed prospect is never simple this late in the cycle, and each of these players has already made a pledge somewhere else. It won’t be easy, but the Buckeyes have the resources and the playing time pitch to make a push.
It has been a tough last year for Locklyn at Ohio State. The 2027 running back recruiting process was a bad one overall. The Buckeyes went all in on one player in Gabriel Georges, and that left them without a commitment at the position when he chose Tennessee.
Now the staff is still trying to make up for it, and Saturday’s news sent the Buckeyes back to the drawing board once again. Ohio State has options between the high school ranks and the transfer portal, and the coming month will give a good picture on what the 2027 running back recruitment looks like.
