Ohio State Buckeyes: Tight end makes verbal commitment

He is the No. 8 tight end in the country, No. 3 prospect in his home state and ranked No. 142 in 247Sports Composite national rankings.

His more than 20 other offers included Florida State, Penn State, Auburn, Michigan and LSU.

If history is any guide, he will be the only player at his position to sign with the Buckeyes in this recruiting cycle: Since 1993, Ohio State has averaged exactly one signee listed as a tight end per year.

The position has never been a glamour one for the Buckeyes with the exception of the early ‘80s when John Frank was team MVP (1983) and a two-time first-team All-Big Ten selection for coach Earle Bruce.

He amassed 121 catches for 1,481 yards (both school records for a tight end) in his four seasons for the Scarlet and Gray before moving on to the NFL, where he won a pair of Super Bowls with the 49ers, and later becoming a medical doctor.

Ricky Dudley, a former basketball player, is the only Ohio State tight end to be taken in the first round of the NFL Draft in the common era (since 1967) while Frank and Jan White are the only second-rounders.

More than a dozen players listed as “ends” have earned first-team All-America honors — including the first, Boyd Cherry, in 1914 — but White (’70) is the only one since the move to full-time two-platoon football in the ‘60s and the modernization of the position.

The tight end was further de-emphasized when Urban Meyer moved the Buckeyes to a spread offense in 2012, though the ability to use two-tight end sets was vital in Ohio State’s 2014 national championship season as it made the running game less predictable and more dangerous.

Since then, Ohio State has had trouble maintaining depth at the position, though that could be changing as Ryan Day has made two-tight end sets a regular part of the offense again since he replaced Meyer as head coach in 2019.

Coach Kevin Wilson has nine tight ends on the roster, including five on scholarship.

That number has been swelled by the move of Cade Stover from defensive end and Gee Scott Jr. from receiver, and senior Jeremy Ruckert is the only scholarship tight end without multiple years of eligibility remaining.

Additionally, senior walk-ons Mitch Rossi and Corey Rau could carve out roles to further beef up the position while Scott, redshirt freshman Joe Royer and true freshman Sam Hart develop.

The tight ends room also includes true freshman walk-on Zak Herbstreit, the son of former Buckeye captain and Centerville quarterback Kirk Herbstreit.