His other offers included Texas A&M, Penn State, Duke and Vanderbilt, however, suggesting college recruiters are higher on him than talent evaluators in the media.
Per 247Sports, Walker started off as an Ivy League recruit who grew into an FBS prospect over the past year.
“I started training at this new gym and they put me on the best nutrition plan I’ve been on in my life,” he told the site. “In two months I gained 35 pounds and I looked better than ever, felt better than ever and I was moving faster than I ever had. I was a lot stronger.”
He said that also has translated onto the field.
“Three months ago this kid was a skinny 6-6 kid, and now he’s filled out and he can move,” Walker said of himself.
Walker became the 17th member of Ohio State’s 2023 recruiting class and the fourth offensive lineman.
He joins Joshua Padilla of Wayne, Austin Siereveld of Lakota West and Luke Montgomery of Findlay in the latter group.
Padilla plays tackle for the Warriors, but he is slated to move inside at the next level. He and Siereveld are both four-star interior line prospects while Montgomery is Ohio’s top-rated prospect and the No. 4 tackle in the country.
Ohio State is slated to have 16 scholarship offensive linemen this fall, probably the minimum the coaching staff would want to have in a given year, and tackle is also viewed as a big priority for this class.
That is because 2022 starters Dawand Jones and Paris Johnson Jr. are likely to headed to the NFL after the season, and who will back them up is not entirely clear.
The coaching staff and fellow teammates have expressed confidence in third-year sophomore Josh Fryar, but he is coming off a surgery that prevented him from taking part in spring practice.
While the starting lineup of Johnson, Jones, center Luke Wypler and Matt Jones and Donovan Jackson has great potential, head coach Ryan Day has expressed concern about the depth up front throughout the offseason.
New offensive line coach Justin Frye expressed confidence in the situation at the conclusion of spring practice.
“You miss not having Josh for the spring, but you just keep developing the guys that we have and then we’ll go through fall camp and you’ll shake it out where you have eight, nine guys who you feel comfortable about putting in the game right there,” Frye said.
Walker can sign a letter of intent in December.
If he does, he will become Ohio State football’s first scholarship recruit from a high school in Connecticut since John Kacherski in 1987, the last class signed by coach Earle Bruce.
Kacherski, who graduated from Milford Academy, ended up being a starting linebacker and team captain for the Buckeyes in 1991. He had three sacks in a game against Iowa in 1988, then tied for a school record.
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