Ohio State football: Ryan Day ready to take on recruiting challenges

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Day, who is set to replace Meyer as head coach of the Buckeyes after the Rose Bowl, won’t get a chance to add to his 3-0 career record total until September, but he is already at work on the latter.

Ohio State begins the week with the No. 9 recruiting class in the country according to 247Sports Composite rankings.

The Buckeyes lead the Big Ten (after Michigan lost a pair of highly regarded recruits last week), but there is plenty of work to do between now and Dec. 19, the first day current seniors can sign national letters of intent.

Not only does Day surely want to add to his class, he also needs to shore up commitments made before Meyer announced his intent to retire in January.

The 2019 class so far consists of 16 commitments, including four-star Ohioans Cade Stover (Lexington linebacker), Ryan Jacoby (Mentor offensive lineman), Tommy Eichenberg (Cleveland St. Ignatius linebacker) and Noah Potter (Mentor defensive lineman).

Two days after Meyer announced his retirement, Eichenberg became the first player to verbally commit to Ohio State under Day.

BuckeyeGrove.com reported Jacoby and Potter remain firm commitments while the coaching change created "mild concern" regarding Stover, who is the AP's 2018 Ohio Mr. Football.

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Most of the rest of the class is also considered to be in good shape with the exceptions of Jordan Battle, a four-star safety from Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) St. Thomas Aquinas who is also still considering Alabama and Oklahoma, and Doug Nester, a four-star offensive lineman from Huntington (W.V.) Spring Valley.

Nester as not formally decommitted from Ohio State, but he told the Huntington Herald-Dispatch he no longer plans to sign this month and enroll in January. He will instead consider all his options before signing in February, the traditional signing day, and finishing out his senior year of high school.

Ohio State’s efforts for the 2020 class (current juniors) were off to a strong start, but the announcement of the coaching change has had an effect on the younger prospects.

Lejond Cavazos, a four-star safety from IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., and Jake Wray, a four-star offensive lineman from Marietta, Ga., both announced they have reopened their recruiting but remain interested in Ohio State.

Wray’s brother, Max, is a freshman offensive lineman who redshirted this season for the Buckeyes.

The now five-man 2020 class is still No. 1 in the Big Ten and fourth in the country according to 247Sports.

Meyer's teams won just over 90-percent of their games (with one to go), but he signed the No. 1 recruiting class in the Big Ten 100 percent of his time in Columbus.

He also raised the national average from a ranking of 10.6 under predecessor Jim Tressel to No. 3.3.