This summer has been a wild one on the recruiting trail with the commitments piling up across the country. As it often happens, this tends to be the time where we see a lot of top end talent pledge their services to a school following their official visits. With classes filling up, Ohio State is currently sitting with the No.1 class in the country.
The Buckeyes staff is still looking to land their priority offensive tackle target for the class of 2023 with Luke Montgomery currently being the only player committed at the position right now. The Silver Bulletin had the chance to catch up with five-star offensive tackle Samson Okunlola last month following the announcement of his top nine schools.
No matter where I go I’ll always be from the 508💯 pic.twitter.com/0HWS2O7bm5
— Samson Okunlola ‘23 (@SAMSONOKUNLOLA_) June 2, 2022
“I’ve been talking about Ohio State since the beginning,” said Okunlola. “I’ve had a long time connection going with that staff, and mainly Coach Day. I have a great relationship with him, he’s a great coach, and he’s just a really stand up person.”
Okunlola has a list of nine schools that he’s focused in on that includes Oregon, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Penn State, Ohio State, Miami and Michigan State. The Silver Bulletin wanted to know what made Ohio State fit into that mix.
“Ohio State as a whole is just a great program,” Said Okunlola. “They’re always competing, they’re always winning, and you’re also getting a great education while having great people around you in the brotherhood.”
When Okunlola began to be recruited by the Buckeyes it was while former offensive line coach Greg Studrawa was leading the group. Okunlola admits it was a transition period for him and he needed time to see how the whole process was going to work, but says he has a great relationship with Justin Frye.
“Yeah it was a different situation for me at first,” Said Okunlola. “I just had to get into a new relationship with Coach Frye to see if he was a good fit for me or not. I only had the connection with Coach Day when they switched coaches but I trusted his decision. I think Coach Frye and me have a great relationship now.”
The five-star tackle comes as a top 20 player nationally and the No.3 tackle in the country so the Buckeyes are hoping to solidify another blue chip target in Okunlola. The major question hovering around his recruitment right now is, will he be choosing to stay north as a north east recruit or will he be heading south?
“I’m going to pick the school wherever I feel I can play at early and I just want to play with the best.” Okunlola explained. “
Okunlola mentioned a few times during the conversation how solid his relationship with Day is. Okunlola explained that Day is recruiting him hard but has been relaying the same message in all of their conversations.
“I talk with Coach Day a lot, we text back and fourth,” said Okunlola. “He told me they’re building something great and getting a couple top tackles will secure that. They already got Luke, (Montgomery) and having me would really make it a strong class.”
The Buckeyes clearly having their full press on to land Okunlola’s services but it remains to be seen which direction this recruiting is heading as Okunlola is keeping everything close to the vest.
Carson MacRae comes to The Silver Bulletin with a vast football background. As a former player himself, Carson brought his expertise of the game to the recruitng analysis side, where he worked as a Recruitng Writer and Analyst at Rivals.com apart of Ohio State’s “BuckeyeGrove” network. After leaving Rivals, Carson joined forces with The Silver Bulletin as the Chief Recruiting Writer for the quickly growing Ohio State network. Carson is also proud member of Prep Redzone where he is as a National High School Football Scout providing in depth analysis on the top players around the country.