It may not have been obvious at the time, but Ohio State landed a five-star running back last week, helping Michigan football with Donovan Edwards.
The race for four-star running back Donovan Edwards is heating up these days and Ohio State may have bowed out early, giving way to a team like Michigan to take the lead.
The Buckeyes may have been the presumed favorite for Edwards, but Ryan Day and Co. picked up a commitment from five-star TreVeyon Henderson which essentially shut the door on the West Bloomfield, Mich., native committing. Ohio State now has two top-100 running backs committed in its 2021 class.
A couple of days ago, I wrote about how Ohio State landing Henderson actually helped the Spartans’ chances with Edwards, but the biggest beneficiary of the Buckeyes’ recruiting splash has to be Michigan.
Why is this?
Well, Michigan was in the lead in an in-state battle with Michigan State and Georgia is close behind the Wolverines. With a top contender like Ohio State out of the picture, that has to move the Wolverines back into the overall lead for the West Bloomfield-native even though it does also help Georgia and Michigan State.
Michigan has an advantage. Jim Harbaugh has been recruiting Edwards for years and they’re the home-state program. You could say the same for Michigan State, but the Spartans are under the direction of a new coaching staff and new relationships must be built. They arguably have the toughest road in landing the four-star back.
Georgia, on the other hand, is treating Edwards like a No. 1 priority and that’s been attractive to him as well as the fact that the Bulldogs always seem to land a top-five class under Kirby Smart and produce elite running backs every year.
In the end, I think this comes down to the school that can get him on campus the quickest following the face-to-face restrictions being lifted. If that’s Michigan, you have to like their chances.
Either way, Ohio State did the Wolverines a favor with the commitment of Henderson.