Ohio State football’s 2023 recruiting class widens talent gap within Big Ten

Ohio State football is on fire on the recruiting trail right now and a recent string of four and five-star commits has widened its talent gap.

If you read the headline of this post and came in here to crucify me because Michigan upended Ohio State football for the Big Ten title during the 2021 season, hear me out.

I get it, Ohio State can be beaten. Michigan and Oregon both proved that last year and the Wolverines finally got over that Buckeye-sized speed bump in the conference. Jim Harbaugh coached the 2021 Wolverines to perfection and they had the perfect game plan to beat Ohio State, there’s no denying that. But Ohio State had more talent on its roster — hard to deny that.

Teams can take Ohio State down, but that doesn’t mean the Buckeyes won’t be clearly more talented, on paper.

And the 2023 class is proving that the talent gap is only widening for the Buckeyes in the Big Ten.

Just this week, the Buckeyes have landed five-star wideouts Carnell Tate and Brandon Inniss along with four-star, top-150 receiver Noah Rogers.

The Buckeyes now have four top-50 commits, five in the top 100, and seven in the top 150. Ohio State has 13 pledges in its 2023 class with 12 ranked in the top 300 on the 247Sports Composite and all but one being a four-star. The 2023 class now ranks No. 2 in the nation with a .94 average player rating and while Penn State is right behind at No. 3, the Nittany Lions’ average rating is .90.

And we aren’t even mentioning the 2024 class where the Buckeyes have the No. 1 quarterback in the country committed.

Where are the reigning Big Ten champs? Michigan is just 12th in the Big Ten and No. 40 in the nation.

Yes, it’s only June so recruiting is going to change a lot until signing day, but Ohio State is widening that talent gap in the Big Ten.