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Welcome back to Buckeye Talk. It is Buckeye futures Friday. I am Nathan Baird from Cleveland.com along with Stephen Means for our usual

week ending. Well, it doesn't really end the Buckeye talk week. We will be back with you tomorrow with more

honesty football talk, but today we are talking recruiting mostly football recruiting where we're actually going to dip a little bit into basketball on the back end of this coming off of their

season of great accomplishment and great disappointment and where they're going next with that. But we're going to start with football and we're going to start with

I think a lot of times one of the relationships that really governs how we talk about Ohio State football recruiting and that is Alabama football recruiting these are it's the standard right that Ohio State is set. I think every year when

fans are reaching out to us to ask how is Ohio State football recruiting doing. I really think that there's a certain percentage of that question that is not how is

Ohio State doing relative to Michigan or relative to the rest of the big 10 or even in the nation. I think a lot of like how much of that question if like if the if the if the question is like the tip of the iceberg

how much of it how much huger is the iceberg underneath I'm saying this the wrong way. How much of what percentage of the question is how is Alabama recruiting or how is our state recruiting compared to Alabama.

Yeah, and I kind of asked Ryan Day some some version of what you just said. And the fact that we know that Ohio State has Michigan's recruiting board up in their office in the in the wood. We know that because that's the rivalry.

And if you're losing the players of Michigan that means at the end of the year eventually you have to see those players again but also just keeping with the rivalry you're obsessed with Michigan. I wanted to know if there was any national programs that get that same treatment even if it's not to that extreme because it's not your rival and the only team that really

qualifies that way is Alabama not even Clemson. Yes, Clemson has stolen some guys in the past but Clemson isn't consistently putting together top three recruiting classes.

They just have some elite players at the top and they combine that with some developmental guys and they've built a national program but Alabama has just habitually kind of been in Ohio State's way but it's been in the back burner. You don't think about it as much until you play them whether it's Jordan battle in the 2019 class flipping on signing day.

You have JC Latham who forever was in Ohio State lean ends up going to Alabama which pretty much swung the competition for the number one recruiting class in 2021 because as we know now know JC Latham is the number two player in the country which gives Alabama two of the top five players which is what Ohio State trying to do with Jackson hopefully JT Tumelow if JC Latham if that momentum actually ends up in a commitment you got three of the top five players in the country in your class.

So you lose that but you also De Montes Smith the corner back from Ohio who ends up flipping from Ohio State to Alabama and I won't have some family ties to with him being the cousin of Sean Alexander but it's the fact that Alabama is secretly kind of always picking out Ohio State but you don't necessarily think about it as much and that's the team they need to get through if they want to end up getting a recruiting title.

So I went back over the past decade and just compared where did these two teams rank in the final two four seven sports ranking I can't tell if this was just two four seven or the composite I think it was a composite but regardless here out of the past 10 years how many times has Alabama had the number one class I'm going to say nine eight because they were only second in 2020 yeah you're right.

And then they were fifth in 2018 they had a really out of character dip for them and how state obviously still looking for its first class but I'm going to just read back to your so 2021 how state was first Alabama I'm sorry Alabama was first how state was second 2020 Alabama second how state was fifth 2019 Alabama was first how state was 14 that was a transition year some things played into a smaller class and things played into that again this is only going by that total points number not the average average star rating which as we talked about before is

actually sometimes a more accurate description of how what what what what that class contains 2018 that was your Alabama slipped the fifth on how state was second so they did finish ahead of them one time one time in the past decade 2017 Alabama won a how state to 2016 Alabama won a how state for actually how states won the rest of the way they and I didn't check back but I know they had a streak of like what eight years or something that where they were number one so 2017 how state was second 2016 how state was fourth 2015 how state seventh 2014 how state third

2013 how state second and 2012 the how state was fifth so we've talked so much about the tears of college football it's something that dug it had really like brought as a way to frame how we talk about a lot of things and Alabama cleans them being that top tier and a how state being that next wrong down that even if it's just a half step it just always seem like a clear step when you look back over that decade

and I'm the one who is who is very much pushes back on well there's not a huge difference between like first and third if you're like fifth every year that means something but does that still tell you that decade still help explain why there is that half step

yes because I mean eight times in 10 years is why they make savings when a national championships man it's the there's no dip in his dip is with what you said it was fifth or fourth I mean that's not a that's not a real your dip is still top five class in the country while Ohio states it with in context of what happened it's still a dip it's still a dip where you're not a top 10 recruiting class I love I mean

for the most part if you have a top four top three top five recruiting class you're probably a playoff team especially when you're in the SEC and now and now Alabama is getting it done at the most important position which is quarterback with guys like Tua and Bryce Young who were both five stars as well but yes talent leads the championships and when you can reload every single year like Alabama does like nobody else that's the monster you have to compete with and that's what Ohio state has to go up against

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