The Hurry-Up: Ohio State Offers Five-star 2024 Cornerback Kobe Black, Four-star 2024 Safety Jaylen Heyward to Commit on Friday

By Garrick Hodge on January 10, 2023 at 5:30 pm
Kobe Black
Twitter/@lilkb2xx
31 Comments

Ohio State has offered the second-ranked cornerback in the 2024 recruiting class.

Five-star Texas prospect Kobe Black picked up an Ohio State offer Tuesday, with the offer coming from safeties coach Perry Eliano. 

Per 247Sports’ composite rankings, Black is considered the 20th-best player in the 2024 class and the second-ranked cornerback. The 6-foot, 190-pound product has picked up 25 Division I offers, including from the likes of Arkansas, Auburn, Baylor, Colorado, Florida State, LSU, Michigan State, Missouri, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, Oregon, TCU, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, USC and Wisconsin. 

In 12 games for Connally High School (Waco, Texas) last season, Black racked up 36 tackles (2 for loss), two interceptions returned a combined 104 yards and nine pass deflections.

Black will release a top 12 list on Sunday and with Ohio State offering the talented Texas product, there’s a great chance the Buckeyes will be on that list in the near future. He’ll vault into elite company as a priority target for OSU at cornerback in 2024, along with Charles Lester, Bryce West and Aaron Scott. One of Ohio State’s safety targets in the 2024 class, four-star Texas prospect Corian Gipson, also took notice of Black being offered by Ohio State. 

Jaylen Heyward to commit Friday

One of Ohio State’s safety targets in the 2024 class is ready to make a decision on his future. Four-star Florida safety Jaylen Heyward will make a commitment Friday from a top six of Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Michigan and Florida.

Heyward was offered by OSU in May. He’s considered the 34th-best prospect nationally and third-ranked safety in the 2024 class.

“With Ohio State, they’re one of the top programs in the country as well with Coach Eliano as the safeties coach he could turn me into the next Sauce Gardner because he came from Cincinnati and he was his coach so that’s one reason why I’m fired up about them,” Heyward told 247Sports. “Also with Ryan Day as the head coach, he’s a family guy and a good head coach. Even though I haven’t been up there I feel like I will love the environment up there.”

The last part of the quote from Heyward on OSU is fairly telling that he never made a visit to Columbus. A few days before his commitment, Georgia is the likely favorite to land Heyward. Heyward has visited other schools outside his top six as well, including Florida State and Miami. Should Heyward commit to Georgia, it will give the two-time defending national champion Bulldogs two safety commits in the 2024 class, the other one being former Ohio State target Peyton Woodyard.

Edrees Farooq puts Ohio State in his top 10

A safety in the 2024 class with an Ohio State offer has started to narrow down his recruitment. 

Three-star Maryland prospect Edrees Farooq released a top 10 list on Monday consisting of Ohio State, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Maryland, Virginia Tech, Penn State and USC. 

Farooq, the younger brother of Oklahoma wide receiver Jalil Farooq, is considered the 600th-best player and 46th-best safety in the 2024 class. The 6-foot, 185-pound prospect picked up his Ohio State offer on Dec. 12 along with three of his high school teammates at St. Francis Academy (Baltimore, Maryland): Blake Woodby, Ify Obidegwu and Kevyn Humes.

31 Comments
View 31 Comments