What KJ Bolden’s Florida State commitment means to Ohio State football: Buckeyes Recruiting

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- For the second straight year Ohio State found itself neck deep into a battle for a highly rated safety with a great chance of winning. And for the second-straight year, it’s come up short by finishing second. It’s a storyline that has continued to plague the Buckeyes during the Ryan Day era, especially over the past few cycles.

In 2022 it lost out on both Zion Branch and Xavier Nwankpa, both of which turned out to be battles of head vs. heart. Branch — and his brother Zachariah, a five-star 2022 wide receiver — grew up a USC fan and Lincoln Riley leaving Oklahoma for the Trojans made them a realistic option.

Nwankpa was long-favored to OSU but eventually chose to instead stay home by committing to Iowa. Those were two normal recruiting losses before NIL became a factor in recruiting. That changed in 2023 when some felt like Caleb Downs was eventually headed to Ohio State before Alabama came into the picture and snatched away a win for the top-10 recruit.

Now it’s happened again in the 2024 cycle with K. J. Bolden, only this time it’s Florida State that’s walked away victorious.

Bolden is a five-star recruit rated as the nation’s No. 7 player and top safety out of Georgia. That description on any player would suggest that this was always going to be a difficult recruitment for Ohio State to pull off.

But it had enough small details in it that you could convince yourself it was more than possible. Yes, he’s a defensive player from a state where its most prominent college football team has spent the last two years winning national titles on the back of its defense. But he also comes from Buford High School, which is probably the only prominent football school in the state that the Bulldogs have been able to firmly plant a flag in.

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Yes, he’s a five-star living in the south, so it’s fair to assume he’ll stay there for college to stay close to home. But the man who has been his main recruiter and would have been his position coach at OSU, Perry Eliano, is also his cousin. Family ties are probably the next best thing to the Buckeyes’ typical approach of finding national kids with Ohio ties.

Unfortunately, none of those beneficial factors matter in this race. Regardless of the reasons — whether it be potential NIL factors or any traditional factors — once again Ohio State has finished no better than second for a top-tier talent at a position so fundamental to its plans on defense. Individually, none of these recent safety losses hurt, especially when you look at the talent that is in the room with most of them already having flashed reasons why things will be fine.

But after a while the losses start to pile up and something small becomes a larger issue. OSU didn’t need a large number of safeties in this class as only two players in the room are expected to be gone after the season. But it could still use a strong influx of talent to set up its future.

With Bolden off the board, it gets a little harder to envision where that comes from. Zaquan Patterson and Jaylen Heyward are the only remaining undecided targets. Heyward hasn’t been in the the picture in some time.

Patterson came on an unofficial visit in June that by all accounts went well, but it’s hard to envision him leaving the south right now as a Florida native. As was the case with the three previous losses, the Buckeyes will probably continue to recruit Bolden all the way to signing day. Maybe he even shows up for a game sometime this season like Downs did.

But for now, this becomes the latest in what’s becoming a long line of losses in the safety room. To see Ohio State’s full 2024 recruiting class, Click here. If you or a loved one has questions and needs to talk to a professional about gambling, call the Ohio Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-589-9966 or the National Council on Program Gambling Helpline (NCPG) at 1-800-522-4700 or visit 1800gambler.

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