Devin Sanchez Fits Everything Buckeyes Are Looking For In A Cornerback

There is a certain amount of pressure and attention that comes with being a five-star recruit. High school rankings have never been a guarantee of future success, but they do guarantee added attention.

Devin Sanchez is one of those former five-star recruits who is currently preparing for his true freshman season as a Buckeye. Ranked the top cornerback in the 2025 recruiting class by both 247Sports and Rivals, the expectations are that Sanchez will eventually be the next big thing in the OSU secondary.

What the timeline is on “eventually” will be up to him.

Ohio State cornerbacks coach Tim Walton recruited Sanchez, and knew there was something special in the young defensive back early on.

“Well, it was pretty immediate,” Walton recently told Buckeye Huddle. “I got a chance to see him on tape. Went out and saw him practice in high school. But then when he came to camp, we got to see him live in camp competing against other top players in the country. At that point you kind of knew because you got a chance to see it up close.”

Whether it was tape, practice, or camp, Walton gained more information on Sanchez as a player and a competitor. He was clearly talented but Walton wanted to see more, and he eventually did.

“The skillset, competitiveness, the understanding of the game, the movement skills, the hip fluidity, all the things that you look for in a guy, you had a chance to see that going against other top competition,” Walton said. “So at that point, you kind of knew as time went on how important the game was for him. He’s a student of the game. He’s all about the ball, so he fits in with the guys that we have.”

Ohio State returns four of their top five cornerbacks from last season, so Sanchez hasn’t walked into a room that he can just roll through. Everybody’s had their own recruiting rankings, after all, and each of them realized pretty quickly that recruiting rankings are not legal tender.

Walton labeled senior Davison Igbinosun, junior Jermaine Mathews, sophomore Aaron Scott, and redshirt freshman Bryce West as football junkies, so while the competition will be fierce, Devin Sanchez should feel right at home.

After all, if it didn’t feel like home, he wouldn’t have stayed true to his commitment for as long as he did. Sanchez committed over a year ago, and when he did, his recruiting process became incredibly boring. There were no rumors. No clandestine visits to other schools. No shiny NIL packages rumored to be winning him over.

When he committed to Ohio State, he became a Buckeye and that was that. In a recruiting cycle where Ohio State had three cornerbacks decommit, there was never any drama with Devin Sanchez.

Tim Walton credits both the player and his family.

“Well, it’s nice to recruit like that when people are locked in and they’re not caught up in the recruiting hype,” he said. “They knew what they were looking for in the development, the culture, the life after football, and the environment that they wanted their son in. Once they identified that, they stayed true to it. The other outside influence of recruiting didn’t sway them.”

Walton also credited Sanchez’s relationship with head coach Ryan Day and assistant secondary coach Gerren DuHart, as well as the players he will be competing against.

“It was the home-away-from-home atmosphere that was created, and it’s still like that today,” he said. “So, it’s been a great transition, and he developed a good relationship with the guys that we have in the DB room now. So, that level of comfort makes it easy, and it’s been true the whole time. It’s real genuine brotherhood.”

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