The Latest on Five-Star Offensive Tackle Felix Ojo

MANSFIELD, Texas — The competition for five-star Mansfield (TX) Lake Ridge offensive tackle Felix Ojo is fierce. But the Buckeyes find themselves right in the middle of the chase for the nation’s No. 1 lineman as Ojo finds himself smack in the middle of a robust official visit schedule.

“I already took three OV’s,” Ojo told BuckeyeHuddle.com on Wednesday. “I took one to Ole Miss, my second one to Texas Tech, and my third one to Colorado, which was last week. I have Florida this week, Ohio State next week (May 30th), Michigan, Texas, and then (Oklahoma) to end it off.”

For Ohio State, it has been a full staff effort to recruit the 6-foot-7, 285-pound prospect.

“My relationship with Ohio State has been great since day one when I got the offer last summer,” Ojo explained. “My relationship with coach Frye was great. After he left to go to the Arizona Cardinals, the whole entire coaching staff hit me that same day. I’ve been in touch with coach Hartline, (Keenan Bailey), coach Bowen, coach Dickey, coach (Marcus) Johnson. So the relationship that we’ve been building has been very great and I’m looking forward to seeing where we go with this.”

Losing an offensive line coach halfway through the recruiting cycle is never ideal, but Tyler Bowen has worked quickly to build a strong relationship with Ojo.

“Me and coach Bowen’s relationship is amazing,” he said. “He’s not only a great person but a great offensive mind. He knows what he’s doing and when it comes to offensive line development, he played offensive line in college and even though he hadn’t coached offensive line, he still knows what he’s talking about and he still knows everything about offensive line. With coach Bowen and having two other offensive line coaches that have years and years of experience at the college level and athletes that they’ve produced to the draft, that really helps out the offensive line room over there.”

Head coach Ryan Day’s involvement in this recruitment has also been noticeable. Day has taken a very hands on approach to in the Buckeyes’ pursuit of Ojo.

“The conversations I’ve had with coach Day, he’s a great person,” Ojo said. “When it comes to offense, he knows what he’s talking about, he knows how to develop. With my recruitment he’s just been telling me that there’s been a lot of great players to come out of Texas. There’s been a lot of great players that came through Ohio State that are from Texas and what separated them from the other recruits is that they chose to step out of their comfort zone and chose to push themselves and push themselves into that culture and to be great. That’s really been his main message and that I’m a must-have for Ohio State.”

Get more insight from the thoughtful five-star lineman from our one-on-one interview on the Southern Swing recruiting tour.