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Some pretty significant news today with Rivals100 cornerback Jakailin Johnson releasing a Top 6 that included Ohio State, Clemson, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, and USC. The Buckeyes have probably been the team to beat for J.K. for a while now but their inclusion in this top six isn't the significant part of this news.
The significant part of this release is the absence of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish were in the last Top Six that Johnson had released and many sources felt Notre Dame was probably Ohio State's biggest challenger for Johnson's pledge. Now the Fighting Irish are nowhere to be found and I don't think this is a case of a kid leaving his favorite school off his list for suspense, it sounds like Notre Dame is very much on the outskirts right now.
The interesting thing about that is that the Fighting Irish recently hired Mike Mickens off of Luke Fickell's staff to coach their secondary. While Mickens certainly looks like a good hire here, the thought recently was that Johnson's head coach at DeSmet High School in St. Louis, Robert Steeples, was considered a very strong contender for that job, if not the favorite.
So you have to wonder if something happened here where there is a feeling that Steeples was yanked around during this search. I was hearing very recently that he was the favorite to land the job so the timing of this is certainly interesting to say the least.
So while I've been leaning Ohio State here for a while, I've got the pick in for the Buckeyes now. You can't count out Clemson the way it is recruiting and there are definitely some major names on that Top Six even without Notre Dame, but Johnson's affinity for Ohio State and his relationship with the St. Louis guys that are on campus, plus the addition of Kerry Coombs and a very appealing depth chart have made this a pretty easy call at this point.
Definitely time for things to change with official visits coming up this spring but Ohio State looks to be in a very commanding position right now.
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