Ryan Day makes massive recruiting stride by landing commitment of elite four-star prospect to the Class of 2026

Ryan Day and Ohio State landed a four-star recruit in the Class of 2026.

Day and the Buckeyes landed elite four-star EDGE Cincere Johnson, according to On3 insider Hayes Fawcett. Johnson is a four-star recruit who's the 80th-ranked player in the Class of 2026, according to 247Sports and the ninth-ranked EDGE rusher.

“The Best in Ohio Stay In Ohio, can’t wait to be apart of the brotherhood," Johnson said to Fawcett.

Johnson is from Cleveland, Ohio, and had interest from the likes of Alabama, Penn State, Florida, Florida State, Miami, Michigan, Notre Dame, Oregon, and Oklahoma, among other schools.

In 2023 at Glenville High School, he recorded 121 tackles, 24 tackles for loss, 7 sacks, and 3 forced fumbles.

Johnson adds to Day and Ohio State's 2026 recruiting class. According to 247Sports, the Buckeyes have the third-ranked Class of 2026, which includes landing two five-stars and 12 four-stars.

Ohio State only trails USC and Texas A&M for the best recruiting Class of 2026.

Ryan Day reveals unique thing Ohio State is doing to remain motivated in 2025

Ryan Day helped lead the Ohio State Buckeyes to the national championship in 2025.

Day and the Buckeyes had upset losses to Oregon and Michigan during their season, which ended their chances of playing in the Big Ten championship. Yet, due to the playoff expansion, the Buckeyes still made the College Football Playoff.

In the playoffs, Ohio State got hot and ran the table en route to a dominant title win. However, entering 2025, Day revealed they took down all the national championship flags and signage to remain motivated to win it again in 2026.

“We brought the leadership committee in [after the season] and we talked about what we want to get done … and the first thing was reinforce the culture,” Day told Pate, via SI. “And the leaders from this year’s group said, ‘Reinforce? There’s guys in this room that don’t even know what the culture is. You’ve gotta rebuild the culture.' "And they asked for a lot of the national championship paraphernalia to be taken down in the facility because they're like, 'We didn't win a national championship. The last group did.' So that was a good sign because they understood that this was going to be a new year."

Despite losing several key players to the NFL, Day and Ohio State enter 2025 with the best odds of winning the national title at +500.

Day and Ohio State open their season at home on Aug. 30 against the Texas Longhorns.

Edited by Cole Shelton