By the Numbers: Ohio State's 2021 Class

Wednesday marked the first day that high school football recruits across the nation were able to sign their National Letter of Intent to play for college program.

Fortunately for the Buckeyes, there was no last-minute drama as they signed all 20 remaining recruits in their 2021 class (Jesse Mirco signed in September) by 11:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

With the 2021 class almost officially done — a few players still remain on their radar — we wanted to take a look at this group of prospects from a different perspective. So, BuckeyeGrove presents to you Ohio State's latest group of signees, by the numbers.

You read that right.

Jesse Mirco, a punter out of Perth, Western Australia, is gearing up to make a big move in order to attend Ohio State as a student-athlete. This is over four times the distance that Washington-based wideout Emeka Egbuka will have to travel to Columbus when it's time for him to get on campus.

Egbuka is obviously the farthest away from Oho State when it comes to U.S.-based prospects the Buckeyes signed in the 2021 cycle. He lives approximately 2,424 miles away from the school, which is a fraction of the journey Mirco will need to make from the "Land Down Under."

Some other signees who will make a pretty far move to Columbus are Donovan Jackson (1,160 miles), Sam Hart (1,252 miles) and Denzel Burke (1,867 miles).

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Jack Sawyer lives roughly 22 miles away from Ohio State's campus.

Let's put that into context when comparing it to Mirco. If Mirco had the option to drive straight to Columbus instead of flying, Sawyer could drive to Ohio State and back home about 255 times by the time it took Mirco to make it to the school.

As for other prospects who are close to the Buckeyes in terms of mileage, Ben Christman, Jayden Ballard, Jaylen Johnson and Reid Carrico all live between 111 to 121 miles away from the campus. Michael Hall (Streetsboro) is the farthest in-state recruit as he lives 141 miles away.

As it stands right now, the Buckeyes have signed a trio of five-star prospects: Donovan Jackson, Emeka Egbuka and Jack Sawyer.

This means that for the fourth time in the past five recruiting cycles, Ohio State has signed at least three five-star recruits. That is even more impressive considering the fact that prior to the 2017 class, the program had not signed that many five-stars in a class since the 2008 cycle.

Now, as you all know, there's a good chance this number could rise in the coming months. If J.T. Tuimoloau joins forces with the Buckeyes in February and Kyle McCord earns his fifth star, this would raise the number above to five.

The only other time Ohio State signed that many five-stars was back in the 2017 cycle, when they signed a half-dozen five-star prospects.

Unless there is a drastic change in the rankings or a couple of unexpected recruits commit to LSU, then Ohio State will finish at No. 2 in the team rankings, at the very least.

The Buckeyes currently have 3,005 total points, which is 234 points behind the Alabama Crimson Tide. If OSU finished with this many points, then it would be the third-most points they've ever finished with in the Rivals.com era.

What most Ohio State fans want to know, however, is what it will take to usurp Alabama. Unfortunately for Buckeye Nation, it does not appear as if this is going to happen.

Even if Tuimoloau winds up signing with them in February, it would only elevate them to 3,141 points. Not even a flip of LSU pledge Raesjon Davis would be able to get them over the top. The only scenario to top Alabama, when looking at the current rankings, would be if Tristan Leigh also signed with the program (along with Tuimoloau), which is probably not going to happen.

It would take a significant change in the final rankings in favor of Ohio State for them to finish with their first-ever No. 1 class on Rivals, so I would deem that as highly unlikely.

It is indeed impressive that Ohio State was able to do so well in the Buckeye State, especially when other programs struggled recruiting in their respective states.

In Ohio, Day's staff was able to sign six of the top-11 recruits in the state for the 2021 cycle.

What was also impressive, however, was how the Buckeyes did in other places outside of Ohio. They signed two of the top three players from Pennsylvania, added the top-ranked senior from Missouri (Jakailin Johnson) and signed 12 other players who are top-five in their respective states.

There's no doubt that the Buckeyes are building a wall around Ohio and will keep a lot of in-state talent in the state with Day and company leading the program. Their success outside of Ohio (they signed 14 players from a dozen different states) is absolutely noteworthy.

Stay tuned to BuckeyeGrove.