COLUMBUS, Ohio – Few people will debate the ability of Urban Meyer and his staff's ability to recruit at a high level. Ohio State's recruiting classes under Meyer have been some of the highest rated classes not only in school history but among the best ever of the Rivals.com-era.

We have been waiting for enough years to go by however before opening up the books and looking position-by-position during Meyer's tenure at Ohio State to see who some of the highest rated players have been at each spot and more importantly, if the rankings held true and the highest rated players in fact had the best careers with the team.

Largely, that is not always the case. Ohio State has had some of its best players come from the ranks of the three-star range while some of the highest rated players did not fare as well or the jury is still out on them.

We are going to spend the next several days going through each spot and ranking the players by way of the rankings and seeing who had the best careers. These lists are only open to players that were recruited by Meyer and his staff and not players who Meyer may have coached that were recruited before he arrived in Columbus.

Previous Positions: Offensive Line | Wide Receiver | Tight End | Running Back | Athlete | Quarterback

Defensive end may be the position where Ohio State can really circle the numbers and say that under Meyer that they have been able to pick the best of the best. Something that has to be remembered is that many of these players are not within the state of Ohio and the Buckeyes have to look out of state to land some of these players. Only three players on our list are from the Buckeye state which goes to show something.

We left a lot of names of the list because we had to draw the line somewhere and only players within the Rivals100 made the cut. Not everyone on this list has worked out or finished their career at Ohio State and a couple of players still have their best college football still in front of them. But this list will solidify the notion that Ohio State is a premiere destination for defensive ends up Meyer.

Chase Young is not only the highest rated defensive end recruit under Meyer (No. 8 - Class of 2017) but he is also one of the highest rated recruits under Meyer, regardless of position. Young came in as a freshman and was just too good not to play, despite being surrounded by NFL-level talent. 2018 is going to be a big year for Young as players like Tyquan Lewis, Jalyn Holmes and Sam Hubbard are all off to the next level and the reps are going to be higher with a three-man rotation seeing the majority of the snaps. Young just looks like a NFL-level player already walking around the halls of the WHAC and he still has one more year after this upcoming one before he could consider making the jump.