National recruiting analysts have bold take on recruiting battle for 5-star OL David Sanders Jr

A pair of national recruiting analysts offered a take on the recruiting battle for 2025 five-star offensive lineman David Sanders Jr that could best be described as "bold".

Rivals.com's Adam Gorney and Adam Friedman think it's "fiction" that Sanders, 6-foot-6/290 lbs from Charlotte, NC will sign with the Tennessee Vols or the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Instead, they think it'll be Ohio State for the highly coveted five-star recruit.

Georgia is also in the mix for Sanders, but it looks like the Bulldogs are bringing up the rear in this recruiting battle.

From Rivals.com : Gorney’s take: FICTION . Prior to this weekend, I felt David Sanders Jr. was pretty close to locked up for Ohio State but a lot of times after months of calculations and research, emotions win out in recruiting. No program has done a better job than Nebraska down the stretch here as quarterback Dylan Raiola has made Sanders a priority and his visit there was as good as it gets. Tennessee also rolled out the red carpet and showed tons of love. That could certainly change things for the five-star offensive lineman but after the post-visit high wears off and Ohio State has a chance to close here, I still think the Buckeyes look best for Sanders.

You can check out the rest of Friedman's take here .

While it's tough to know for sure what Sanders is going to do when he announces his commitment on August 17 -- because of how guarded he's been with his recruitment -- it would seem, based on his visits last weekend to Nebraska and Tennessee, that the Vols and the Cornhuskers are the top two schools for the North Carolina native.

Sanders and his family have been incredibly thorough with this whole process. So if Ohio State is still at the top of this recruitment, why didn't he take a visit to Columbus? Why would Sanders try to check every box during his recruitment and then fail to circle back to Ohio State (just before his commitment) if they're truly one of his finalists?

Sure, it's still possible that it will be Ohio State for Sanders. But based on what we've seen from the five-star offensive lineman the last several months, picking Ohio State on August 17 after not taking a visit to Columbus in late July would be a sharp departure from how Sanders has operated throughout his recruitment.

Fortunately for all of us, the speculation will end in just a few weeks when Sanders announces his long-awaited commitment.

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