USC Football Recruiting: Jaiden Woodbey Commits to Ohio State

Four-star safety Jaiden Woodbey announced his commitment to Ohio State’s 2018 recruiting class over USC football and others.

The 2017 recruiting cycle just wrapped up, but recruiting rolls on as stars for the 2018 class have already begun to make their commitments for next year.

Four-star safety Jaiden Woodbey kicked things off early by announcing his commitment to Ohio State on Monday night, picking the Buckeyes over USC, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

“This college decision has been extremely hard due to all of the amazing programs that have given me an opportunity to excel as a student athlete at their elite institutions. Overall, there is one school that shines about the rest in terms of their academics, athletics and spiritual aspects,” Woodbey wrote on Twitter.

“For that reason, the school that I will represent on Saturdays and earn my degree from will be The Ohio State University.”

The 6-foot-2, 205-pound safety is one of the top prospects in California coming out of St. John Bosco in Upland. Ohio State going west and landing such a highly-coveted recruit so early in the process is an impressive feat.

Having said that, the 2018 cycle had only just begun and early commits are notoriously prone to flipping one way or another by the time Signing Day rolls around. For now, Woodbey is a Buckeye.

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• USC Podcast: RoT Radio Ep. 396 on the Football Season’s Fallout
• Talanoa Hufanga named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, USC football with five first-teamers

From a USC perspective, that’s a disappointing development, but not a crushing one.

The Trojans just signed two elite safety prospects in Bubba Bolden and Isaiah Pola-Mao, rated as the nation’s No. 8 and 15 players at their position in 2017.

USC also landed a pair of top-class safeties in the 2016 class with Jamel Cook and C.J. Pollard coming on board.

With those players locked in, the Trojans are not in any particular need of safeties in the 2018 class.

USC’s 2018 recruiting class already includes five-star quarterback Matt Corral and four-star prospects like linebacker Raymond Scott and Bo Calvert, wide receiver Manuel Allen and cornerback Marcus Johnson.