{"id":83471,"date":"2025-12-05T13:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T18:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=83471"},"modified":"2025-12-05T13:39:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T18:39:20","slug":"exhale-buckeyes-chris-henry-jr-is-headed-to-columbus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/12\/05\/exhale-buckeyes-chris-henry-jr-is-headed-to-columbus\/","title":{"rendered":"Exhale, Buckeyes, Chris Henry Jr. Is Headed To Columbus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There has been a lot of hoopla surrounding the 2026 Ohio State recruiting class. Despite being <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/12\/04\/one-major-piece-of-the-2026-ohio-state-recruiting-class-remains\/\" target=\"_self\">committed to Ohio State for 861 days<\/a>, the impending departure of wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator Brian Hartline caused Chris Henry Jr. to reevaluate his standing with the Buckeyes. After careful consideration, weighing his options between Ohio State, Oregon, USC, Texas, and LSU, Henry reaffirmed his long-held commitment and will join Ohio State.<\/p>\n<p>Henry joins a Buckeye haul that is one of the top classes in the nation as the only <em>247Sports<\/em> five-star recruit. Ohio State now has 27 members of its 2026 class. Henry is the highest-rated receiver, joining four-star recruit Jerquaden Guilford and three-star recruits Brock Boyd and Jaeden Ricketts.<em> 247Sports<\/em> considers him the third-best receiver in the class. However, when considering the composite ranking of all the services, he is the number-one player at his position.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">BREAKING: Five-Star Plus+ WR Chris Henry Jr. is locked in with Ohio State and will sign with the Buckeyes, source told <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Rivals?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@rivals<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The No. 1 WR in the 2026 Class remains solid on his 2+ year pledge<a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/aHBsWpiSCc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/aHBsWpiSCc<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sor4vpn663\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/sor4vpn663<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Hayes Fawcett (@Hayesfawcett3) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Hayesfawcett3\/status\/1996991864960962905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 5, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Ohio State Retains Top-Rated Receiver, Chris Henry Jr.<\/h2>\n<p>Henry has been a hot commodity ever since bursting onto the scene as a freshman at West Clermont High School outside of Cincinnati. Then, he moved to another Cincinnati high school, Withrow. Last year, he transferred to a nationally known football power, Mater Dei, in California. He only appeared in two games after suffering an injury, but was a superstar this year.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s a difference-maker at receiver. Henry is a Tee Higgins-type receiver who can use his big frame to turn 50-50 balls into 90-10 plays. While he may not be as developed as a route runner just yet, Henry is that dynamic outside receiver that defenses lose sleep over. He has incredible long speed and will take the top off the defense with ease.<\/p>\n<p>He was completely locked into the Buckeyes&#8217; class. When he shut down his recruitment, Henry specifically mentioned Hartline and his ability to develop receivers. Now that Hartline is set to leave, Henry, understandably, had to step back and reassess. At the end of it all, the Buckeyes won the day.<\/p>\n<h3>No Hartline, No Problem<\/h3>\n<p>Hartline has been the top recruiter of wide receiver talent since assuming the position coach role in 2018. In that time, Hartline has brought in six five-star receivers and 19 four-stars (including the 2025 class).<\/p>\n<p>Eight of his receivers were drafted with five first-round picks over the last four NFL Drafts. Plus, there is a very good chance <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/carnell-tate-1.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-04_cfb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carnell Tate<\/a> joins <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/emeka-egbuka-1.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-04_cfb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Emeka Egbuka<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=marvin-harrison-jr-1,marvin-harrison-1&amp;search=Marvin+Harrison&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-04_cfb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marvin Harrison Jr.<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/jaxon-smith-njigba-1.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-04_cfb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jaxon Smith-Njigba<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/chris-olave-1.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-04_cfb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chris Olave<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/garrett-wilson-2.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-04_cfb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Garrett Wilson<\/a> as first-round picks in 2026 (and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/jeremiah-smith-2.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-04_cfb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jeremiah Smith<\/a> in 2028). He will stick with the Buckeyes through the College Football Playoff run. Once Ohio State is done, he will take off for South Florida.<\/p>\n<p>No replacement has been named, but it is worth noting that Devin Jordan, assistant wide receiver coach, has been with the Buckeyes since 2022. With Hartline taking over as the play-caller for Ohio State this year, Jordan was more of the hands-on receivers coach for Smith, Tate, and company.<\/p>\n<p>Henry mentioned that money was not a concern of his when it came to his recruitment. Ohio State is known for developing receivers. Now, Henry joins a stacked receiver room to be the next great one.<\/p>\n<p>Main Image: Adam Cairns-The Columbus Dispatch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After much hooplah and 861 days of commitment, Chris Henry Jr. reaffirmed his pledge to join the Ohio State Buckeyes&#8217; 2026 recruiting class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":69507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35609,2,17,7316],"tags":[4787,34876,3348],"class_list":["post-83471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ohio-state-buckeyes","category-featured","category-news","category-recruiting","tag-brian-hartline","tag-chris-henry-jr","tag-ryan-day"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4051"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83471"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83476,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83471\/revisions\/83476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}