With the 2024 Ohio high school football season upon us, it’s time to take a look at some of the state’s highest-rated recruits. In this series, we’ll focus on the top recruits at a handful of positions for a specific graduating class.
We’ve introduced you to the senior quarterbacks, senior running backs, senior linebackers, senior edge rushers, senior wide receivers, senior defensive backs, senior tight ends and senior offensive linemen so far. Now let’s take a look at the top defensive lineman recruits in Ohio for the class of 2025.
Cleveland Heights has two of the top three senior defensive linemen in Ohio this season: Brandon Caesar (West Virginia) and Jayquan Stubbs (Minnesota).
Each of the top five senior defensive linemen is transferring to Power 5 schools: Gordy Sulfsted of St. Xavier is going to Notre Dame, Cal Thrush of Upper Arlington is going to Michigan State and Trey Verdon of Hamilton is going to Iowa State.
All rankings are based on 247Sports.com.
1. Brandon Caesar, Cleveland Heights; 6’4″, 255 lbs (No. 14 overall in Ohio’s Class of 2025)
Committed to West Virginia
The West Virginia product, who was named to the Division I All-Ohio first team last season, is recovering from an injury and hopes to be on the field for the Tigers this season.
2. Gordy Sulphsted, Saint Xavier; 1.95 m, 109 kg (No. 16 overall)
Committed Notre Dame
Finished last season with 41 tackles and 3.5 sacks and was named to the All-Ohio Division I third team.
3. Jayquan Stubbs, Cleveland Heights; 1.98 m, 111 kg (No. 21 overall)
Committed to Minnesota
The 3-star recruit is an anchor of the Tigers’ defensive line and also plays basketball for Cleveland Heights in the winter.
4. Cal-Thrush, Upper Arlington; 1.93 m, 113 kg (No. 48 overall)
Committed to Michigan State
The three-time freshman earned honorable mention All-Ohio honors last season and chose Michigan State despite other offers from Army, Navy, Louisville and several Mid-American Conference schools.
5. Trey Verdon, Hamilton; 1.88 m, 102 kg (No. 51 overall)
Committed to the state of Iowa
Had 77 tackles, 14 tackles for loss, eight sacks and two forced fumbles last season and was selected to the All-Ohio Division I second team.
Stick with SBLive Ohio all season long for all of our high school football coverage. You can check out our Ohio high school football scoreboards all season long.
— Ryan Isley | [email protected] | @sbliveoh
