Brandon Nash is 6-foot-1, 190 pounds, plays safety at St. John Bosco in Bellflower, California — one of those high school factories that could probably beat half the Mountain West on a given Friday — and he’s ranked No. 92 overall in the 2028 class, No. 8 at his position nationally, and No. 5 in a state that produces defensive backs the way Chicago produces linebackers who can’t fit into a rental car. Brent Venables wants him. The problem is that Ohio State already has him on speed dial, and the Buckeyes have been picking up the phone a lot more often.
Nash has visited Columbus four times. He’s been to Norman once. That’s not a recruiting battle. That’s a layup line where one team forgot to show up.
His finalist list reads Ohio State, Oklahoma, UCLA, Arizona State, and California, with Kansas making a late push that nobody saw coming — kind of like finding a brisket sandwich at a vegan restaurant, but here we are. Nash told Rivals that his recruitment has been “real consistent since the June 15 date” and that while he doesn’t have a No. 1 school, Ohio State is “definitely up there.”
“I love being out there, I love the coaches, I love the culture they have over there,” Nash said of Ohio State. He’s planning a game-day return visit, possibly for the Buckeyes’ matchup against Illinois.
That’s the kind of quote that makes a defensive coordinator’s coffee taste like battery acid. When a kid says he loves the culture at another program, you’re not trailing by a little. You’re trailing by enough that the kid is already picking out his gameday outfit for the other guy’s stadium.
Oklahoma’s pitch is straightforward: Venables has built his reputation on secondary play, and Nash is exactly the prototype — long, physical, instinctive, the kind of kid who arrives at the ball carrier with bad intentions and a full head of steam. The Sooners have historically closed well when they get prospects on campus multiple times. The facilities, the tradition, the sell — it works. But it only works if the kid actually shows up more than once.
Geography doesn’t help. UCLA, Cal, and Arizona State are all a short flight or a drive from Nash’s front door. Norman is a different animal entirely. Ohio State is even farther, but the Buckeyes have neutralized the distance problem the old-fashioned way: by getting Nash on campus early and often. Four visits to one is a ratio that speaks louder than any recruiting pitch Venables can cook up from behind a desk.
There’s still time. Nash hasn’t set a commitment date, and if this recruitment stretches into the spring or summer of 2026, Oklahoma has the staff and the track record to make up ground. Venables has landed out-of-state defensive backs before. The vision he sells in the secondary — play fast, hit harder, don’t think — resonates with kids who grew up watching his Clemson defenses turn quarterbacks into nervous wrecks.
But right now, the Sooners are down two scores in the fourth quarter and they need the ball back. More visits, more face time, more reasons for Nash to believe Norman is the place. The interest is there. The talent is there. Converting that into a signature on a letter of intent is the part that separates the programs that close from the programs that just make the list.
Oklahoma made the list. Making the commitment is another sport entirely.