The recruitment race is crazier than ever ahead of the Spring Game 2025. In a compelling gap between one regular season to another, coaches look to reflect on their glaring issues and try to find feasible solutions in the portal not only for the ongoing year but for the forthcoming year as well. The 2026 five-star OT Jackson Cantwell, the nation’s No. 1 recruit in his class, is currently turning the heads of the top-tier coaches before he makes up his mind about the one.
While you might deem the entire recruiting process of the elite athletes a bit dramatic, it’s not easy to pick a single school where each one closely resembles the other in a nail-biting NIL competition. So, it’s never a one-time answer but rather a step-by-step process to unfold.
Which team is Cantwell inclined to? The surface-level answer would include six: Georgia, Miami (Florida), Michigan, Missouri, Ohio State, and Oregon. After all, the 6 ft 8 offensive lineman excludes d8 schools from his updated list of choices in the latest development. The prodigy hilariously remarked that he felt like breaking up his girl while cutting the schools, but it is what it was. There are zero hard feelings, but he had to take a pragmatic approach before inking his name on the paper.
NEW OT Jackson Cantwell ranks No. 2 and five-stars in the updated 2026 On300.
Cantwell is down to Georgia, Michigan, Miami, Missouri, Ohio State and Oregon.https://t.co/wpcDtoEh9H pic.twitter.com/FvM9h0UnT0
— On3 Recruits (@On3Recruits) February 24, 2025
Now, if you want to look underneath the picture, Oregon looks a bit more prominent than others. The latest ON3 report breaks out that Cantwell’s best head coach relationship is with Dan Lanning, and his best position coach connection is with Georgia’s OL coach, Stacy Searels. So, it’s safer than you think to keep Oregon and Georgia in the first and second order in the crazy recruitment dogfight.
Cantwell is looking to schedule an official visit with each program before the final stretch. He said the process will probably culminate in an announcement ceremony in August in front of the Nixa High student body.
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