Ohio State five-star wide receiver Chris Henry Jr. is transferring to Mater Dei High School in California for his final two years of high school football.David Petkiewicz, cleveland.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State assistant football coach Brian Hartline has had no problem pulling in top-tier wide receiver recruits from all over the country, but his latest find wasn’t supposed to require that.
Hartline discovered Chris Henry Jr. as an eighth grader living in Cincinnati. He already looked physically ready for high school football when he wowed at a day camp in 2022.
A year later Henry came back to that camp having spent his freshman season turning into one of the top players in the 2026 class. And by the end of the summer, he was the first member of the Buckeyes’ 2026 recruiting class.
The nation’s No. 3 player and top wide receiver is the latest big-time get for Hartline and is someone in the same mold as Marvin Harrison Jr. and Jeremiah Smith. Only this time, a player of that caliber was developing right under Hartline’s nose living with former NFL player Pacman Jones.
But now Henry is headed west to finish out his career at one of the nation’s top programs.
Henry will transfer to Mater Dei High School in California, which has been a school that has often had talent OSU loved but has been unable to reel in. But with Henry now in the building for the next two years, plus a few other players already high on Ohio State, maybe that can start to change.
