On3 Recruiting Prediction Machine: Ohio State jumps out to big lead for Damon Wilson

Venice (Fla.) five-star EDGE Damon Wilson took an official visit last weekend to Georgia and the buzz around Wilson was that the Bulldogs made a great impression.

But less than a week later, the momentum has shifted once again. This time it has moved back in the direction of Ohio State.

The On3 Recruiting Prediction Machine currently gives the Buckeyes a 76.1% chance of landing Wilson compared to 13.6% for the Bulldogs.

On3 Director of Recruiting Chad Simmons broke down the latest developments Friday morning in his five-star intel story.

RPM was released to the public in December. The On3 engineering group teamed up with Spiny.ai to create the industry’s first algorithm and machine learning-based product to predict where athletes will attend college. 

It factors in machine learning, social sentiment, visits and historical trends. However, expert predictions are still a big piece of the RPM equation.

Damon Wilson is an elite prospect

Damon Wilson is the No. 30 overall recruit in the 2023 cycle, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

On3 has been the highest on Wilson for months and currently has Wilson as the No. 4 overall prospect and No. 2 EDGE in the 2023 On300 ranking. The only EDGE rusher and defender ranked above Wilson in the On300 is Tampa (Fla.) Berkeley Prep five-star EDGE Keon Keeley.

On3 Director of Scouting and Rankings Charles Power explained what he has seen from the five-star player so far this year in September.

“Wilson has faced considerably tougher competition than Keeley thus far, so his stats aren’t going to pop out, at least yet. With that said, the five-star turned in an eye-catching showing on national television last week against Baltimore powerhouse St. Frances Academy. Wilson has arguably the best bend among top pass rushers in the 2023 cycle and is a strong, twitchy athlete,” Power said.

Wilson currently has an On3 NIL Valuation of $168k. The On3 NIL Valuation is an index that looks to set the standard market value for both high school and college-level athletes. The NIL valuation does not act as a tracker of the value of NIL deals an athlete has completed to date. It rather signifies an athlete’s value at a certain moment in time.