Keenan Bailey made it clear to Damarion Witten that he was a priority in Ohio State's 2024 class.

“(Bailey) said I was the first tight end he called, to keep working with me,” Witten said after Bailey replaced former Ohio State tight ends coach Kevin Wilson in January. “And ever since that day, him telling me that plays a big part and truly shows me that he cares and I’m the one he’s wanting.”

Bailey, who has helped coach running backs, wide receivers, quarterbacks and offensive line in his tenure at Ohio State, sees Witten as another piece in the transformation of Ohio State's tight end room, the 2024 tight end said.

Witten began that process Saturday, committing to the Buckeyes and joining four-star Max LeBlanc to secure the program's first multiple tight end class since Jake Hausmann, Luke Farrell and Kierre Hawkins in the 2016 class

Witten, Ohio State's first in-state tight end commit since Joe Royer, sees himself as a "mismatch," playing wide receiver and tight end at the same time in a similar way, he said, to current Ohio State tight end Cade Stover and Georgia tight end Brock Bowers. Witten said it's a similar approach to what Bailey aspires for Ohio State freshman Jelani Thurman, a 6-foot-5, 253-pound Georgia native who was the fourth-best tight end in the country in the 2023 class.

It's potential Dale Davison has already seen come from Witten to fruition at the high school level, watching his son take the field at Glenville High School in Cleveland and play everywhere from slot receiver to quarterback to defensive end to kicker.

“If you built a hybrid wide receiver and tight end in a lab, this is what you would get,” Davison said.

Damarion Witten is not the only tight end in Ohio State's 2024 recruiting class

This positional transformation is not coming down to only Witten in the 2024 class.

Ohio State added LeBlanc April 15: a 6-foot-5, 225-pound athlete who Baylor School football coach Erik Kimrey, the former South Carolina tight ends coach, says can do everything from block the C gap and dictate the path of the run game to being a pass catching threat with an "extraordinary" catch radius and "incredibly elite hands."

“Once he started getting going, I said, ‘Max, you know you could play receiver in the Power 5,’ ” Kimrey said. “‘But you’re a next-level tight end, and you’ve got the frame to do it.’”

Ohio State tried for a two-tight end class in 2023, but four-star Tennessee tight end Ty Lockwood flipped his commitment and signed with Alabama after Thurman joined the Buckeyes' class.

But this transformation is already starting to continue into building the 2025 class.

2025 four-star Lakota West tight end Luka Gilbert said being an all-around tight end is at the center of Bailey's pitch for him joining Ohio State's 2025 class, already pointing to what the Buckeyes have planned for tight ends like Thurman.

"I think he sees my speed and how it can correlate into the offense perfectly," Gilbert said. "He's obviously great. He can teach me all the route running and all the little critiques. That's what he's good at — he used to be a wide receivers coach. I think it's a perfect fit."

Even before committing to Ohio State, joining Glenville teammate and four-star cornerback Bryce West in the 2024 class, Witten already shared a similar buy-in to what Bailey preached.

“Me being in the tight end room with the coaches… I think it’s really going to change the program around,” Witten said.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State football recruiting: What Damarion Witten's commitment means