What Larry Johnson, Ohio State are getting in 2024 5-star DL Justin Scott: 'He's a winner'

Every year, Matt Miller gets a preview of what he expects Justin Scott to become.
Being less than 5 miles from Soldier Field in Chicago, the St. Ignatius College Prep football coach hosts multiple NFL teams every season for practices ahead of road games against the Bears.
And while Scott has only three years of football experience — arriving at St. Ignatius with the goal of playing in the NBA — Miller sees a player who could already keep up with professionals physically.
“He’s a unicorn as far as his athleticism goes,” Miller said. “And he’s still learning football. And he’s still not as strong as he can be.”
Potential made Scott one of the most sought-after defensive linemen as he prepares for his senior season as the No. 14 player in the country with offers from programs such as Georgia, Alabama, Miami, Notre Dame and Michigan.
Larry Johnson and Ohio State saw that same potential in Scott, and made their pitch, one that was good enough to earn the five-star’s commitment July 2 to start the Buckeyes’ defensive line recruiting in the 2024 cycle.
Basketball was first for Justin Scott
Scott's athletic aspirations began on the basketball court. And to Matt Monroe, Scott is a player that can do anything asked of him.
The 6-foot-4, 310-pound player, the St. Ignatius basketball coach said, can be the physically imposing forward in the paint, playing with his back to the basket and finishing through contact around the rim. But on the next play, Scott can be the first player down the floor in transition, guarding players on the perimeter or passing to open teammates for scores.
“He’s a winner,” Monroe said. “And I think that’s the thing that separates him most is he just hates to lose. He wants to win everything that he does, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get there.”
It’s a mentality Miller said Scott is still learning on the football field, arriving as a 6-4, 260-pound freshman who had never put on pads, but was already winning sprints against skill players.
“There (were) a lot of things early on that just weren’t second nature,” said Miller, who taught Scott about the use of pad level and pursuit angles from the interior of the defensive line while giving him a frame of reference by having him play guard on offense.
But even as he continued to learn football, Scott secured the attention of college programs across the country based on athleticism alone.
Scott’s first offer came from Illinois after his first varsity football game as a sophomore – the first St. Ignatius football player to ever earn a Division 1 offer — before Southern California, Oklahoma, Michigan and Notre Dame followed suit.
“It just really didn’t sink in,” Miller said of Scott's first football offer. “He always thought he was going to play AAU and the NBA was his dream. Football was something he was just trying out."
Justin Scott gains confidence: 'I'm going to dominate'
Scott continued to turn heads, running sideline to sideline as a 300-pound interior lineman and catching skill players on the perimeter, something Miller said he hadn’t seen in his 10 years of coaching.
But as a junior, Miller said Scott began to buy into that potential for himself.
“This past year, there definitely was a step forward,” Miller said. “Really playing with a confidence of ‘I’m going to dominate the game,’ and, you know, ‘I can’t be blocked’ or ‘I’m going to get this guy off the line of scrimmage.’ ”
Ohio State had already bought in.
After special teams coach Parker Fleming visited St. Ignatius during the spring evaluation period before Scott’s junior year, the defensive tackle earned a Buckeye offer Sept. 5.
And after visits from Johnson, head coach Ryan Day and defensive coordinator Jim Knowles during the winter period, Miller said Scott was nearly ready to verbally commit to the Buckeyes. But Day encouraged him to use his official visit in June instead of committing then to get to know Ohio State more, learning from Johnson and experiencing what it would be like in his room.
According to Miller, Ohio State followed through.
“I think his favorite part of the visit was just that they had a clear and concise plan of ‘Here’s where we see you, here’s goals for you and here’s where we think we can get you if all these things go in the right direction,’ ” Miller said.
And while Ohio State was seemingly on the outside looking in for Scott in the months leading up to his official visits — with multiple predictions pointing him to Miami or Notre Dame — the Buckeyes secured a commitment just over a week after Scott’s official visit in Columbus.
To Miller, the recruiting process was something Scott wanted to be done with.
“It was a lot in a short time,” Miller said of Scott, who had official visits with Michigan, Georgia and Miami before Ohio State. “And so I think he’s just a little bit lighter on his feet as far as I think mentally being able to commit to something.”
While Ohio State football is expected to be Scott’s future, his basketball career is not complete.
Scott will play one more season of basketball at St. Ignatius instead of enrolling with the Buckeyes early, spending one more season with the “brotherhood” of teammates he’s developed relationships with prior to a “lifetime of opportunities to play football.”
“Basketball was his first love when it came to sports,” Malone said. “And the cool thing about it is that basketball provides him an opportunity where can just go out there and have fun and play and compete to win where there’s not as much pressure on him to be that top football recruit.”