Ohio State cornerbacks coach Kerry Coombs is quite confident that when Jordan Fuller reports to Columbus next month to begin his career as a Buckeye, the four-star recruit from Westwood, New Jersey will be in his meeting room.
“There are a lot of conversations about that, but Jordan Fuller is going to line up at corner,” Coombs said with a faint smile at the conclusion of spring practice in April. “We’re going to fight over him, but he’s going to line up at corner and Coach Coombs is going to be real happy to have him there and then we’ll see how it goes from there.”
Listed at 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds, Fuller has the size that makes him comparable to another recent Ohio State cornerback who hailed from New Jersey, Eli Apple, so it makes sense he would start at corner. But Fuller’s frame also gives him the potential to play a different position for the Buckeyes if need be. Fuller could also line up at safety and if the coaching staff feels he can add 20 to 25 pounds when he gets to campus — a la Darron Lee — a move to outside linebacker isn’t out of the question either.
Fuller is the perfect example of the do-it-all defensive athlete that’s becoming more and more of a thing in college football recruiting.
“I don’t think you target them, but I think when you find the exceptional athlete that you’re not sure what he is, you have real hard conversations about whether you take him or not,” Coombs said. “Darron Lee is a perfect example. We didn’t know what he was going to be, we just knew he was going to be something.”
For Ohio State, Lee is the poster boy for this type of player, but the Buckeyes have recruited quite a few on the defensive side of the ball since they landed Lee, who now plays for the New York Jets, in the 2013 class.
In 2014, both Sam Hubbard and Malik Hooker were listed as athletes in their recruiting profiles. Hubbard played safety in high school at Cincinnati Moeller and now, as he prepares to enter his third season at Ohio State, will start at defensive end. Hooker is projected to be one of the Buckeyes’ starting safeties in the fall.
Coombs pegged Jerome Baker as the defensive athlete in the 2015 class. Baker is now a linebacker, but coming out of Cleveland Benedictine he could have played safety, as well.
In the 2016 class, Fuller and Malik Harrison fit that same kind of mold.
Ohio State linebackers coach Luke Fickell believes there’s a bit more projection that goes into recruiting certain defensive players. Raekwon McMillan was a surefire linebacker coming out of high school; Lee was not.
“I think offensively sometimes it is a little more specific,” Fickell said. “Defensively we sometimes have got to project and you have got to do a Darron Lee, a guy who is a quarterback and say, ‘Can he play corner?’”
There’s some projection on offense, too, and Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer said in 2014 the Buckeyes' coaching staff puts on an ‘APB’ in each and every recruiting class for a versatile offensive athlete that can play the famed H-receiver role in Meyer’s offense.
Dontre Wilson, Jalin Marshall, Curtis Samuel and Parris Campbell are just a few examples of players who fit that description during Meyer’s tenure at Ohio State.
“We put the APB out every year for the multi-dimensional athlete on offense and that’s the tight end-H and it’s the tailback H,” Meyer said in 2014. “And just over the years, that position has evolved.
“But the APB’s always been out for those kinds of athletes that can do multiple things.”
So while Fuller may very well start off his Ohio State career in the cornerbacks room with Coombs, there is no guarantee he finishes it there. And it’s all because he is part of the new normal that is the defensive athletes the Buckeyes go after in recruiting.
There may not be an ‘APB’ out for those athletes like there is on offense, but Ohio State is racking them up anyway. Because while many of those prospects might not have a true position, they’re good enough to earn a scholarship offer and that's something the Buckeyes are willing to risk.
The position will be figured out once they get to campus.
“You do find, in every class, one or two of those guys that you’re just not sure what they are,” Coombs said. “You just know they are something.”
Added Fickell: “To say is there an APB? No. But we are looking for the best in the class in everything that we do.”
