Baron Browning was only a few minutes into the first winter workout of his college career before Ohio State’s five-star linebacker signee looked around at his fellow classmates.
They all possessed similar thoughts: What did we just get ourselves into?
“The first day, we didn’t even know it was a warm up. We thought we were doing the workout,” Browning recalled Wednesday. “Then, they were like, ‘We’re almost done with the warm up,’ and we’re all just looking at each other like…”
Browning’s voice trailed off and his eyes widened as he illustrated the look he and his teammates shared that day. This certainly wasn’t a walk in the park.
Welcome to life at a major college football program. It’s a bit different than high school.
Browning was a five-star recruit and a top-10 prospect nationally. He had over 40 reported scholarship offers; just about every big-time program in the country extended one.
He wasn’t alone in this, of course, as the Buckeyes inked the nation’s No. 2 class. They signed five five-star prospects and 14 four stars. All of them were heavily recruited for obvious reasons.
Life as a high-profile recruit, while sometimes stressful, can also be quite enjoyable, though. Prospects travel around the country to see a handful of different schools and programs. They get to meet some of the sport’s greatest coaches and see some of the best venues.
The minute they get to college, though, and officially enroll in a program, everything changes.
“All that ranking and stuff doesn’t really matter once you get here,” said Brendon White, a four-star signee. “What matters is working hard and proving yourself that you can be a Buckeye. All that media stuff, all that stuff we did with recruiting, once you get here I learned quick that it doesn’t matter.”
It’s a change of pace because when prospects are being recruited they hear everything they want to hear. Coaches tell them how great they are and how much they need them in their program.
Once these recruits get on campus, however, it’s right to the bottom of the barrel.
“Being recruited, they’re really like your friend, your buddy,” four-star safety Isaiah Pryor said. “Then getting here, the main person you’re talking to is the strength and conditioning coach who’s yelling at you, trying to get you better and stuff like that.”
Five-star cornerback Jeffrey Okudah, who like Browning was one of the top-10 prospects in the country, called the transition “humbling.” After a prospect hears so many great things about himself for so long, that instant switch to college freshman can be difficult.
“It’s a pretty tough transition just going from high school to coming here and getting coached by the best guys in the business,” Okudah said. “It’s tough, but it’s also been fun and I’m happy that I picked Ohio State.”
For the Buckeyes’ nine early enrollees, life as a high-profile recruit is officially over.
It officially ended during that first winter workout.
“It’s mainly been just adjusting,” Browning said. “Every day has been hard and I’ve been just having to embrace it. In high school, I think it was you might have one or two hard workouts and then you might have a day where you can just lollygag and get through but every workout has been hard and you’ve just got to take it one day at a time.”
