College football recruiting is a funny game.
Sometimes top-ranked prospects turn into early NFL Draft entrants and eventually become Hall of Famers. Some of those same recruits can't stay healthy, struggle to play four seasons at a school and don't even get a sniff of the pros.
Other players are late-bloomers, guys who hardly earn headlines with the other members of their recruiting class but eventually turn into essential contributors who churn out incredible production both at the college and NFL level. Recruiting rankings definitely matter — but not as much as a certain prospect's desire to push their abilities and become great players.
Other factors like health, what happens as a result of decisions made off the field and the other intangibles are what make recruiting so difficult at times. It is the job of coaches like Urban Meyer at Ohio State (along with his assistants) to identify the type of people they want in their program and develop them after they sign on the dotted line each February.
The Buckeyes have had a top-5 recruiting class according to 247Sports composite every year in Meyer's tenure except one (2015, when they finished at No. 7). The Ohio State train full of top prospects heading to Columbus isn't showing any signs of stopping. Yet Meyer admitted on Tuesday to "missing" on multiple prospects in one certain position group: the offensive line.
“More than a few. You can’t do that,” Meyer said. “What happens is you have a year like we did last year. True freshmen should not play here. That’s because there was some misses in there.”
Michael Jordan was the first true freshman to start on Ohio State's offensive line since Orlando Pace in 1994.
The true freshman offensive lineman that played in 2016 was Michael Jordan, who lined up at left guard for all 13 games between tackle Jamarco Jones and All-American center Pat Elflein. When he went down with an ankle injury in his team's eventual 31-0 loss to Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl as part of the College Football Playoff, things got much worse than they already were.
Line coach Greg Studrawa tapped Demetrius Knox — who missed two months with a broken foot in the middle of the season — as the first guy off the bench in place of Jordan. The latter eventually returned to the lineup but the damage was already done. Ohio State's offensive line was serviceable for the better half of the season, but its issues in protecting J.T. Barrett became even more problematic against a top-flight and deep defensive front like the one the Tigers sported with Carlos Watkins, Clelin Ferrell, Christian Wilkins, Dexter Lawrence and others.
Matt Burrell, Brady Taylor, Branden Bowen, Kevin Feder, Kyle Trout, Evan Lisle, Jack Wohlabaugh, Gavin Cupp, Tyler Gerald — Studrawa chose none of them to step in while Jordan was getting taped up. Reasons for not picking some of them made sense, like the fact that Gerald, Cupp and Wohlabaugh were freshmen while Bowen and Feder are likely better suited at tackle.
“There’s some young guys really coming on right now but you’re right, we probably had two classes in there that didn’t turn out.”– Urban Meyer on OL
Some of those names have moved on — Lisle and Trout transferred to Duke and Cincinnati (Trout is doing so after he graduates in May), while Gerald, to quote Meyer, "just quit." In recent years, Marcelys Jones and Ohio State mutually parted ways. Grant Schmidt transferred to Cincinnati. And Mirko Jurkovic didn't enroll in 2015 because he couldn't make the grade.
Are those the perceived "misses" Meyer referred to on Tuesday? He didn't say. But it is clear there are more than a handful of offensive linemen that haven't shown enough to earn at least a vote of confidence on the second string.
“Very pleased with where we're at the on the offensive line. Still not where we need to be in the twos — nowhere close,” Meyer said. “Wish you could get a little more competition out of those guys but it's not happening yet.”
So what does Ohio State look for when it recruits offensive linemen?
“Toughness is No. 1 and you have to be athletic, have to be able to move, have to be able to get leverage on players and you’ve got to be the ultimate grinder. If you’re not that then it’s called a miss,” Meyer said. “There’s some young guys really coming on right now but you’re right, we probably had two classes in there that didn’t turn out.”
Whether or not that is what the staff misidentified with some of the offensive linemen who have either transferred out or yet to do anything is up for debate. But Meyer knows the margin for error moving forward is infinitesimal.
“Some players didn’t develop, some things happened. Dog ate my homework, whatever it is. That should not happen here,” Meyer said. “I’m very disappointed in that so we can’t miss again.”
