The Hurry Up is your nightcap of Ohio State recruiting news, catching you up on the day’s events with an ear on the ground for what’s next.
THANK YOU FOR DOING THE RIGHT THING YOU BIG JERKS
Hey everyone there's good news! The NCAA overturned their completely asinine ruling and now will, once again, allow satellite camps to happen.
Good idea.
While it's certainly going to be Jim Harbaugh who gets a lot of the press from this change, it's a decision that was made – as we talked about when the banhammer came down – that was really hurting kids and the mid-major programs more than anyone.
As for the Buckeyes, who had planned a satellite camp at Lawrenceville, Georgia's Central Gwinnett High School – the home of 2017 offers Tony Gray and Emmanuel McNeil – you can expect that camp to now be back on.
Perhaps the most interesting part of today's (not surprising) decision is that for the first time the SEC will allow their schools to hold satellite camps of their own. A move that no doubt is intended to strike "fear" or something into northern schools, as though everyone was unaware of who Alabama was.
Confirmed that, without a national ban, the SEC's ban on satellite camps will be lifted on May 29.
— Barrett Sallee (@BarrettSallee) April 28, 2016
Today's decision is good for recruits, good for high school coaches, good for small football programs all over the place. Kudos to the NCAA for doing the right thing, even if they had to be shamed into it.
ESPN HAS BUCKEYES ON TOP IN THEIR INITIAL 2017 RANKINGS
The Buckeyes 2017 recruiting class has been lauded across recruiting networks for months as the country's best and yesterday ESPN joined the fray. The "worldwide leader" released their initial 2017 rankings and the Buckeyes are on top, as they are at Rivals, Scout, and 247Sports.com.
Ohio State, with 13 commitments, are on spot ahead of Alabama (8) and two ahead of Oklahoma (12), though the next few months are certainly going to provide some interesting changes among all the top schools. Georgia and Miami round out the top five; the Hurricanes have 15 commitments already in the mix.
In tandem with their team rankings, ESPN also released their Top 300 for 2017 and 12 of the Buckeyes 13 commitments checked in at four-star status, with only kicker Blake Haubeil not earning that distinction. Ten of Ohio State's verbals made their way into the Top 300.
Here are the Buckeyes in the updated ESPN rankings.
- No. 13 • DB • Shaun Wade
- No. 16 • OL • Joshua Myers
- No. 46 • DB • Isaiah Pryor
- No. 58 • RB • JK Dobbins
- No. 108 • DT • Haskell Garrett
- No. 121 • DB • Marcus Williamson
- No. 124 • OL • Jake Moretti
- No. 165 • RB • Todd Sibley
- No. 218 • DB • Brendon White
- No. 136 • DL • Jerron Cage
Ohio State is in the mix with a number of ESPN's top-ranked players.
- No. 4 • RB • Najee Harris
- No. 8 • DB • Jeffrey Okudah
- No. 12 • WR • Donovan Peoples-Jones
- No. 18 • DE • Joshua Kaindoh
- No. 23 • RB • Cam Akers
- No. 29 • LB • Baron Browning
- No. 30 • DE • Chase Young
- No. 36 • DB • Darnay Holmes
- No. 48 • QB • Kellen Mond
- No. 51 • WR • Trevon Grimes
- No. 73 • QB • Tate Martell
- No. 82 • WR • Tyjon Lindsey
ESPN's rankings have a number of wild outliers compared to the national composite ranking from the Big Three recruiting services, as you can see with their opinions on Grimes, Lindsey and others.
NAJEE HARRIS TALKS TO SCOUT.COM ABOUT OHIO STATE
Running back Najee Harris, who visited Ohio State for their spring game two weeks ago, isn't really the talkative type and because of that, updates about his visit have been difficult to obtain.
Scout.com has a big West Coast presence and thankfully the fine work of Brandon Huffman can give a little insight into that mid-April trip.
From Scout.com:
"That was crazy, that was the most people I've ever seen at a game, and that was for the spring game," said Harris. "But it was actually an awesome trip, I liked it a lot."
Harris got to talk with the Buckeye coaches and they left a big impression.
"Coach (Tony) Alford is the main recruiter and I talked to him and he's cool, but Urban Meyer, he's great," said Harris. "I liked him a lot and he's really cool. Really fun."
Harris, as I see it, is unlikely to end up at Ohio State, but Tony Alford is a guy that swings for the fences and the Buckeyes are likely to make at least one trip to see him during this spring evaluation period. If they can find a way to ensure an official visit in the fall, then they've got a fighting chance to pull off the big coup.
OKUDAH GETS BUCKEYE VISITORS, DOBBINS DISCUSSION
It's a good week for the Buckeyes as we're 15 minutes away from the start of the NFL Draft, and most of Ohio State's coaches will be on hand in Chicago for the festivities. The early part of the week, though, has been for evaluation and relationship building and Tony Alford, Tim Beck and Greg Schiano all spent a little time in Texas.
Beck and Schiano were at Grand Prairie seeing five-star safety Jeffrey Okudah earlier this week, continuing to make the 6-foot-2, 195-pounder their top uncommitted defensive back priority, as they've done since last summer.
Alford made his stop in La Grange where he met with commitment JK Dobbins and his high school coach.
"Things are going great," Dobbins told 11W. "(Tony) Alford was here this week for about four hours. He was with my head coach most of the time."
Last night an interesting "crystal ball" rolled in for Dobbins, prognosticating that he'd end up at Oklahoma. The country's 47th-ranked player says that he's not waffling in his decision.
"I'm solid," Dobbins said about his commitment status. "I will be back in the summer. I've been real busy. Right now I'm on the way to a regional track meet, and we don't do padded spring practices, but we do football skills, its kind of like practice without pads."
