The Hurry Up: Lindsey's Decision Date Good News for Buckeyes, Auburn's Play for Akers May Be Over

By Jeremy Birmingham on June 6, 2016 at 7:45 pm
Tyjon Lindsey at Ohio State in March
Tyjon Lindsey
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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.

TYJON LINDSEY'S AUGUST DECISION

As we touched on briefly in last night's Hurry Up, a decision date has been announced for California five-star wide receiver Tyjon Lindsey.

At this point, most seem to believe it's Ohio State, Nebraska and USC that are the biggest threats to land Lindsey, with the Buckeyes out in front. The country's fifth-ranked wide receiver made his only visit to Columbus in March, and since then the Scarlet and Gray have been the odds-on favorite, but Nebraska's recent push – he visited Lincoln for their spring game – has been worth paying attention to.

Sunday, the Huskers had a pretty important satellite camp at their West Coast home in Calabasas, California, where two of their highest-ranked 2017 commitments and a number of major targets attend high school. Lindsey was among the players in attendance and it was a long afternoon of getting time to hang out with Nebraska's Keith Williams, the wide receiver coach who famously got tangled up with Zach Smith on Twitter about two months ago. A decision date being announced right on the heels of that camp is likely just a coincidence, but it's still fairly interesting from a timing perspective. 

As for Ohio State, the aforementioned Zach Smith spent a little time in California this last evaluation period, getting some important face-to-face time with Lindsey, but the question will continue to be "is that one visit to Columbus enough?" The 5-foot-9, 180-pounder has family in Ohio – Middletown – and that's helpful for the Ohio State cause, but numbers are tight for the Buckeyes, so this sped-up decision could be a good thing despite all recent momentum seemingly going in the Huskers' direction. 

If we're picking today, I'd choose Ohio State for Lindsey, but there's something about Nebraska here that I can't and don't want to ignore. The next two months will be interesting to watch.

BUCKEYES, JONES SPENDING KEY TIME NEXT WEEK

One of the Buckeyes' top 2018 quarterback targets, Emory Jones, will get two opportunities to spend time with the Ohio State coaching staff next week, as first reported by BuckeyeGrove.com analyst Marc Givler.

The nation's second-ranked dual-threat quarterback in the 2018 class will make his first ever trip to Ohio State on June 14. He'll be making that visit with his mother, who Tim Beck introduced himself to two weeks ago during the Buckeyes' last visit to Franklin, Georgia.

"It was great," Jones said of seeing Beck again. "He just wanted to meet my mom."

The trip to Columbus will be a two-day stop for Jones, but when gets back to Georgia on the 16th, he may get a chance to spend more time with Ohio State as they take part in a major satellite camp at Lawrenceville's Central Gwinnett High School. It's not a guarantee he'll make it to that camp, but as of now things are set up to allow him to do that.

With Pennsylvania's Phil Jurkovec committed to Notre Dame, Jones and New Jersey's Artur Sitkowski are at the top of the Buckeyes' list and next week will be an important one for Ohio State's pursuit of a leader for the 2018 class. 

RIVALS TOP 100 COULD SEE MANY MORE FUTURE BUCKEYES

Ohio State's presence in the new Rivals Top 100 was briefly documented earlier today, but that could be the just beginning for what may be a monster 2017 recruiting class for Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes. Though they have a national-best six players in the current list, Ohio State could potentially double that number by the time February rolls around if a number of key recruiting battles continue at their current pace.

What players are a realistic possibility for the Buckeyes? These are just the Rivals' five-stars.

  • No. 3 • Trevon Grimes • WR • Fort Lauderdale, Florida • St. Thomas Aquinas 
  • No. 6 • Baron Browning • LB • Kennedale, Texas • Kennedale
  • No. 9 • Jeffrey Okudah • S • Grande Prairie • South 
  • No. 10 • Lamont Wade • DB • Clairton, Pennsylvania • Clairton
  • No. 11 • Donovan Peoples-Jones • WR • Detroit, Michigan • Cass Tech
  • No. 13 • Dylan Moses • LB • Baton Rouge, Louisiana • IMG Academy
  • No. 15 • Darnay Holmes • DB • Calabasas, California • Calabasas 
  • No. 17 • Jedrick Wills • OL • Lexington, Kentucky • LaFayette
  • No. 18 • Wyatt Davis • OL • Bellflower, California • St. John Bosco • 

Four-stars? Plenty of those guys are interested in Ohio State still.

  • No. 26 • Cam Akers • RB • Clinton, Mississippi • Clinton
  • No. 31 • Tate Martell • QB • Las Vegas, Nevada • Bishop Gorman
  • No. 33 • Tyjon Lindsey • WR • Corona, California • Centennial
  • No. 40 • Tee Higgins • WR • Oak Ridge, Tennessee • Oak Ridge
  • No. 44 • Jerry Jeudy • WR • Deerfield Beach, Florida • Deerfield Beach
  • No. 91 • Aubrey Solomon • DT • Leesburg, Georgia • Lee County
  • No. 92 • Chase Young • DE • Hyattsville, Maryland • DeMatha
  • No. 99 • Jay Tufele • DT • South Jordan, Utah • Bingham

/exhale

MARTELL EARNS SPOT IN ELITE 11 FINALS

After an exhausting weekend in California taking part in the Elite 11 semifinals and cutting West Virginia from his top schools list, Ohio State 2017 quarterback target Tate Martell got some good news today.

The 5-foot-11, 205-pounder from Bishop Gorman was one of 12 (I know, I know) finalists selected for the Elite 11, which will take place in July in Beaverton, Oregon, on Nike's impressive campus. Martell talked to Scout.com about his weekend and his final five schools.

The full list of finalists heading to Oregon:

  • Dylan McCaffrey, committed to Michigan
  • Davis Mills, committed to Stanford
  • Hunter Johnson, committed to Clemson
  • Myles Brennan, committed to LSU
  • Chris Robison, committed to Oklahoma
  • Tommy Devito, committed to Syracuse
  • Sam Ehlinger, committed to Texas
  • Tua Tagovailoa, committed to Alabama
  • Sean Clifford, committed to Penn State
  • Jake Fromm, committed to Georgia
  • Tate Martell, uncommitted
  • Jack Sears, uncommitted

These events – much like seven-on-seven tournaments – aren't really geared for dual-threat quarterbacks, so it's even more impressive that Martell and Alabama commit Tua Tagovailoa had such a successful weekend in Los Angeles. Another Buckeye target, IMG Academy's Kellen Mond, failed to make the final cut.

Martell said the weekend was a dream come true for him.

"It was a once in a lifetime experience," Martell said. "I'm so glad I got to hang out with those guys and it's been my dream since 7th grade to be in this situation. I'm finally a part of it."

AUBURN'S BIG FLIP: COULD IT ELIMINATE AKERS?

This weekend Auburn had one of their biggest recruiting events of the summer – "Big Cat Weekend" – and it yielded them at least one net-positive: the commitment of JUCO tailback Octavius Matthews, the country's top-ranked junior college running back. Matthews committed to Louisville in April but flipped his pledge to Gus Malzahn and the Tigers upon the conclusion of his visit. 

Now, normally we'd not be talking about a JUCO running back this early in the recruiting cycle, but it's worth mentioning as one of Ohio State's top remaining targets for 2017, Mississippi five-star running back Cam Akers, was at Auburn last week and has the Tigers among his remaining favorites. Auburn will obviously continue to recruit Akers and at least part of the way they'll do that is by recruiting the 6-foot-2, 200-pound Matthews as an "athlete" to try and avoid any discussion about a crowded backfield in this year's recruiting cycle.

I say crowded because Malzahn already has a commitment from Alaric Williams, who is also being recruited as an "athlete" though he'll also likely get his first crack at running back. Williams is a four-star prospect from Ashville, Alabama and the country's 166th-ranked overall player in the 2017 class.

DAYLN WADE-PERRY'S FINAL GROUP, BUCKEYES IN THE MIX

Ohio State is in the final list of schools for another of the country's top-ranked defensive tackles, Sparta, New Jersey's Dalyn Wade-Perry.

The country's 27th-ranked defensive tackle is a three-star prospect at Pope John XXIII, where current Buckeye wide receiver Noah Brown attended high school. The 6-foot-3, 323-pounder attended Ohio State's spring game in April but it appears Stanford and Notre Dame remain the teams to beat for his services right now.

Ohio State is heavily in the mix for a host of big-name defensive tackles, including Utah's Jay Tufele, who listed them as his leader weeks ago prior to one of Nike's The Opening regional camps.

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