The Hurry Up: Looking at What Urban Meyer is Allowed to Do on Recruiting Trail During Suspension

By Andrew Lind on August 23, 2018 at 6:50 pm
Urban Meyer
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The Hurry Up is your nightly dose of updates from the Ohio State football recruiting trail, keeping tabs on the latest from commits and targets from around the country.

A BUMP IN THE ROAD

Ohio State Board of Trustees announced last night that head coach Urban Meyer would be suspended without pay for the first three games of the upcoming season, but will return to practice and have the ability to tend to other coaching duties on Sept 2.

Meyer had been on paid administrative leave since on Aug. 1, and was not permitted to have contact with his fellow staff members, players or recruits. Sources close to the program told Eleven Warriors that ban will remain in effect through Sept. 2, which means the Buckeyes’ 21 commitments from the 2019 and 2020 recruiting classes must wait 10 more days to hear from their future head coach.

Of course, Meyer will not be allowed on campus for the first two games of the season. That means he won’t have the chance to mingle with recruits before or after presumed blowouts against Oregon State and Rutgers.

It’s obviously not an ideal situation, but shouldn’t impact Ohio State’s recruiting efforts too much. After all, the staff isn’t going to invite top targets to campus for two of the worst games of the season from an atmosphere standpoint.

The neutral-site game against TCU in Dallas also means very little when it comes to recruiting, since the Buckeyes will only be granted a small number of tickets to give to prospects and are not allowed to have contract with them in an off-campus setting.

Meyer’s absence will hardly be noticeable, especially considering he’ll be able to go on the road to recruit with the college football recruiting calendar turning from a dead period in August to an evaluation period in September.

Face-to-face contact is not permitted in an off-campus setting, but he’ll still be able to show up to Texas five-star wide receiver Garrett Wilson’s game the Friday night beforehand, for example — or any high school game, for that matter — and his presence alone will be a big boost as the staff attempts to hold onto its current pledges and/or mend fences with top targets.

Meyer will return to full duties ahead of the game against Tulane on Sept. 22, which (once again) won’t be a premier recruiting weekend, but it’ll signal a return to normalcy within the program. I anticipate a few commits and top targets will try to make it to campus for that game, though, just to catch up with Meyer.

TOP OF THE CHARTS

The fine folks at 247Sports updated their player rankings for the Class of 2020 on Wednesday morning, and though the nation’s top-rated prospect remained the same, one Ohio State commit saw a significant boost in his stock.

Here’s a look at how the Buckeyes’ pledges fared in the the summer Top247, not to be confused with the 247Sports Composite Rankings:

IMG Academy four-star cornerback Lejond Cavazos was not ranked among the Top 247 prospects, though he’s the nation’s 170th-best prospect according to the composite rankings. All six commitments combine to give Ohio State the nation’s third-best recruiting class, trailing only Miami (12 pledges) and Alabama (7).

Other notable targets to make the cut include:

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