The Hurry Up: Four More 2020 Recruits Earn Ohio State Offers and 247, Rivals Fall Victim to Catfish

By Taylor Lehman on February 14, 2019 at 6:45 pm
Marlon Martinez
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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.

St. Thomas Aquinas to OSU

Since the last Hurry Up was published, Ohio State reached out to another 2020 prospect. Three-star Florida offensive tackle Marlon Martinez has offers from several top programs, including Florida, Auburn, Arkansas and — also extending an offer yesterday — Penn State. 

With his 6-foot-5, 305-pound frame, most programs are recruiting him as a guard. 

With four offensive linemen entering the program through the Class of 2019 and three offensive linemen already committed to the Buckeyes for 2020 — five-star tackle Paris Johnson Jr., four-star center Luke Wypler and three-star tackle Jakob James — the position is off to a tremendous starts but remains a major need  moving forward.

But understanding what looms in the immediate future for the Buckeye offensive line, losing four of its five starters and stacking substantial levels of inexperience across all five positions, it wouldn't be a bad decision for head coach Ryan Day and offensive line coach Greg Studrawa to add depth to the line. Getting more offensive line would shore up a solid cast behind Rutgers grad transfer Jonah Jackson and/or Virginia grad transfer R.J. Proctor, if the Buckeyes were to land the transfers.

What bodes well for Martinez as a prospect is the successful players that have come out of St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale. There were 14 players on 2018 NFL rosters who graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas. One of those players is Los Angeles Charger and former Ohio State Buckeye Joey Bosa. Joey's brother and former Ohio State defensive end Nick Bosa is also on his way heading into the 2019 NFL Draft in April. Ohio State senior cornerback Damon Arnette is also from St. Thomas Aquinas.

A Busy Thursday 

The Buckeyes extended another offer to a 2020 wideout as the position group continues to be a priority for Ryan Day and Brian Hartline. The latest recipient is Fresno, California, receiver Jalen McMillan.

The 6-foot-2, 181-pound pass catcher is ranked as the No. 71 prospect in the nation. As part of the uber-talented California receiving class, McMillan is the No. 11 recruit coming out of his state and the No. 15 player at the position. The Fighting Irish are the current favorites according to the crystal ball. 

While several programs are eyeing prospects like Illinois slot wideout A.J. Henning, four-star Missouri receiver Jordan Johnson and McMillan, the newest Ohio State offer joins a long list of prospects the Buckeyes and Irish could be battling for. Johnson has become very close with the Irish, and McMillan is also close with the program, though it's early in the recruiting process for the entire class. Henning's crystal ball is also dominated by the Midwest powers.

McMillan has plenty of assets that could make him a potential No. 1 receiver option at the next level eventually, but his combination of speed, elevation and ability to track the ball in the air makes him one of the best deep-ball options in the 2020 class early on. He'd be a fine addition to go along with commits Gee Scott Jr. and Jaxon Smith-Njigba; and potentially five-star target Rakim Jarrett (St. Johns).

Continuing with the offensive line offers, Ohio State rounded out its Thursday afternoon with an offer to four-star Pennsylvania offensive tackle Michael Carmody. Carmody brings a good combination of size and speed to the position, standing at 6-foot-6 and weighing in at 285 pounds.

Carmody already has offers from Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin and others and also received an offer from Auburn earlier this week. Behind five-star wideout Julian Fleming, Carmody is the No. 2 player from the state of Pennsylvania. His crystal ball is 100 percent in favor of the Nittany Lions.

The Buckeyes also extended an offer to four-star offensive guard Akinola Ogunbiyi, who is currently committed to Texas A&M and holds offers from Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma and others.

His size — 6-foot-4, 310 pounds with room to grow — is was makes Ogunbiyi a very attractive prospect at his position, where he's ranked No. 6 in the country. His offer brigns Ohio State to four offensive guards and 31 offensive linemen overall.

Rivals and 247Sports catfished

In recruiting hilarity, Rivals and 247Sports were catfished by a fake Twitter account created by high school kids. 

A Twitter account was created for an apparent 6-foot-6, 315-pound offensive and defensive tackle named Blake Carringer from Grace Christian High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, sporadically tweeting that he received offers from Alabama and other schools and was mentioned on Twitter by Syracuse fans. His MaxPreps account lists his measurements at 5-foot-9, 220 pounds.

Regardless, 247's composite rating, which aggregates ratings from recruiting sites — such as Rivals — in Metacritic fashion, gave the fake prospect a 5.5 rating despite no available film online and no personal scouting. The site didn't have a personal page for Carringer, and there is no news on the site regarding him, but Rivals allegedly had a personal page, which no longer exists

247Sports founder and Rivals co-founder Shannon Terry defended the site on Twitter.

The "News-Sentinel" that Terry was mentioning in his tweets is the Knoxville News Sentinel which published a story behind a paywall but tweeted it out with Carringer's Twitter tag — @carringer2020.

In the end, the folly concluded with a change that was mentioned in Terry's tweets. No recruit without a personal 247 page can also be given a composite rating.

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