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.
Powers not opposed to playing DE
On Thursday night, 2022 stud outside linebacker Gabe Powers, of Marysville (Ohio) High School just a half hour from Ohio State’s campus, announced an offer from the Buckeyes.
Powers is exceedingly grateful for the early recognition from Al Washington and the Ohio State coaches, as he became just the second in-state sophomore to receive a scholarship offer from the biggest program in the state.
Powers told Eleven Warriors that the offer is “very humbling, and I’m blessed to receive an offer at such a young age. It’s been a dream of mine to always play at the highest level I can and to play college football.”
Now, the question will become where this talent will play college football – which position and which program?
At 6-foot-4, 220 pounds, Powers already has great size, and he has an elite frame to make him an even more dynamic prospect. It’s why the Buckeyes got in on him early with the offer.
At that size, it’s possible Powers could eventually develop into a defensive end prospect, and it’s something Washington and company have discussed with him.
Blessed to receive an offer from The Ohio State University. Thanks to Coach Washington and the Ohio State staff. #GoBucks pic.twitter.com/1MoEFw0umV
— Gabe_powers21 (@GabePowers21) November 15, 2019
“They’ve talked about defensive end,” Powers said. “It’s whatever the team wants me to do. I’ll do whatever the team wants me to do wherever I end up.”
There is a long, long way to go here, but where Powers ends up will be a talking point for a while. He also holds offers from Michigan and Colorado, and Notre Dame, Purdue, USC and Cincinnati are all in talks with the 2022 recruit who could end up a highly rated player on national boards.
But Powers will, of course, be taking his time in narrowing his options down over the next year or two.
“I wanna get to know as many colleges as I can,” Powers said. “I wanna see where I fit in and where I’m comfortable the most and who treats me the best and go from there – see which colleges I like and make a decision based off that.
Powers has visited Ohio State twice this season for games, including the Michigan State matchup on Oct. 5.
“It’s a really good relationship we have,” Powers said of his bonds with the Ohio State coaches. “I’ve been down to a couple games and talked to coach Washington in person. He’s really a good guy. It seems like all the players love him. He’s a respectable guy. Our relationship’s really good right now.”
Marysville was knocked out of the playoffs last weekend, so now it will be time for Powers to get into the weight room to work on developing physically and onto the field whenever he can so that he can better his speed and quickness.
“This offseason I just need to work on still getting bigger and faster, and I need to keep getting better at flying to the ball,” Powers said. “Towards the end of the year, I picked it up. It was slow, but as the year went on, I started to get a little hang of the game more.”
Story impressed, wants to make another visit
There’s another in-state defensive target who has interest in Ohio State right now, and he was on hand at Ohio State’s last home game against Maryland to soak in the atmosphere.
Najee Story came away impressed.
“My favorite part was just being able to watch the game and see the energy that was in the stadium” Story told Eleven Warriors. “A ‘wow’ factor was when I just looked at how big and packed the stadium was, and I thought I could really be playing in front of all these fans.”
Story had been planning a visit for a game for some time, but others things – such as having being scheduled on a Saturday, for instance – kept getting in the way this season.
But Story has now gotten his Ohio Stadium experience, and it was enough to make him want to get back in the building for the Penn State game. He says he plans on making a second visit to the Shoe for the critical showdown with the Nittany Lions.
Both Ohio State and Penn State have offers on the table to Story, who says he’s keeping his options open.
“My recruitment is still open as of now,” Story said. “Ohio State is a great school, and they are definitely going to be (high on my list). I’m keeping all of my options open so I’d say all schools are high on my list.”
Baron sets decision date
We talked a little more than a week ago about Tyler Baron having apparently made a decision, and I made my prediction last Friday on what his commitment will end up being. You can read that here.
Baron on Tuesday announced that he will be making his decision during the early signing period next month:
I will be announcing my commitment on National Signing Day December 18th
— Tyler Baron (@Tylerbaron23) November 19, 2019
Soon enough, there won’t be any more predictions, and we’ll be able to put Baron’s recruitment to rest.
