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.
Ryan Day walked to the podium on Dec. 8, the heavy bags under his eyes seeming even more accentuated than usual.
Following Ohio State’s comeback win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game, Day and the Buckeyes didn’t stumble back into Columbus until about 4 a.m. from Indianapolis, and then a team watch party at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center ensued to see its spot in the College Football Playoff. After that, Day met with the media for a brief 10-minute session and was soon hustling off to hit the recruiting trail.
Name a state, and Day may have passed through it at some point. He drove all over Ohio to see his 2020 in-state commits, trekked to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona and California for recruiting trips and made long stops in New York and Georgia to be by the sides of his current star players for awards shows.
He next took the dais on Monday (Dec. 16) – in the midst of even more stress being tacked onto him with Jeff Hafley’s departure – after having to work all weekend as a part-time damage controlman with the 2020 defensive backs.
All while having to prepare for the biggest game of the season in spurts, with Ohio State video coordinator Joe Stanek loading up an iPad full of film for him to dive into on planes and in hotel rooms.
“That's not easy to do when you're out there recruiting, you're running from place to place, airport to airport ... award show to award show,” Day said Monday. “You just do the best you can with it. You're not going to be perfect. It’s not going to be perfect. You wish you had another week.”
In all, it was a wild, taxing whirlwind of an eight-day grind that he called “the craziest week I’ve ever been a part of.”
So that brings us back to 1 p.m. Wednesday in the WHAC, when the first-year head coach strolled in to take center stage again, donning what arguably the sleekest blazer he’s worn the past few months, to discuss officially signing a star-studded class that currently sits at 24 signed players. To say he strutted into the room is taking it too far; he doesn’t exude cockiness.
But if you watched closely, he walked in with a noticeable bounce in his step, and at times over the next half hour would have a smile pinned ear to ear on his face.
Day has exuded quiet, almost peaceful (yet still stern) confidence all season long.
This was different. This was a celebration, and you could see it in his face before he spoke a word. And then, of course, Day turned back toward that quiet confidence.
“Had a great morning. What a great day this has been,” Day said. “We have 24 guys that signed in this class. We think it's an unbelievable class.”
Over the next 40 minutes or so, he spent his time talking about the relationships the staff built with the recruits, how terrific the families had been in buying into the philosophies the coaches had detailed over the last year and proceeded to answer questions about players from almost every position group. The excitement was consistent throughout.
The only other instances this season that have exceeded his emotions on Wednesday? The postgame interviews after wins over Penn State and Michigan – both weeks he spent calmly discussing the games’ importance before finally showing his relieved, celebratory emotions afterward.
“There's a lot of stress,” Day said Wednesday. “There's a lot that goes into it because there's so much time put into it.”
And, really, Day and his staff earned the right to celebrate. Even though the Buckeyes would go on to suffer a big loss with the flip of cornerback Clark Phillips III to Utah on Thursday, and with Cameron Martinez still not yet in the fold, the Buckeyes still hold a slight edge over Georgia for the nation’s No. 3 recruiting class.
That comes after signing four ridiculously talented, versatile receivers to earn Day’s billing of the collective group as “probably the strongest class I've seen in a long time that I can remember,” a safety in Lathan Ransom who will be able to give Josh Proctor a run for his money in camp (though Proctor is very much in-line to earn the starting spot and will hold the pole position there) whom Day said “is going to be as good a safety as we've had here in a long time” and a pair of top-level quarterbacks in Jack Miller and C.J. Stroud whom Day believes “are really excited to come in here and go fight for playing time.”
On Wednesday, Day was happy and relieved. On Monday, he said he didn’t want to spend much time dwelling on the stress levels he’s been feeling. They were certainly present, but so was his satisfaction.
“Obviously proud of what we've done, proud of what the staff has done,” Day said Monday. “We'll get together Wednesday, have signing day there, enjoy a little time right there. I think that will be fun.”
Day seemed to be having more fun than he originally imagined, happily putting his first full recruiting class as the head man in Columbus to rest.
“This was our first real class. This is our first class from beginning to end,” Day said. “There was a lot more time, a lot more relationships built with deeper connections there and just a lot more time. Again, I thought our staff did a great job. You talk about some of the work it takes to recruit nationally, just the travel and time and phone calls and the work (director of player personnel) Mark Pantoni and his staff did to get this class together is just tremendous. It's great to celebrate on a day like today because there's so much work that gets put into this.”
Versatile Florida athlete puts Buckeyes in top five
We will be talking more about the 2020 class in the weeks ahead, but with the senior class nearly all locked up, we will be discussing a look ahead to the 2021 class more next week. But today, we got a small sneak peek at one of Ohio State’s top junior targets.
Charles Montgomery, from Armwood (Fla.) High School, put the Buckeyes in his top five, pitted against Maryland, Penn State, Florida State and Nebraska.
Happy Birthday Grandma #Top5 pic.twitter.com/vofoJj09ol
— Charles I. Montgomery (@iam_CharlesM3) December 20, 2019
Montgomery, who visited Ohio State for the Buckeyes’ win over Wisconsin on Oct. 26, is solidly built, a stocky 5-foot-10, 185-pounder whose top two recruiters are Tony Alford and Brian Hartline – which may indicate he is being recruited as both a running back and receiver.
We have talked so much about the Buckeye coaches’ love of versatile players who can fill multiple roles. Montgomery could be just that. He is planning on committing to a college on May 24.
