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.
No reclassification for Henderson
On the same day that five-star cornerback Tony Grimes, a fellow Virginia high school star, announced that he was reclassifying to the 2020 class and enrolling at North Carolina on Aug. 1, Eleven Warriors was in contact with Ohio State’s five-star running back commit TreVeyon Henderson to see if reclassifying from 2021 to 2020 would be an option for him as well.
With the Virginia High School League on the verge of canceling the fall sports season and wiping out his senior season of football – which it did this past Wednesday – Henderson told us he was intrigued by that option and was looking into reclassifying to get himself enrolled at Ohio State this fall. After all, Henderson’s reputation in the classroom is about as strong as it is on the football field, and he said he was only two credits shy of being able to graduate.
“He’s a 4.5 GPA kid,” Henderson’s head coach at Hopewell (Va.) High School, Richard Irby, told Eleven Warriors previously. “He makes straight As. He’s made one B, and that was in middle school. He’s an A student. He’s really serious about his grades and his academics.”
So we had been keeping in touch with Henderson over the last week to see if there was any movement on that front. But over the weekend, he told us that reclassifying to the 2020 class at Ohio State is no longer an option he is pursuing. So Buckeye fans will be a little more patient and wait until the spring to see him in a scarlet and gray uniform.
Had he reclassified, that would have brought forth an incredible amount of intrigue, as Ohio State could have used his talents almost immediately on a 2020 offense that is already shaping up to be one of the best in the nation.
The next time you see Henderson play a snap, however, will be in January in Texas.
Henderson announced Sunday night on Twitter that he has decided to not transfer to another private, out-of-state school and that he will instead focus on graduating and continuing to train in Virginia while preparing to enroll at Ohio State in January. Prior to Virginia’s cancellation of fall high school football, Henderson told Eleven Warriors he had been considering a transfer to a prep school like IMG Academy (Florida) or St. Frances Academy (Maryland).
After long consideration I have decided that it would be best that I to continue to train and prepare for early enrollment to The Ohio State University. Thus, I will NOT be transferring to any other high school. This should clear up any questions that anyone may have!
— TreVeyon Henderson (@TreVeyonH4) July 20, 2020
A transfer is no longer on the table, though, so his next official football will come at the All-American Bowl in San Antonio in January, where he will be teaming up with at least eight other future Ohio State teammates. Though he won't be playing high school football this fall, he is still planning on playing in the All-American Bowl and is excited about that experience.
Not playing a senior season shouldn't hurt Henderson, a five-star running back and top-20 overall player who doesn’t really have much left to prove at the high school level, especially after winning two state championships and not having the option to play with his teammates.
Henderson chose to enter the same recruiting class with another high-caliber running back already committed (Evan Pryor) because he wanted to play in a two-back system in college that would not wear him out by the time they reach the NFL. So not playing any more downs at the high school level should save some tread on his tires.
Recruiting Leigh, others
Monday morning brought with it a tweet from Ohio State offensive lineman commit Ben Christman, who made public his “campaign” to recruit Emeka Egbuka and Tristan Leigh – two of the five-biggest targets left in the 2021 class – to Columbus.
Happy to announce my official campaign to recruit @emeka_egbuka and @Leigh71Tristan to The Ohio State University!
— Ben Christman (@BenChristman70) July 20, 2020
I ask that you please tweet out #MekaToColumbus and #TristanToColumbus to help out my campaign!
Could you imagine how many points this offense would rack up? pic.twitter.com/9VqmbYoMXy
It’s just the latest example of peer recruiting by the Buckeyes’ 2021 commits that had Ohio State director of player personnel Mark Pantoni saying it is one of the most impressive efforts of peer recruiting he has seen in a class.
We actually spoke about this class’ recruits-recruiting-recruits effort with both quarterback Kyle McCord and linebacker Reid Carrico earlier this month.
“I think our class, I would say is about 80 percent full, roughly,” McCord said a couple weeks prior to the Buckeyes picking up a commitment from cornerback Jordan Hancock on Sunday. “But there’s definitely a few more guys we’re going after – Emeka Egbuka from Washington, Tristan Leigh from Virginia’s gonna be huge for us to get up front, and defensively we’re going after some big guys, too. J.T. (Tuimoloau) from Washington and Derrick Davis from PA is someone who I’ve been in contact with for a while, and Tywone Malone from Bergen Catholic I think is probably the main guy we’re trying to finish this recruiting class out with.
“We’re on the last stretch so it’s obviously tough without being able to visit, so I think the job of the recruits is more important than ever. So we’re doing our job staying on those guys. … Definitely been an interesting past few months in recruiting with corona shutting down the recruiting world, but we’re still maintaining and pushing, trying to finish out this class strong.”
However, even though this class’ peer recruiting efforts have been hammered home and become a major talking point in this space, the commits are not doing it in a way that is overbearing. That would be a pretty terrible strategy, frankly.
“We’re not really pressuring anybody into trying to get them to commit,” Carrico said. “We’re just trying to stay in contact with them and letting them know we wanna play ball with them, and if they wanna play ball with us, then commit. Let’s get after it. Let’s not wait around. Let’s do it and get it done. We aren’t really blowing anybody’s phone up any day, but we’re staying in contact and the coaches are staying in contact. When you double up like that, you’re feeling good about the whole situation, and that strategy’s worked out really well for us. I don’t see any reason to change it.”
McCullough earns Under Armour bid
At this weekend’s Elite Underclassmen Camp in Oklahoma – another installment of the regional Under Armour showcase that was in Obetz, Ohio two weekends ago – one of the camp’s top performers on Sunday was Ohio State priority linebacker/safety target Dasan McCullough.
— Dasan Mccullough (@Dasan2022) July 19, 2020
Following his camp performance, McCullough accepted an invitation to the Under Armour All-America Game.
— Dasan Mccullough (@Dasan2022) July 20, 2020
McCullough, a 6-foot-5, 225-pound four-star prospect from Blue Valley North (Kan.) High School, is ranked No. 70 overall, No. 7 at athlete and No. 1 in Kansas.
The Buckeyes are looking to add either three or four linebackers in the class, and McCullough is one of Al Washington’s top targets at the position. C.J. Hicks mentions McCullough, one of his good friends, as one of the key players he is continuing to recruit.
Top photo: TreVeyon Henderson (Don Callahan/247Sports)
