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.
Ohio State pauses recruiting
Recruiting never stops. Never has and never will. But for right now, Lettermen Row's Jeremy Birmingham has reported that Ohio State has put recruiting on pause as it tries to figure out answers to a bevy of questions that have still been unanswered following the Big Ten's cancellation of the 2020 fall sports season.
Ohio State, which has the country’s top-ranked recruiting class in 2021 and second-ranked class in 2022, is in a standstill. Sure, there are young men around the country still finding their way onto the Buckeyes commitment lists. But outside of perfunctory conversation and basic relationship maintenance, according to Lettermen Row sources, Ohio State has all but shut down its recruiting efforts for the time being.
“We took a little break,” top Buckeyes 2022 target Caden Curry told Lettermen Row this week. “So they could figure their season out.”
Clemson, preparing for their football season as usual, offered Curry on Wednesday.
Because of so many mysteries surrounding the season, that makes it next to impossible for the Buckeye coaching staff to give any clear directions to recruits when they come calling looking for answers:
No one knows what happens with eligibility. Or redshirts. Or transfers. Or signing periods or roster limits. Or anything else. That’s making it real difficult to plan or recruit with a new message.
Instead, the Buckeyes have just had to basically stop recruiting.
“There is no information given on how it’s going to work,” a Big Ten source said. “We’ve got no idea. None.”
Obviously, a pause in recruiting doesn't mean the Buckeye coaches are shutting off all communication with prospects. The relationship-building and relationship-maintaining aspect of recruiting is a 24/7 deal so you can expect that to continue. But it appears the meat of their recruiting efforts is being put on hold, though a boom could certainly still be on the table if one or two prospects are already silently committed.
Nelson compared to Stroud
We have written about Los Alamitos (Calif.) High School quarterback Malachi Nelson several times, and we're going to write about him several more times over the next year. He was the first prospect Ohio State offered in the 2023 class, and thus far he remains the only quarterback prospect the Buckeyes have offered in the cycle.
This week, Nelson was ranked No. 6 overall, No. 2 at pro-style quarterback and No. 2 in the state of California in 247Sports' initial Top 100. That's not much of a surprise, as we have been high on Nelson ever since he was offered by Mike Yurcich in November.
The folks at 247 are very high on him as well, as they have made a comparison to another California quarterback who they were high on in the 2020 class:
“I really liked him at the Elite 11 in Los Angeles earlier this year before the recruiting shutdown and the camp scene basically evaporated,” analyst Blair Angulo said on the 247Sports Football Recruiting Podcast. “He was one of the better quarterbacks there, and he was still a freshman at the time. I think what stood out to me about him was just his demeanor, his composure, just how comfortable he looked going through drills despite being one of the younger prospects.
“They'll put all the top 2021 prospects (at the Elite 11) in the same group so that you can see them throwing one after the other, and Malachi I thought could've hung with all those 2021 guys. The Jake Garcias, the Miller Mosses, the Ty Thompsons. The throws he was making, he did not look like a freshman out there. That's what stood out to me. Physically, he reminds me of a young C.J. Stroud, and you know how high we were on him after what he did at Rancho Cucamonga in the 2020 class and signing with Ohio State and just how much he raised his stock. I think you see a lot of similarities in the way they're able to put touch on the ball, the pure arm strength, the athleticism. You talk about a scheme versatile quarterback, Malachi Nelson is your guy. He's gonna be able to play from the shotgun, if you need him to go under center, he can do that. He can run a spread. He's got all the tools.”
That extensive evaluation and high praise for Nelson is on par with what we have been told about him by Danny Hernandez, Nelson's personal quarterback trainer.
“He could definitely throw with some of the guys on college rosters right now,” Hernandez told Eleven Warriors previously. “He could keep up with some college quarterbacks right now. I feel comfortable with him being able to make every throw. The ball comes out nice, it looks the right way. Mechanically, he’s generating power from the right sources.
“When the ball’s flying out, he doesn’t look like that kid doing the heave-ho. You see kids throwing the ball that far and hard at his age, their heads are all flying to the side and legs lifted in the air. They’re off balance and throwing with all their might at that point. He’s looking smooth. He looks like he knows what he’s doing, and he does.”
Top 5 for ILB target
Anthony Johnson is not a player we have heard a lot about on the recruiting trail, but perhaps that could change moving forward, as the Philadelphia standout from Neumann Goretti High School has put the Buckeyes in his top five against Alabama, Texas A&M, Penn State and Rutgers.
Top pic.twitter.com/hxem0V6wtm
— Anthony Johnson (@antgeezz) August 20, 2020
Johnson is a 6-foot-1, 230-pounder ranked No. 156 overall, No. 9 at inside linebacker and No. 6 in Pennsylvania's 2022 class. His top five was released just one day after the Buckeyes picked up a commitment from a third outside linebacker target in Dasan McCullough – who, we need to note, moved up in the recruiting rankings again into the No. 46 overall spot.
Ohio State's top inside linebacker target remains Virginia five-star Shawn Murphy, as Al Washington looks to continue the momentum he has by landing what would arguably be the best linebackers class in program history if he gets Murphy.
Stockton picks Gamecocks
Andrew will certainly be hitting on this more in Sunday's Counter Intel piece, but we just wanted to touch on it briefly:
Five-star quarterback Gunner Stockton, who was once one of Ohio State's top targets at the position in the 2022 class, whittled his list down to a final two of South Carolina and Georgia in July. On Thursday, Stockton chose South Carolina.
COMMITTED!!! pic.twitter.com/Ri8Edd6E7p
— Gunner Stockton (@GunnerStockton) August 20, 2020
That commitment came less than a week after five-star Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers chose to stay home and commit to the Longhorns.
That leaves the Buckeyes with just two uncommitted quarterback prospects who they have extended offers to: Five-star Maalik Murphy out of California and three-star Steven Angeli out of New Jersey.
Header photo: Ryan Day, Keenan Bailey and Lejond Cavazos
