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.
Williams commit date
The influx of tweets hit the Twitterverse on Monday night.
First came Mike Hall's tweet that another boom was coming soon. Then, Jordan Hancock. Then, TreVeyon Henderson. Eventually, it wrapped up with Evan Pryor and Jantzen Dunn.
After some scrambling to figure out who it was that they were talking about, I was told I would be given the name on Tuesday. And then, 247Sports national analyst Steve Wiltfong placed a Crystal Ball for four-star Virginia defensive tackle Tyleik Williams to choose Ohio State, and that was followed by four more picks for the Buckeyes to land him.
So, the cat was let out of the bag, and late Monday night, Williams made an announcement of an announcement with this tweet:
AUG 27TH 5:00 pm ITS TIME
— Tyleik T5 William (@tyleikk) August 25, 2020
So, unless something very unforeseen happens in the 25th hour, it looks like Ohio State will be landing its 19th overall commitment and second defensive tackle in the 2021 class to pair with Mike Hall.
It appears we're just playing the waiting game for a couple more days.
Coombs sees Pride as a first-rounder
When we went up to Michigan to visit with Grosse Pointe South five-star cornerback William Johnson in July, he dropped a line from Kerry Coombs that we had not yet heard before on the recruiting trail.
“(Coombs) says ‘I only recruit first-rounders.’ That’s his line for me,” Johnson told Eleven Warriors. “He said he’s only offered five guys, and he says he only offers first-rounders. So that’s basically him saying that he thinks I can be there and that he thinks I can be a first-rounder.”
Well, that line – or a variation of it – is continuing to see popularity among the Ohio State coaches, with the two most recent examples being Larry Johnson's approach to 2023 defensive end Derrick LeBlanc and St. Louis 2022 cornerback Toriano Pride, who was offered by Coombs last Wednesday.
“Coach Coombs and Coach (Ryan) Day offered me. I’m still building a strong relationship with Coach Coombs, and I was very surprised when they offered me,” Pride told Eleven Warriors. “(Coombs said) he produces first rounders, and he only offers kids who he thinks can be a first-rounder. It made me wanna go harder because he’s a top DB coach and he’s telling me I could be a first-rounder.”
What stands out about Pride the most, Coombs believes, is that the Buckeyes “like how I can cover and how physical I am. They also like that I’m not a troublemaker and I am a good person.”
Thus far, Pride says that the programs that are standing out the most in his recruitment are “Auburn, Oregon, Missouri, Clemson, Notre Dame and more.”
........ pic.twitter.com/8sPsGAqFi3
— 5 (@toriano2x) May 29, 2020
Clemson is the only one of those programs that has yet to offer the 5-foot-11, 170-pounder who is ranked No. 234 overall, No. 27 at cornerback and No. 6 in the state of Missouri's 2022 class.
And now that the Buckeyes have offered, they have also shot to the top of his considerations.
“What stands out most to me about Ohio State is that they send DBs to the league every year and they produce DBs,” Pride said. “Ohio State impacts my recruitment a lot because I really like Ohio State.”
No offer for Pugh?
Perhaps there will be a day we see in-state four-star Jack Pugh finally land that Ohio State offer. For the time being, though, it appears the Buckeyes want to lay off. From what I've gathered, Pugh is a solid commitment to Wisconsin and an offer won't be coming his way if Ohio State is not 100 percent confident that they could flip him from the Badgers.
It probably wouldn't serve the Buckeyes well to extend an offer to an in-state player who isn't seriously considering the program. I still think the offer could happen, but from what I've been told, they have moved their full attention onto the 2022 class to complete their two-tight end goal. Right now, I'm pretty confident the top two targets are North Carolina's Benji Gosnell and Georgia's Bennett Christian. I wouldn't be surprised to see that pair ultimately be the Buckeyes' haul at the position.
Ahh, it's been a while since I've fielded a reader question in the Hurry-Up space. Felt good to be back. Maybe we'll do this more going forward?
