If there has been one knock on the recruiting trail for Urban Meyer and his staff since arriving at Ohio State, it is the Buckeyes have missed out on several of the top-tier defensive tackle prospects in the last couple of recruiting cycles. From Christian Wilkins and Neville Gallimore in 2015 to Antwuan Jackson and Rashard Lawrence this past year, Ohio State has recently swung and missed on several of its top targets at a key position on the interior of the defensive line.
There’s a reason for this, of course, as these top-of-the-line recruits typically hail from the southern part of the country. It’s an incredibly difficult task to get them to come north and play for Ohio State. Recruits from the south, more often than not, stay close to home.
So the Buckeyes have had to resort to some backup plans the last few years. They’re not recruiting scrub players — Ohio State signed four-star defensive tackle Malik Barrow in 2016 and three-stars Robert Landers, DaVon Hamilton and Josh Alabi in 2015 — but there’s no question there have been some misses on some top-ranked prospects.
Because of that, the Buckeyes have had to take a bit of a different approach to build depth on the interior of their defensive line. They’ve been fine up the middle the last two seasons because players like Michael Bennett, Adolphus Washington and, at times last season, Joey Bosa were clogging up the interior. But with all of those guys now out of the program, Ohio State suddenly became quite thin.
That’s precisely why this spring former defensive ends Jashon Cornell and Dre’Mont Jones have bulked up a bit and moved inside. They’re giving Ohio State a bit of depth on the interior behind projected starters Tracy Sprinkle and Michael Hill.
“We took two guys and moved them inside, we took Jashon and Dre’Mont and we moved them inside and that’s been a really pleasant surprise how they’ve adapted playing inside closer to the ball after being outside guys,” Ohio State defensive line coach Larry Johnson said after a recent spring practice. “They’re working real hard at it.”
The move makes sense because the Buckeyes are pretty set at defensive end with Tyquan Lewis, Sam Hubbard and Jalyn Holmes as the three primary guys there. Ohio State has a lot of confidence in those three at the outside positions and let’s not forget Nick Bosa — a five-star defensive end prospect — will be on campus in the fall. Johnson said Nick Bosa doesn’t have a defined position just yet, and the staff won’t know where he will play until he arrives on campus. He, like Jones and Cornell, is capable of sliding inside.
“[Bosa] can do both so we’re going to see what’s the best fit for him,” Johnson said.
Ohio State didn’t have a ton of depth at defensive tackle. Landers, Hamilton and Alabi were seen more as developmental guys when they were signed. Expecting them to step in and contribute in just their second year maybe wasn’t exactly what the staff had envisioned.
So the decision to move Jones and Cornell inside was made out of necessity. They are two players who certainly had potential to make the move, though Johnson said the intention was for each to play end when they were being recruited. Both Cornell and Jones are currently around 275 pounds, according to Johnson.
“You take a quick guy like that, move him inside and he gets all that one-on-one on blocks so you’ve got a guy with a chance of playing end on the inside and that’s a bonus for what we do defensively.”
It's going to take some time for Cornell and Jones to get acclimated to their new roles, but there's no question both have flashed at times this spring. If they can get into the rotation it simply makes Ohio State deeper on the defensive line. That's never a bad thing.
So even after the misses at defensive tackle in the last couple of recruiting cycles, the Buckeyes feel they'll be just fine with the guys they've got.
“The young guys, it’s a process and this is all new,” Johnson said. “But they’re working and that’s the encouraging part.”
