National Signing Day is upon us, folks. I discriminate against #teens because they don't respect life, but I do make exceptions if said #teen is committed to The Ohio State University or another Ohio institution of higher learning.
Ohio State's 2016 class sits at No. 2, and there are still pieces on the board.
- Three-star DB K'Von Wallace decides at 9:30 a.m. (Commit chance: Low)
- Four-star DB Carlos Becker decides at 9:30 a.m. (Commit chance: 50/50)
- Three-star Columbus athlete Malik Harrison decides at 10:00 a.m. (Commit chance: High)
- JUCO OL Malcolm Pridgeon decides at 10:00 a.m. (Commit chance: High)
I don't pimp 11W often—Ferraris sell themselves easily enough—so trust when I say the team has been over the stove for weeks in preparation of today. Be sure to check back throughout the day for the latest Buckeye dope straight from the muscle.
If you're on Twitter, be sure to follow the Lord of Whispers, Andrew, Eric, and Tim.
THE STANDARD. Thanks to the 2014 title, every Ohio State recruiting class will now be compared to the 2013 class, which provided the bedrock of that title run.
Ohio State's class finished No. 2 that year, and it's easy to see why Meyer doesn't mind recruiting. It's easier to stockpile talent through recruiting than free agency and a draft.
From espn.com:
Potential No. 1 NFL draft pick Joey Bosa was already in the fold, along with star tailback Ezekiel Elliott, a future top-10 Heisman Trophy finisher in quarterback J.T. Barrett, game-breaking athlete Jalin Marshall, star linebacker Darron Lee and a road-clearing guard in Billy Price -- which is still just scratching the surface for a deep group that featured a staggering 17 members of the ESPN 300.
But Bell was truly the icing on the cake that day for a class that finished No. 3 overall in the country and almost certainly exceeded even those outsized expectations with so many second-year players playing crucial roles on the way to the 2014 national championship. After posting another 12-win season and a victory in the Fiesta Bowl, six of those Buckeyes have also now capitalized on their sky-high draft stock and are skipping their final seasons of eligibility, which simultaneously provides an invaluable recruiting pitch for Meyer while also raising the bar for the signees coming into replace them.
“I mean, it’s what we do when you recruit like that,” Meyer said. “I’ve been in scenarios where you don’t have a lot of conversations about the NFL because you don’t have that caliber of players."
J.T. Barrett, Billy Price, Gareon Conley, Marcus Baugh, and possibly even Corey Smith will be be called upon to anchor the 2016 team. So Meyer did it all with this class; he ushered guys like Bosa and Elliott to the NFL within three years, and he also developed guys like Barrett, Price, and Conley.
The 2013 class finished with 288.03 points from 24/7. The 2016 class is already at 286.05 points, and the 2017 class is already at 202.71.
So yeah, go ahead and write double-digit wins in blood for the next couple seasons.
A TRUE RAGS TO RICHES STORY. College roommates are hilarious, unless they're the type that puts dirty dishes in a sink and assumes magical elves wash it and place it back on the shelf.
For better or worse, people always remember a college roommate. (You might say, "I lived alone my entire college career." To which I'd ask, "Did you even college?")
Bradley Roby and Philly Brown are no different... except they'll be seeing each other Sunday in the Super Bowl masquerading as an Ohio State spring game for ratings.
From nfl.com:
"Definitely. Because when you play somebody, you want to know as much as possible about them. And I know a lot about about him," Roby told Around The NFL. "It's not just about me and him, but that definitely would be interesting (to face him). I'm looking forward to it, it's going to be fun. Just to go out there and play a game we've been playing our whole lives -- on the biggest stage -- with your college roommate. The first person I saw when I went to the dorms.
"I was like, not dirty, but just leaving stuff around, you know how it is," Roby said. "And he's worse than me, for sure. We had a sloppy dorm room."
[...]
"I was the clean one. He was the sloppy one," Brown said. "I was the one that was cleaning up the room every day because, you know, he's a guy that -- he gets up out of bed, throws his blanket on the ground, throws his clothes. I'm the cleaner-upper."
I side with Philly on this one. No way Roby was cleaning anything up as a roommate. He does make a good pitch for Ohio State though:
Roby and Heuerman on why a recruit should pick Ohio State. (Via @Rivals) pic.twitter.com/L6v11YW5vV
— tOSU Recruiting (@tOSURecruiting) February 3, 2016
PROPS TO THE ASSISTANTS, BY THE WAY. Urban Meyer will get the headlines as The Closer, but some thanks and gratitude are in order for assistant coaches.
After all, they're the ones dealing with airports, hotels, and rental cars all while trying to recruit notoriously fickle #teens. It's not glamorous work, but it's the coal that propels the train to national titles.
Today's honoree is OSU DB coach/Red Bull can Kerry Coombs.
From scout.com:
“For me, my style of recruiting is relationships with people, primarily head high school football coaches and assistant football coaches,” Coombs said. “That’s where I start with everything. I’ve been in their shoes, I know their job and I think they have a comfort level talking with me. I can be honest with them, and I feel like they can be honest with me. You start to have that relationship and they give you information about their players. If they trust you, they’re going to trust you with their players. That’s the biggest part.”
[...]
“He’s a great guy,” [Cass Tech coach Thomas] Wilcher said. “Fun loving, he talks well, he speaks well and he’s always trying to think about what to do for you and your program. Those are the types of things that you look at because it builds relationships.
“If I’m going to be a recruiter, I’m going to take some pages out of his book. Put it that way.”
Ohio State didn't pull a player out of Cass Tech in 2016 (consolation: Michigan's top prospect, Michael Onwenu, could flip from Michigan to Michigan State today). It did, however, land four-star OL Michael Jordan, one of my favorite prospects in the class, from under Jim Harbaugh's beak.
For as long as Michigan has sucked blood from our state, it's been refreshing to see Meyer (and point man Kerry Coombs) take the fight to the Wolverines on their own turf.
PROPS TO EVERYONE ELSE COMMITTING (TO AN OHIO SCHOOL). Not every prep athlete will be fortunate enough to commit to Ohio State today. Others will commit to smaller schools, but they could still end up winners.
From thisweeknews.com:
Hilliard Darby quarterback Nick Powers won't be under as large of a spotlight when he begins his college career, but what some might consider a letdown doesn't seem like a bad consolation prize to him.
After rushing for a combined 40 touchdowns the last two seasons as the Panthers extended their string of Division I playoff appearances to four, Powers was expected to sign with Ashland University on national signing day Feb. 3.
Although he could have been a preferred walk-on for the Buckeyes, Powers instead will have his education paid for and get the opportunity to further his athletic career as a safety for a respected NCAA Division II program.
Tough to argue with Powers' decision. This is also why I assume Ohio State walk-ons are lottery winners or elite time-managers.
R.I.P. TO THE FAX MACHINE. Fax machines had their time in this country, short as it was. Colleges, though, love to dust off these relics for National Signing Day.
For years I've wondered, "Why?" and Notre Dame—a program not usually associated with cutting edge stuff—asked the same. The Irish won't be held hostage by ancient witchcraft today.
From chicagotribune.com:
"It's the only day of the year a fax gets used," said Michael Bertsch, Notre Dame's media relations director for football. "I've never understood why the fax. We finally thought, 'This is kind of ridiculous.'"
Recruits will be able to send in their letters from their mobile devices using an app called CudaSign. The letters are downloaded into the device, and the recruits can sign them electronically with their finger or a pen on their device's screen. The letters are then emailed to Notre Dame.
Should that technology fail, Bertsch said, any of the 22-plus players the Irish expect to sign can send in a photo of the letter, which is to be signed by the recruit and his parents.
Notre Dame better hope their commits aren't sending their documents through Time Warner's wireless. If so, they might not arrive in the Irish's mailbox until next Tuesday.
THOSE WMDs. The Devil at 37,000 feet... Get ready to be be blitzed by Chipotle ads begging you to come back... Growth, density, and the future of the Gallatin Valley... Aston Villa is basically relegated... An osprey falls from the sky... Did Sierra Leone's hero doctor have to die?
