Congratulations to Jacoby Boren, Pat Elflein, Corey Smith, Chris Fong, and everyone else that graduated from Ohio State yesterday. The university's alumni army grows forever stronger:
Now alumni count is up to 540,000. #OSUgrad
— The Lantern (@TheLantern) May 8, 2016
Remember this, real worlders: It's illegal for an Ohio State graduate to pass on an Ohio State graduate for a non-Ohio State graduate while hiring. Use that ancient blood law to your advantage.
URBAN CAN DO IT ALL. It's easy as a fan to get excited when your team earns the commitment of a five-star prospect. But hipster fans like me, we relish the unheralded three-star recruits.
Most competent coaches could lead a team full of five-stars to glory, but not many could do so if given the pick of the three-star litter. Urban Meyer, however, can win with five-stars but also identify and develop three-star gems.
From landgrantholyland.com:
In Urban's first two classes at Ohio State, he recruited 12 three-star players to Ohio State and 36 blue-chip recruits for a two-year blue chip percentage of 75%. The vast majority of those three-stars were in his first class -- in 2012 -- where he and his new staff had roughly two months to stitch together following the disastrous 2011 campaign. 2013 only had 3 three-star recruits.
In total, six of the twelve total three-star recruits were either drafted (25%) or are currently contending for a starting spot on this year's team (another 25%). Two more players were long-term starters even though they didn't get drafted -- Tyvis Powell and Jacoby Boren. Including those two, and if you define a successful recruit as one where the player is a significant contributor (currently vying for a starting position or a former starter who is now in the NFL), Urban's overall success rate for three-stars is roughly 67%.
So even the most unheralded recruits in Urban's elite recruiting classes have a high hit rate (67%) -- that's an astounding ability to identify talent and/or coach raw ability.
Seems like a recipe for success.
BABY ZEKE, YOU SLY DOG. National news outlets are catching up on the origin stories of the latest wave of Buckeye crop to hit the NFL. While most of it remains old hat for familiar Ohio State fans, new stories about fan favorites do surface.
From The Dallas News' profile of Elliott:
During a national tournament in Florida, the opposing team's star player was kicked out of the game for wearing illegal cleats. He didn't have another pair of shoes.
[Elliott's youth football coach, Raeffel] Merriweather felt a little hand tapping him on the shoulder. "Coach, I've got my other shoes. I want to see if he can wear my other shoes," Elliott told him.
Merriweather would've been fine with the opponent's star player out, but he acquiesced.
The kid, predictably, promptly ran for a touchdown.
"He said, 'Don't worry, Coach, I've got the good shoes on,'" Merriweather said of Elliott.
If I didn't know better I'd think Ezekiel Elliott were a Marionaire; that's a timeless maneuver of ours—act like we're helping you out while still maintaining a strategic advantage.
Also ridiculous to realize Elliott was talented enough to be playing in national tournaments in Florida as a kid. Makes you wonder where the other team's star player ended up, definitely not as a national champion and fourth overall pick of the NFL Draft.
STOPPING GRONK. Darron Lee faced some hulking tight ends in the Big Ten, but none of them possessed the freakishness of New England Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski.
The Jets no doubt thought of this scenario before drafting Lee. Like him, the franchise's solons must agree he has the talent to contend with the All-Pro.
From nj.com:
"Studying them and seeing what their tendencies are, for sure," Lee told NJ Advance Media. "What type of routes they like, what type of routes they normally run, and how they get open in those routes. That's the key.
"If you pick up on those types of things, you can eliminate"—Lee caught himself here, no doubt realizing who he was talking about—"or try to take away those things. They're going to get theirs, but you can try your best to take away what they do."
[...]
"It's a mentality," Lee said, drawing back on the confidence he gained playing against bigger tight ends and wideouts in college. "We'll see, once we cross that bridge, but we're got to come in with the right frame of mind."
Lee also said he plans to be physical with Gronkowski and "not back down," which is always easier said than done. If Lee can prove prove a nuisance to Gronk he'll be in line for a $100 million payday as he will truly be the apotheosis of a "new era" linebacker.
THIRD-STRING IN GOOD HANDS. Though it might've happened regardless, Stephen Collier's ACL injury means freshman Dwayne Haskins will be the third-string quarterback when Ohio State opens its 2016 season against Bowling Green on Sept. 3rd.
Nobody here needs a history lesson on the importance of the third-string QB, but it sounds like we'll be in great hands with Haskins.
From dispatch.com:
“He took us 91 yards in about 30 seconds and scored a touchdown, and he didn’t even blink, didn’t even flinch,” [Haskins' high school coach Pat] Cilento said. “And he was playing basically on one leg for 2 1/2 quarters after suffering a high-ankle sprain. He could barely move. He basically caught the snap and threw it. So he loves the pressure, and he is a fierce competitor.”
Ohio State coach Urban Meyer is well aware. He watched a gifted high school sophomore who was probably too skinny at that time to fit the Buckeyes’ needs. They stayed in touch, though, as Haskins added weight and blossomed into one of the nation’s elite in the 2016 recruiting cycle. And when Haskins decommitted from Maryland in December after coach Randy Edsall was let go, Ohio State stepped in to sign him in February, for one primary reason.
“He’s the best quarterback at his age I’ve ever seen,” Meyer said of the 6-foot-3, 205-pound Haskins, praised for his game awareness, pass release and accuracy and his ability to bounce away from trouble and keep plays alive.
The third-stringer being a true freshman is the only way to top the Iron King's championship arc. If injuries force Haskins into the spotlight, I won't be worried in the least thanks to this anecdote from a high school coach in Maryland.
I love sports.
URBAN DOESN'T SELL SNAKE OIL. I mentioned this tweet yesterday, but a lot of my readers don't spend spring Sundays reading about potential fifth-year graduate transfers to Boston College:
Coach Meyer told me during recruiting that I would win a national championship, have big rings and graduate from OSU.I guess he was right
— Armani Reeves (@PTReeves8) May 8, 2016
Have we considered the possibility Urban Meyer is a soothsayer? It may be time to consider that.
THOSE WMDs. This is Fine creator explains the timelessness of his meme... How I verify data breaches... The day we discovered our parents were Russian spies... 2016 National Geographic Photographer of the Year... A victim's brother sketches the Grim Sleeper trial.
