It is here. It is the instant millionaire day.
If you're not following my good pal, coworker and expert NFL Draft knower Dan Hope, that's been your loss up to this point. He'll be covering tonight better than anyone else on the Ohio State beat. I guarantee that, or your money back.
Song of the Day: "Shine a Light" by The Rolling Stones.
Word of the Day: Extricate.
“ALWAYS BEEN LIKE FAMILY.” If you're wondering what it's going to feel like for Urban Meyer as he sits on his couch and watches three players he coached and recruited go No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 in the NFL Draft, the answer's pretty simple: like a proud dad.
**On the possibility that Burrow, Young and Okudah will be the first three picks: "You know Joe Burrow the year he had and obviously LSU did an incredible job and he did an incredible job of being developed and working hard and taking advantage of the situation that became available to him. Chase Young, we knew from day one he walked on campus, that once he and Larry Johnson got together and he got healthy (he'd be great), and the same with Jeff Okudah. He walked on campus and it didn't take long. First couple practices we were like 'Whoa...we've got one here.' Not just football but everything... He's an excellent student, excellent person and a ridiculous practice player so we knew this was all coming. It's kind of neat to say (recruiting the top three picks) is going to be the first time, maybe in history, that it's happened."
**On seeing players he recruited realize their NFL dream on draft night: "It's the same feeling you get when something great happens to your kid. That's how close you are to your players and Ryan (Day) obviously has the same exact approach...When you see that happen it's like when something great happens to your child. I never get more nervous than watching my own kids play baseball or volleyball and then when something great happens there's an overwhelming sense of pride...It's exactly the same. That's how close we are to these players. They've always been like family to us."
And he's going to be proud as hell tonight. That 2016 NFL Draft was absurd, but watching three of your former players get announced as essentially the three top players in the draft has got to hit a little different.
And there's a chance two more follow suit in the first round with J.K. Dobbins finding a late-round home and Damon Arnette – who Meyer says is "not a second-round pick" – slipping into the first.
It's going to be like a damn Buckeye infomercial tonight. Buckle up.
99 PERCENT. This whole COVID-19 thing has had me going back and forth between "everything is burning around me" and "absolutely nothing is wrong, everything is fine" far more times than even my totally unstable self would like to admit.
It's been wild, and the future is still largely uncertain, but if you're looking for some confidence that things are going to turn out fine I've got it for you – 99 percent of FBS athletic directors believe we'll have a college football season in some capacity, though 75% don't see it starting on time.
After weeks of uncertainty surrounding the upcoming college football season, 99 percent of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) athletic directors polled by Stadium believe a season will be played in one form or another.
When exactly the season begins is the biggest question. Even though the start of college football is still four months away, 75 percent of the athletic directors believe the season will be delayed.
“Given the medical and governmental leadership opinions, it is reasonable to believe some compromise to the start of the season lies ahead,” a Power Five AD said.
Sixty-one percent of the ADs predict the season won’t start until October or November, while 14 percent think the season won’t begin until the spring semester in January or February. One Power Five athletic director doesn’t expect the season to be played at all because of the impact of COVID-19.
There's still a lot that has to happen, but I must say I'm extremely encouraged by the optimism from a collection of individuals that would hypothetically know better than anybody else.
CHASE YOUNG IS DIFFERENT. Larry Johnson's no stranger to working with five-star talent (that's what happens when you're one of the top recruiters in college football), but Chase Young has always been a bit different, and he could tell that even during recruiting.
The homework surprised Larry Johnson. Ohio State’s defensive line coach has recruited elite players before, including NFL pass rushers Joey and Nick Bosa, but Young did something few others had. He studied the coach.
“He’d call, and he’d be like: ‘You coached that guy? You coached that guy, too?’ ” Johnson said.
On campus, Johnson began building the new recruit’s skill set over which NFL scouts now drool. He honed Young’s natural athleticism, harnessed his explosive first step and taught him the side-scissors pass-rush move. He gave Young teaching tape on past players, such as Tamba Hali. He saw Young become an understudy to sophomore Nick Bosa.
“Nick was his guy,” Johnson said. “He watched everything he did.”
It took about a year for Young to “drink the Kool Aid,” Johnson said, but as a sophomore, Young stepped in for an injured Bosa and burst onto the national stage with 10.5 sacks. This past season, Young broke Ohio State’s single-season sack record with 16.5 in 12 games and became the ninth defensive player since 1982 to be a finalist for the Heisman Trophy.
What separates Young from past elite edge-rushing prospects such as the Bosa brothers, Johnson said, is his versatility. He is not only 6-foot-6 and 265 pounds, he also has been shaped by years of Gibson’s fast-paced circuit training that modeled him as a running back rather than a defensive lineman. Ohio State leaned on Young to play multiple roles: He would hunt down the quarterback on one play and drop into coverage the next.
“Not that the Bosas couldn’t do that,” Johnson said, “but he does it fluid.”
I think the biggest thing that strikes me about Chase Young is that there are a lot of dudes who come to Ohio State and make complete physical transformations, and he looks pretty much the exact same as he did when he arrived as a freshman.
He's just built different, and everybody knew that from the moment they watched him in high school.
Former five-star Chase Young was a five-star in the Rivals rankings, but what do the analysts remember about him as a recruit?
— Rivals (@Rivals) April 22, 2020
They discuss below.
Watch the full analyst chat previewing the NFL Draft here: https://t.co/cPjK8t96WQ pic.twitter.com/5gEJDAT8YT
The Bosas left Ohio State as some of the most technically young proficient pass rushers ever. Chase Young is leaving as an absolute freak with a similar skillset. Best of luck for the next decade, NFL tackles! We'll introduce you to Zack Harrison in a few years.
CRIS CARTER TALKS HIM UP. If not for Cris Carter, Damon Arnette would probably have been no better than a fourth-round pick in last year's draft. A year later, he's got an outside shot to move into the first round (which is the correct place for the second-best corner in the draft to be selected, after all).
Carter knew he was better than that fourth-round grade last year, and he spoke to the pro football Hall of Fame to talk about what makes him so special.
We had the golden opportunity to sit down with Hall of Famer @criscarter80 and discuss his insights on CB @damon_arnette. pic.twitter.com/PHExRjFBf3
— Pro Football Hall of Fame (@ProFootballHOF) April 22, 2020
He can play man-to-man, zone, boundary, field and slot. He can lock a man down, he can tackle in space and he can blitz.
I've said it before and I'll say it again – Arnette is probably the most versatile and most experienced cornerback in the draft. If you want to pass on him because he's "cocky" and "prone to running his mouth" and maybe probably definitely didn't take school all that seriously, that's on you when he's an 8-year starter somewhere else.
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