last recruiting round up, with Mark May
No seriously, we promise. Given that we don’t expect anyone to not qualify, I don’t think there’s more we can say regarding this recruiting class. I think Vico is working on a Better Know A Buckeye segment for all incoming players by time we’re finished with the Awesomeness series next week. But that’s it; that and the Pryor decision. Whenever Pryor’s decision comes, one of us will probably say something about it, which will basically boil down to the two alternatives:
- Pryor comes to Ohio State: :beer:, suck it Michigan and Penn State
- Pryor goes elsewhere: paging Russell Shepard, you know that rich millionaire cousin of yours? You know, Eddie George? Yeah, ask him about why the Bucks are the right fit.
That said, here’s some final parting shots on the recruiting efforts of the Buckeyes this year:
No, [insert out of state school], you may not have Ohio’s best players:
Ohio State really cleaned up in state this year with only a few major instate coups. Most notably, the Bucks only got their third option at tight end (Kyle Rudolph (1) to Notre Dame, Brandon Moore Kevin Koger (2) to Michigan) and lost Cordale Scott from the Glenville pipeline to Illinois. Outside of that, we did exceptionally well closing off Ohio to intruders. Unlike last year’s Ben Martin fiasco, we did shore up the no. 1 prepster in Ohio (Mike Adams1 ). Following Adams to Ohio State was Ohio’s no. 3 (Devier Posey), no. 7 (Jake Stoneburner), no. 11 Nathan Williams, no. 29 (Nic DiLillo), no. 35 (Zach Domicone), no. 38 (Ben Buchanan) and no. 46 (Jermil Martin). Ohio’s no. 4 would’ve been in the class, but Devoe Torrence had his scholarship yanked for a variety of reasons, none of them made explicit.
No, [insert out of state school], you may not have YOUR best players either:
Usually Ohio State picks up a few hidden gems from out of state — usually from Florida or Pennsylvania — with their recruiting class (Santonio Holmes, Chimdi Chekwa, Cameron Heyward [from Georgia], for example). This class, though, is chok full o’ premier out-of-state talent. Ohio State, who is usually victim to poaching from next door Michigan and Penn State, went on a poaching rampage of its own. Included in this class is (using Rivals.com’s measures):
- Florida’s highest rated offensive player and 3rd overall prospect (Michael Brewster)
- Illinois’ no. 1 overall prospect (Garret Goebel)
- Florida’s 6th best defensive back and no. 4 overall of all prospects for physicality (FWIW) (Travis Howard)
- Minnesota’s no. 2 overall prospect (Willie Mobley)
- No. 1 inside linebacker recruit and no. 7 overall in Florida (Etienne Sabino)
- Texas’ no. 12 overall prospect/ no. 2 overall lineman instate (JB Shugarts)
- Pennsylvania’s no. 14 overall prospect (Andrew Sweat)
- Maryland’s no. 1 overall prospect and nation’s “fastest” athlete (Lamaar Thomas)
- Georgia’s no. 4 overall defensive end (Keith Wells)
And this is with Pryor notwithstanding, who may or may not join the fold.
Granted we don’t have access to Jim Tressel, else we would be groveling at his feet rather than running this blog, but we like to think this is payback for Ben Martin (especially regarding Keith Wells) and payback for Ron Zook thinking that Ohio is an acceptable recruiting territory for his Illinois program. Trespassers will be shot where they stand, and lose valuable instate recruits in the process.
Lastly, Vico sent off a letter to Mark May to get his thoughts on the incoming recruiting class. He argues that it is almost inarguably top 5 in the country, where measures used at capturing “best” in terms of recruiting classes are biased towards class size, to where Florida State has a better recruiting class, according to Rivals, for having a ton of JUCO players. Surprisingly, even though we make drawrings of him having his head explode, we got a response. The response we got made Vico’s eyes vomit in disgust, and he is recuperating after feeling that his argumentation and English took several steps back just from reading it. The marks on the paper are his from reviewing it. Click on the thumbnail to read.
- no, Notre Dame fans, Kyle Rudolph is NOT the best football player in Ohio. I don’t want to hear it [↩]
Osu didn’t offer or recruit Moore…I think you meant Koger…
correct you are. Thanks for catching that.
heh..
Mark f’n May!
Our Honor Defend: 1
Mark May: 0
It was a tough battle Mr. May, but I think logic, reason and geographical knowledge won out.
a few other things as well.
If you use another measure for prepster performance/potential, I think our class of Ohio kids actually comes out looking a lot sexier. As seen on Bucknuts, using the Ohio High Magazine measures, we have:
- no. 1 Ohio prospect (Mike Adams)
- no. 2 Ohio prospect (Devier Posey)
- no. 3 Ohio prospect (Jake Stoneburner)
- no. 7 Ohio propsect (Nathan Williams)
- no. 18 Ohio prospect (Shawntell Rowell)
- no. 21 Ohio prospect (Nic DiLillo)
Ohio is a very good prep state for football, but after 1 through 15, I don’t think Ohio State minds getting poached from out of state (or at least doesn’t mind that much). The only instate poachings were, as you noted, Rudolph to Notre Dame, Koger to Michigan (actually, commenter baby jesus noted this one, dummy, you thought we offered Moore) and Scott to Illinois. It also depends on how you want to treat Zordich to Penn State. We offered him, but he didn’t take an official visit, and Penn State taking Zordich was actually a counterpoaching for us snatching Andrew Sweat. We then took Sabino out of Florida, a small price to pay for losing a Mooney kid to Penn State, since Penn State recruits the Youngstown area quite heavily.
Also missing from your account is how well we filled what needs we have. We didn’t need a QB, but might end up snatching the best one in the 2008 class. We needed and got a fullback, and I think an underappreciated one at that (Martin), though Torrence wanging his chances means next year a tailback becomes priority 1 (we could always move Thomas to TB, but Thomas is by no means an I-formation back). We picked up a pretty good tight end, though a better blocker than he is a receiver. We needed two wideouts and got them both instate (and both All-Americans). We needed 4 O-linemen, but only hauled in 3. Yet, the 3 we did bring in are all phenomenal. We got more than we needed at D-line, and the inclusion of Rowell at least allows for discussion of moving to a 3-4. We probably needed a linebacker and picked up 2 of the best. And we needed a defensive back (I think we need at least one in every class) and got a very very good one in Howard and two prospects at safety in Domicone and Johnson. I can’t cite a source for this, though came across it nonetheless, but apparently Tressel came to the conclusion that our safety position needs to get bigger following the LSU game and Domicone (6’3) and Johnson (6’3) fit that bill.
Pretty good, I say.
That letter is quite possibly the funniest thing I have EVER read.