Our Honor Defend

In the 8th installment of our 20 part Better Know A Buckeye series, I finish up with the final March enrollee: linebacker Andrew Sweat from Washington, PA. In the sections that follow, I discuss his recruitment, commitment, and other miscellaneous things that come to mind in uncovering Andrew Sweat. I find myself coming to the conclusion that Buckeye fans would be speaking of Andrew Sweat in the same glowing terms afforded to Etienne Sabino if there was no Etienne Sabino to speak of. That’s nothing against Sabino, who I have covered elsewhere, rather just conjecture that Andrew Sweat might be the highest profile recruit in the 2008 class that Buckeye fans know almost nothing about.

Height: 6’2
Weight: 225lbs
Forty: 4.53
GPA: 4.3 (that’s not a misprint)
Early Enrollee: Just started.

His Recruitment: You knew Andrew Sweat was going to be something when he received an offer in November of his junior year. Not actually a scholarship offer, mind you, rather an offer to visit Columbus for the epic 42-39 victory over the Wolvereenies. By that time, Sweat only had offers from Wisky and UConn. It would take until early February until Sweat got an offer from the Buckeyes, but even without the offer, the Buckeyes were always (seemingly) at the top of his list for schools of interest. In the interim, Sweat picked up the coveted Wannstache offer in the second week of January. In terms of total offers, Sweat picked up about 30 according to his father.

By time the Buckeye offer was coming in, a whole host of programs picked up interest in Sweat’s services. Given the location, Sweat would take numerous unofficial trips to Pittsburgh to check things out. Michigan had extended an unwritten offer to Sweat around the same time. Penn State extended a similar offer as well. Florida and Notre Dame entered the fray as well; all three aforementioned schools (Florida, Notre Dame, Penn State) would officially offer by late February.

All 5 schools aforementioned would largely become the major players, along with Ohio State, for Sweat’s services. Some schools would disappear (Michigan dropped off pretty quickly, so too did the Fightin’ Wannies), another would enter as an afterthought (Wisky, an offer which Sweat chewed on for a little bit before dropping them from consideration), but these 6 schools in total represent the cast of characters in the Andrew Sweat theatre. By late March, however, Sweat had only 4 real schools of interest — Ohio State, Florida, Notre Dame and Penn State — with Michigan and Pitt sitting quietly in the background. Notwithstanding the numerous trips to Pitt, Sweat was relatively unimpressed, even though Pitt’s depth chart was enticing. Michigan impressed heavily when Sweat visited Ann Arbor with his dad on their junior day. He even openly admitted affection for Carr. The issue, of course, was coaching stability. Sweat sensed something was up in Ann Arbor and that Carr might not be around for the next season.

On March 24 2007, Sweat took a trip to the Swamp and was blown away by the experience. Afterwards, he would say Florida and Ohio State are tied at the top of his list of schools. Specifically, Sweat mentioned how much he enjoyed chatting with Urban Meyer, who apparently was a sweetheart to Sweat where Sabino would later criticize Meyer for forgetting he (Sabino) existed. He would reveal to Scout in the same breath that he thought the campus was the best he had seen to that point, he and Meyer toured the facilities in a golf cart and was really blown away by Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, the fellowship among players was very desirable, UF is arguably the top academic public school in the Southeastern Conference, and the (lack of) depth meant he could play almost immediately for the Gators. Major points were scored when Meyer told Sweat that he was the Gators’ no. 1 linebacker target in 2008¹ Where the Gators lost points, however, was on distance. Sweat wanted to stay within a reasonable distance from his home in Pennsylvania so his parents could regularly see him play at their whim. Granted, his parents have a condo in Orlando, but it appeared to be a noticeable limitation for the Gators. Given this limitation, no matter how much he enjoyed the trip to Gainesville, the Gators would fare no better for the duration of his recruitment. A month later, recruiting updates on Sweat were treating the visit as if it never happened. Honestly, I think the most that can be said about the trip in hindsight was that there was a friend of Sweat in attendance the same day: Michael Brewster ². As we know, Brewster openly admitted that every trip he took failed to meet the standard set by Ohio State.

Penn State was probably the sentimental favourite for being the in-state school. Everybody likes Joe Paterno, and every Pennsylvanian has heard the lore of Penn State as Linebacker U. Though Sweat had been in Happy Valley before, he would take a more thorough visit on April 20. Therein, he spent a lot of time with Penn State’s linebacker coach, Tom Bradley and Joe Paterno. He even got to meet up with Paul Posluszny for a quick Q&A, though the two have chatted before. Depth chart was also appealing for Sweat with Connor and Lee finishing up their eligibility. Just for sheer anecdotal value, Sweat would also have a spaghetti dinner with JoePa at his home. The coaching situation, however, was not lost on Sweat either. The difference between Michigan and Penn State, however, was presumably just the lore that Penn State holds for native Pennsylvanians. Where Michigan seemingly got the ax very quickly, Penn State would still be a major player (arguably, the biggest player outside of Ohio State) for the duration of his recruitment.

Notre Dame grabbed Sweat’s attention for having the same rich academic setting as the University of Florida, the same appealling depth chart without the limitation of being outside of reasonable driving distance. He was in attendance for Notre Dame’s Junior Day, where he connected with Corwin Brown and Travis Thomas, the latter being a tailback at a rival Washington, PA high school. He would also speak in glowing terms about Notre Dame’s business school, as it’s apparent that Sweat takes his academics seriously. Curiously enough, Notre Dame (apparently openly) were trying to recruit him into their proposed transition to a 3-4 system. Maybe my untrained eyes don’t see it, but he always struck me as the prototypical 4-3 OLB (probably weakside), but perhaps the 3-4 was supposed to appeal mostly as a way of getting more linebackers more playing time. He would admit in early April that though the Irish were his top choice after Ohio State and Florida, the transition to a new defense was a little off-putting. Curiously enough, he actually had several more criticisms for Notre Dame that, well, I think I’ll let him express in his own words:

I was surprised at how small South Bend is. There’s not much to do there. I loved the campus. As far as academics, it’s the best. But I like a lot of diversity and there really wasn’t a lot of that there. There’s the athlete and the brains and I didn’t see much interaction between the two. College is about experiencing different things and meeting new people you wouldn’t normally meet and I just didn’t get that from Notre Dame.

He would also express in the same interview that Charlie Weis was great to talk to, but a little aloof. By time Sweat was still deciding, Notre Dame had 3 linebackers in their 2008 class. They didn’t appear to be a major player for very long.

And then there’s Ohio State. After his trip to the Michigan game in 2006, Sweat would return for a few more events. He attended Ohio State’s Pro Day in March (March 10, I believe). Therein, he was actually able to meet up with a few Buckeye greats.

“I’m at Ohio State and I’m sitting at a table with Chris Speilman, A.J. Hawk, Bobby Carpenter and a few other guys and they’re trying to get me to go to their school,” Sweat said. “I idolize these guys and I’m sitting there with them.”³

By this time, Ohio State coaches were sending Sweat anywhere from 2 to 5 text messages a day, sometimes as high as 10 messages a day. While this might seem like harassment, Notre Dame coaches would apparently send 35 to 40 messages a day.

Sweat’s serious interest in Ohio State (indeed, OSU was the de facto leader for Sweat) is confusing considering what made him interested in schools like Penn State, Florida and Notre Dame. Yes, Ohio State might be the closest school he considered (about the difference of an hour saved from Washington, PA to Columbus, OH as opposed to Washington, PA to State College), and have an academic rigor as good as any considered (though I never heard Sweat mention academics and Ohio State), for Sweat’s purview, they failed in an important aspect: depth chart. By time Sweat was on the recruiting trail, the Buckeyes had two seniors (Grant and Terry, the latter who would take a medical redshirt), two juniors (Laurinaitis and Freeman, who I’m guessing he assumed would come back), two sophomores (Spitler and Homan), and a host of freshmen (Hines and Gibson chief among them). If immediate playing time is important to Sweat, at the most, it would come on special teams. A few things come to mind in accounting for Sweat’s interest in the Buckeyes.

First, the Buckeyes were probably the first major program to jump on Sweat. By expressing interest as early as they did, the Buckeyes were first in Sweat’s thoughts through most of his recruitment. Indeed, Ohio State swooped in with the trip to the Wolverines game when the only schools looking into Sweat were Wisky and UConn. Naturally, this would be all for not if Sweat was totally put off by everything, and indeed Sweat would say that Tressel and the other coaches made him feel the most comfortable of any schools he visited, but a competitive advantage was probably gained by Ohio State by acting as quickly as they did. By time he was taking trips to Penn State and Notre Dame, he had already visited Ohio State three times.

Second, Sweat comes from the same HS as current Buckeye TE Andy Miller. I’m certain that Sweat has a few teammates currently at State College, but some reports suggest the friendship with Miller is particularly strong. When Sweat would take visits, Miller was apparently doing a good job being host/salesman.

Third, while evidence to corroborate this is scant at best, what I have read suggests that Andrew Sweat was probably the most heavily recruited Brewster target. Indeed, he was the first to commit after the post-Spring Game commitment tidal wave of Brewster (Apr 21), Williams (Apr 24) and Shugarts (Apr 24). Sweat would commit about a month and a half after Brewster, and by time Sweat would commit, he had been on at least two, maybe three, visits with Brewster (including the trip to Gainesville) and would later admit that one thing that pushed him towards the Buckeyes was not only Brewster recruiting him, but Brewster’s MOM recruiting him. Mike Adams and JB Shugarts were recruiting him as well.

Sweat would attend the Spring Game in late April with just about every major player in the 2008 Ohio State recruiting campaign, where, like Brewster and other recruits, he admitted to being blown away by how well they were received by fans, how fans knew who they were and were asking for autographs. Granted, Sweat had to cut his trip in Columbus short to come back to Pennsylvania for a baseball game (Sweat is a 3 sport athlete).

Sweat always wanted to commit as early as he felt was necessary for several reasons. Chief among them, Sweat felt he owed it to his teammates at Trinity not to have his recruiting become a crutch as they try to win a state championship for his senior season. A commitment was supposed to come around mid May, but was delayed as Sweat began to focus on his baseball season.

There’s good reason to think that around mid-May of 2007, Sweat already had his mind made up. He was supposed to take a trip with mom to Columbus, where there was really good reason to think that Tressel would finish the deal then and there⁴. However, Sweat’s mom came down with an illness and couldn’t make the trip. Around the same time, Sweat announced that he finally had a top 3: Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame. The significance here of this top 3 should not go unnoticed. Ohio State was the one constant through the duration of Sweat’s recruitment. This would have to be empirically demonstrated with something more systematic than a BKAB feature permits, but there has to be a good correlation between how quickly a recruit mentions the school vis-a-vis how interested he is in the school⁵. So was there reason to fear Michigan and Notre Dame? Notwithstanding their sudden placement in his top 3, Michigan was mostly a nonfactor in his recruitment. He would attend Junior Day and do little else for the Wolverines as worries still lingered about the coaching situation. Indeed, having Michigan in the top 3 was probably just to have a school in the top 3. Notre Dame was probably the only other competitor here, and by this point in time, Sweat had just stopped contacting Notre Dame almost completely. You can imagine how well this went over among Penn Staters; they were going to get poached in Western PA by one of three schools that raid Western PA without mercy. Of course, Ohio State would return again for the king of all poaching in March.

The weekend of May 26-27 was the last real set of events in Sweat’s recruitment. He would visit Notre Dame first, where apparently the coaching staff had to go nuclear on Sweat just to get his attention. The idea of having to go all-in suggests very clearly that Sweat was leaning towards the Buckeyes. The next day (Sunday, May 27), he would make another visit to Columbus, Ohio. Sweat had apparently seen all he needed to, and announced on May 30 that a decision would come the next day — Thursday May 31 — about where he would go to school.

No surprise here. There couldn’t be.

His Commitment: Andrew Sweat had what appeared to be a make-shift presser set up on his football field to announce his decision after a workout. His mom, dad, younger sister and a few media personnel were there to witness him donning the Buckeye cap, announcing his intentions on becoming the 8th commitment to Ohio State’s 2008 class. Afterwards, the scoreboard on the football field triumphantly declared Andrew Sweat to be a Buckeye.

Sweat would reveal at the ceremony what some recruitniks had suspected all along, and what Sweat himself even hinted at early in his recruitment: He knew he was going to Ohio State and the various trips he took was just to make himself 100 percent confident that Ohio State is where he wanted to be. This is behavior that Jim Tressel encourages, as his policy is to almost force recruits to take visits elsewhere so that they are 100 percent confident in their decision to attend Ohio State if and when they commit. This avoids the problems of the, so to say, “bad surprises” some teams get on signing day.

Sweat was sold on Luke Fickell, and would suggest that, moreso than Tressel, he was the coach that really sold him on coming to Ohio State. Again, though, Sweat would corroborate what I’ve said earlier, in that he was probably the most heavily recruited Brewster target among all members in the class. Brewster would text him every morning; Brewster’s mom would also call him frequently. Indeed, Sweat would say he was recruited by every member of the Brew Crew except Ben Buchanan⁶ and Nathan Williams. The reader is probably led to believe that it would be easier to tell Coach Tressel “no”, but that Adams, Brewster and company would kill him if he told them he wasn’t coming to Ohio State.

Scout.com has some pictures from the ceremony, where you can see Sweat working out (shirtless for the most part), donning the Buckeye cap, and smiling with family.

Baseball: Andrew Sweat was a 3 sport athlete at Washington Trinity, and was arguably as good a baseball prospect as he is a football prospect. Sweat has even suggested that baseball might be his best sport. He’s a leftie pitcher who already has a 93mph two-seamer when most high school recruits would look good for having a fastball that tops out at the high 80s. He expects to go at some point in the MLB Draft, but remains committed to playing football for the Buckeyes.

Where He Excels: His pursuit is immediately jumped out of the film when I watched it (over and over). He’ll go through the lateral movements as well as anybody, but when he sees an opening, he turns on a dime and will hunt you down. The closing speed is something. When he turns and pursues, he comes at faster than you would expect. His tackles are less tackles and more sudden car crashes.

In order to pursue as well as he does, Sweat must have the kind of agility that he also possesses. Sweat takes smart, crisp turns through traffic, which helps him arrive at a ballcarrier faster than the player would expect. Consequently, he doesn’t get lost in traffic easily. He sees, he turns, he delivers, play over.

Trust me, you’ll love watching him decleat people in his highlight films. Indeed, as I watch his footage, I can’t stop thinking that Buckeye fans would be fawning over Sweat if not for Sabino being in the same class. Honestly, some reports have even suggested that Tressel is more excited about Sweat than he is about Sabino. Of course, that’s not to say Tressel thinks poorly of Sabino, just that Sweat is probably a much better prospect than people give credit for. Just watch his highlight films and read some of his gaudy statistics at Class AAA football, which is the second highest division in Pennsylvania HS football.

Must Work On: I didn’t see much in some of the Rivals and Scouting Ohio footage I watched, but Scout.com says he needs to work on shedding ability. So there you go, I guess.

Highlights: Scouting Ohio to the rescue!

Miscellany: Sweat’s dad, Gary, played at Syracuse and was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs. Presently, he (at least appears) to be the top dog at his real estate law firm titled Sweat Law Offices… Averaged 14pts (nice) and 10rebs (‘atta boy!) a game as a shooting guard for the Washington Trinity basketball team… Has probably the most unfortunate last name if he wanted to avoid a nickname or gag similar to the infamous Schweddy Balls segment on the recurring Delicious Dish SNL feature… Had 165 tackles (91 solo), ten sacks and 5 interceptions as a junior. Averaged 16 tackles a game as a senior. Finished with 430yds rushing and 8 TDs from the fullback position … The only Buckeye to participate at the ESPN/Under Armour All-American Game. The great violence he used in hitting people in practice stood out to most observers… ESPN’s no. 2 rated ILB… Tallied 20 tackles in his final high school game (a loss to Montour in the playoffs)… Was named to AP’s Class AAA all-state team in consecutive seasons, a rare feat in Pennsylvania football… HS coach said he’s one of the few (if only) player to start all 4 years at Washington Trinity… HS team nickname was the Hillers… Locally named the top athlete in the Washington and Greene counties for 2 years running, the first player to do it in almost 15 years… Will major in Business Finance at Ohio State… Apropos of nothing, I think he wore braces for the lionshare of his HS days (see picture to the right for proof).

So, to the highest profile recruit I’m convinced has not been given his fairshare of hype coming into the 2008 football season, consider yourself Better Known… I guess. I really think Sweat will become a household name for Buckeye fans in a few years time.

1. I whipped out my bullshit card when I read this. There’s just no way he could mean that with some of their other targets. [↩]
2. there’s a picture on Facebook as proof, though I think snooping on Facebook and posting that stuff here would be just way too creepy [↩]
3. Curious, from what I’ve gathered, alumni are not supposed to be involved in the recruiting process. So is there a Pro Day exception? Help out there would be appreciated. [↩]
4. Tressel + recruit’s mom = recruitment. Guaranteed. [↩]
5. think the latter stages of Sabino’s recruitment as well [↩]
6. bah, whatever, it’s still the Buchanan Bunch. Punters rule. [↩]