Better Know A Buckeye: Travis Howard
Height: 6′1
Weight: 185lbs
Forty: 4.45
GPA: 3.0
His Recruitment: For a guy whose high school coach would call him the team’s best player, Travis Howard was virtually unknown to college football scouts. In spite of finishing his junior year with 50 tackles and two interceptions and recognition as one of the top players at the position in Dade County, Howard had no offers. His teammate, Etienne Sabino, was already receiving plenty of attention and held offers from Florida, Notre Dame, Southern California and Tennessee. Central Michigan was his first offer around early to mid May of 2007. Soon after, the Tar Heels and Hurricanes offered on the same day in May 2007. A tidal wave of offeres ensued afterwards. Offers started coming in fast and furious from the likes of Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia Tech, WVU, Tennessee and Wisconsin. While he finished his junior season a virtual unknown to college football scouts, he had become one of the most highly coveted defensive backs in Florida by the end of May.
The offers from Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Auburn and UNC particularly stood out to Howard. With Sabino holding offers from most, if not all, of these schools as well, Howard and Sabino hit the road during the summer first to check things out at Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Auburn and Georgia (the last of which did not offer Howard). Howard came back with positive reviews about each of the schools — with the obvious exception of Georgia, which he eviscerated in his review — offering specifics about what he liked. To this point, Travis Howard is probably a slight Auburn lean1, and I always felt they were arguably the second or third biggest player for Howard’s services (behind Ohio State, of course). While Howard made casual remarks about how much he liked the city (Georgia Tech) or how another university has a pretty good facility (Tennessee), Howard did make explicit mention of how much he liked Tommy Tuberville and how Auburn isn’t really that bad of a cow town2.
Next up for Howard was another summer trip and out of state unofficial visit with Sabino, this time to Chapel Hill in late July. The trip resonated with Howard, making the Tar Heels the new early leader for Howard. Howard cited everything about the visit to UNC that made the trip heads and shoulders above everyone else. Chief among them, Howard was given assurances by the coaches about early playing time and given further assurances after hanging out with current players that the assistant coaches in question — Pagano and Blake at Chapel Hill — aren’t just yanking his chain and that they’re genuine people. After the UNC visit, Travis Howard was done with unofficial visits for the summer, retiring back to Miami to prepare for his upcoming senior season. At this point, Ohio State is nowhere on Travis Howard’s radar.
Etienne Sabino, however, was not done with his unofficial visits. One week after making the trip with Howard to UNC, Sabino made his tour of the midwest, stopping off at Ohio State and Notre Dame. The curious thing, though, was that when Sabino came back from the trip, he informed Howard that the Buckeye coaches — specifically Luke Fickell — were asking about him. This immediately piqued Howard’s interest because — while he was rooting for Florida in [PAINFUL MEMORY REDACTED] in January 2007 — he took from that [PAINFUL MEMORY REDACTED] an appreciation of the Buckeyes as a program with great tradition and great accomplishments. Yet, it never occurred to him to look into Ohio State any further. Moreover, Sabino came back from the trip excited about the Buckeyes, offering glowing remarks about Jim Tressel among other things. Howard is now curious if not interested. Paul Haynes, safeties coach3 followed up with a visit to Dr. Krop HS to meet Howard to let them know they were interested. Soon, the staff called asking him if he was interested, and Howard informed that he definitely was now. By time his senior season started, the Buckeyes were in the thick of things. Howard, however, was without offer.
By this time, Howard started to think about taking his official visits and wanted to start with a trip to UNC. A trip was scheduled for the weekend of September 15th-16th but had to be postponed due to Howard’s mom’s inability to get plane tickets. However, a visit to Ohio State had been set well before that, which brought Sabino and Howard to Ohio State for the Michigan State game. A visit to Auburn had been tentatively scheduled for the weekend of the Iron Bowl4.
Howard was unable to schedule a visit to UNC before the Buckeye visit, making Howard and Sabino’s visit for the Sparty game Howard’s first official visit5. Travis Howard brought someone very important with him on the trip: Mom. Howard has said elsewhere that his parents are the most important people in his life, as they are the people that have reared him, motivated him to perform well, and instilled in him a sense of right and wrong. Suffice to say, any college wanting to win over Travis Howard would have to win over Mom on the visit.
Apparently, that’s precisely what the Buckeyes did. Howard’s mom was so impressed with everything that, in Travis’ words, she would have committed on the spot if she were a recruit. The difference here for her (and of course Travis as well) was the people, giving special praise to Jim Tressel. In Travis’ words, Tressel was able to convince Mom that the coaching staff are not interested in her son as just a pound of flesh that they expect to perform on the field, but rather the real interest is in him as a person. In other words, Mom was convinced that the coaching staff wasn’t just a collection of salesmen. Afterwards, Mom told Travis to give Ohio State very serious consideration.
However, Travis did not need much cajoling from Mom, for he was every bit as impressed as well. Like Mom, Travis was really wowed by the coaching staff, specifically mentioning Jim Tressel and Luke Fickell (who was mostly in charge of recruiting Howard). He recollected the breakfasts had with both coaches and was able to see firsthand why the players at Ohio State — like Sabino said upon coming back from his summer visit to Columbus — really respected Jim Tressel. Further, Travis came back with glowing remarks about the campus. Howard, of course, comes from Miami, Florida, and found a lot on campus that reminded him about what he likes so much about his hometown. Specifically, Howard loved High Street. With the kind of pedestrian traffic on High Street, Howard immediately feigned the sense of excitement and activity of his favorite spots in Miami6.
Howard saw enough of Ohio State to claim the Buckeyes as his clear leader by October 25. This was rather substantive too, since Howard taken a fair amount of unofficial visits (Auburn, Tennessee, Georgia Tech and UNC being the universities of note) to have an adequate basis for observation. Nothing on those other visits came close to what Howard saw at Ohio State. What Howard was unaware of, though (and this one is a biggie), is if he had an offer.
His Commitment: One day after telling Scout that he was unaware that he had an offer, Howard texted Taver Johnson just to check if he did have one. He apparently did, and upon hearing that, Travis Howard called Luke Fickell and committed immediately. Much to the staff’s amusement, apparently Howard had an offer for quite some time, but never knew about it. The commitment gave the Buckeyes one of Florida’s top 10 defensive backs and a player Michael Brewster thinks is the steal of the class.
The commitment gave new meaning to Howard about Ohio State. Remember, at the beginning of his recruitment, Howard had no idea about the Buckeyes other than being piqued by Etienne Sabino’s glowing remarks about Ohio State and the staff. Now, he was obsessed about them. The fan support, the energy at Ohio Stadium for the Spartans game instilled in Travis a passion for the Buckeyes.Howard committed on a Friday and following day, the Buckeyes played Penn State in Happy Valley. Howard related how much excitement he had watching that game knowing that he was going to be donning the Scarlet and Gray next year. Surely, he was probably jumping up and down like I was when Malcolm Jenkins returned that Morrelli pick for a touchdown. Howard’s story is a rather improbable one. At the beginning of 2007, Howard was finding amusement in [ PAINFUL MEMORY REDACTED ]. However, by the end of 2007, Howard was as crazy about the Bucks as you or I.
Etienne Sabino: Excitement ran deep in Columbus for how much more the Howard commitment could mean. Howard said he would put in a good word for the Buckeyes to Sabino, but didn’t promise anything. Further, both eschewed discussion away from the idea that both were a combo deal to be packaged or sold separately. However, as much as no one would say it, there was plenty of good reason to think they would be. I discussed much of it in the Sabino post, but it’s worth recapping two key points here as it pertains to Howard.
If Howard and Sabino were not explicit package deals, they were certainly interested in the same schools for the most part and took a lot of visits together. Unless I’m missing something, I think the only visits for Sabino sans Howard were Notre Dame, Ohio State (summer) and USC in September. Other than that, they took visits to Georgia, Georgia Tech, Auburn, UNC7, and their official to Ohio State. However, the only real mutual school of interest for the pair was Ohio State. UNC and Georgia Tech were early factors for Sabino, and consistent factors for Howard through the fall, but Ohio State rose to the top for both of them. Howard jumped on the Buckeye offer first, and on the very same day Howard committed, Sabino axed Miami from his list and announced a decision would take place between USC and Ohio State. Confidence on Sabino: really high.
Further, and I wish I knew this when I constructed the Sabino post, but Howard was not the one that pitched the Buckeyes to Sabino. Rather, it was Sabino who told Howard to give the Buckeyes a serious look and that the Buckeyes were asking about him. Ergo — and again I wish I knew this when I made the BKAB feature about Sabino — Sabino probably didn’t need to be recruited that hard by Howard, Brewster or anyone to give a good look on the Buckeyes following Howard’s commitment. Sabino clearly had the first interest in Ohio State. And, of course, Sabino and Howard both loved Ohio State for the same reasons that caused Howard to pull the trigger on October 26.
We know now that Sabino announced for Ohio State in November, confirming that indeed Sabino and Howard were a combo deal, if only implicitly. Sabino didn’t need much convincing to attend Ohio State, but the commitment of Sabino following Howard gave the Buckeyes — in my limited purview — probably the best combo deal of recruits in the country in 2008. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Where He Excels: Howard is a bruiser, a jammer, and loves to hit people. There’s no finesse to Howard… and that’s just the way we like it. I’m a little skeptical of the mentions of him running a 4.45, but he’s certainly no slug and such a speed to keep with his man shows in film. Should do fine in man-to-man coverage if we ever decide to whip that coverage out. Howard is also blessed with the one thing that absolutely can’t be coached: size. At 6′1, 185lbs, there’ll be very little picking on Howard like there was (and hopefully will be in the future) of Boubakar Cissoko in the Army All-American Game. Howard has a good wingspan as well, where, with all things considered, the adjective of “rangy” becomes appropriate. Scout thinks he’s Antonio Cromartie incarnate. Hell, I’ll take that in a hurry.
Must Work On: I don’t have a trained eye for cornerbacks in highlight films, but of course, there’s a downside to what I love about Howard. Howard tackles with great violence and aims to hurt people. And, trust me, they should be hurt and their family and possessions (including cattle) burned, but for football’s sake, some of what Howard does could be flagged if he’s not careful. I saw more than a few clips where the intent to hurt was there (and that was most delicious), but it was inches away from a facemask. If the NCAA ever outlaws horsecollaring, that might be an issue going forward.
Redshirt? noooooope. He’ll be doing special teams as a freshman.
Miscellany: Honestly, I got nothing. I searched and high and low and found nothing of use. I thought I saw somewhere some mention of who he would be rooming with as a freshman, but I lost track of it. Dammit. Oh well.
Highlights: Travis Howard Highlights 1 will have to suffice. Sorry.
So, again absent any real meaningful way to close these things off: Travis Howard, consider yourself better known… or something. Or not, you don’t have to.
- emphasis on slight, since this is very early and I think Auburn made the first impression [↩]
- I made this sound much sillier than the way he expressed it, but I have been to Auburn and IT IS A COW TOWN. Hell, all of southeast Alabama is a cow town… hell, all of Alabama is a cow town. Yeah, I said it… [↩]
- as opposed to Luke Fickell, who would end up doing the majority of recruiting on Howard, but whose presence at high school to gauge the interest of Howard could not be distinguished from a not so subtle visit to Sabino [↩]
- eventually canceled in light of his October commitment to the Buckeyes [↩]
- Sabino visited USC on an official in September [↩]
- I’ve been in and out of a few campus in the Southeast, and for our purpose here in Howard’s recruitment: Auburn, and this is absolutely a true statement. There’s more foot traffic on High Street than there is at Toomer’s Corner in Auburn [↩]
- to be fair, I know now this trip was for the whole Dr. Krop team for a camp [↩]