Our Honor Defend

In the 14th part of the 20 part Better Know A Buckeye series, I continue with the theme of the true “prospects” that I have still outstanding in these features (DiLillo last week, Domicone in this post, and then Orhian Johnson and Jermil Martin). Zach Domicone of Beavercreek HS in Ohio had arguably the most fanciful recruiting story in the entirety of the 2008 class. Domicone only received seven total offers, with the first four coming from Ohio University, Akron, Connecticut and Air Force. However, it was the last three offers he received, and the chain of events that unfolded surrounding them, that made the story of Domicone’s commitment arguably the most intriguing in the class. If nothing else, the story of Zach Domicone’s recruitment shows how it’s possible to become a Buckeye in five and a half hours.¹

Height: 6′3
Weight: 215lbs
Forty: 4.47
GPA: 3.7
SAT: 1710

His Recruitment: While people like Brewster, Sabino and Adams were receiving bigtime offers early through their junior year, Zach Domicone had no college offers to show for his efforts. Domicone, who took over the helm at QB for the Beavercreek Beavers during his sophomore year, suspected he would have to make the transition to defense. He practiced with the safeties at every camp he attended, but barely played the position at HS because he was being rested on defense in order to fulfill his primary obligation to the team at quarterback.

Zach finally knew he would be playing college football somewhere when the Ohio Bobcats offered him a scholarship around the end of November. Akron offered a few weeks later as well. If nothing else, Domicone knew at least he would be playing in the MAC. While the MAC may not be the conference of choice in the Midwest, it’s certainly respectable in the region. Further, with the kind of expectations the Beavercreek program has, it’s considered an accomplishment when a player matriculates to the Division III level from Beavercreek, let alone Division I. Air Force eventually sent an offer around the time of the Akron offer, I think even giving him the chance to be a college quarterback. However, going into Christmas break, Domicone just assumed he was MAC bound to play for the Ohio Bobcats.

UConn changed things a little by offering Zach a scholarship just before Christmas, giving Zach ample cause for excitement. In the period of about a month, Domicone went from no offers, to knowing he would be playing football at a MAC school, to now having an offer from a BCS school, albeit in the Big East. Further, there’s some excitement in the UConn program now, so the offer is not tantamount to boasting to being a Big XII talent by having an offer from Baylor or being an ACC talent by having an offer from Florida State². Though Zach had no official visits planned, the offer from Connecticut puts the Huskies at the top of his list with just a month and a half left before signing day.

The real series of stunners in Zach Domicone’s recruitment process started with the offer from Nebraska just after Christmas. The offer was particularly curious for Domicone’s HS football coach Scott Clodfelter, who sent out tapes of Domicone to just about every program in the country with virtually no responses in turn. Nebraska was one of the schools he sent tapes to, but to no avail and neither Domicone nor Clodfelter heard a single word from Nebraska until the offer came. The Dayton Daily News noted that there are two possible explanations for this, and both of them center on the fact that Bo Pelini had just taken the job at Nebraska. First, the outgoing defensive coordinator at Louisiana State was informed by one of his assistants that Domicone is a guy who is still on the board that he should consider in his rebuilding effort at Nebraska. Nebraska graduated four linebackers off of a defense that was simply putrid and Domicone may very well step right in at weakside linebacker to fill the void.

The other more likely scenario to why Nebraska offered entails Bo Pelini’s brother: Carl Pelini. Carl Pelini was the defensive line coach at Ohio University who, by that time, recently joined his brother’s staff at Nebraska. Unlike the Louisiana State assistant explanation, Ohio University had recruited Domicone and even was his first scholarship offer. When Carl Pelini left for Lincoln, he informed his brother about Domicone, urging him to give Domicone a look since he was a good looking prospect that could be plucked with relatively no interference. Clodfelter suspects this is the explanation for Nebraska’s scholarship offer. After extending an offer, Bo Pelini called Domicone asking him to watch how Ali Highsmith and Craig Steltz play in his defense at Louisiana State in their upcoming game that I don’t feel like talking about. Domicone set up a visit to Nebraska for January 17-19th, even telling the Dayton Daily News on January 11th that if the visit is up to par, he would commit on the spot.

Oklahoma’s overtures to Domicone began on January 9th and its purpose can only best be described as a way to dick Nebraska out of a recruit as their program undergoes rebuilding. As the story goes, Oklahoma made its first inquiry on January 9th with a phone call to Domicone’s HS coach. According to the Dave Biddle article, Bob Stoops called Clodfelter citing an interest in Zach and asking if Zach could fly the next day to Norman (on Thursday… a school day… and have you seen what airfare costs?). Stoops and his staff apparently knew the Cornhuskers had offered Domicone and that since Domicone was en route to Lincoln on the 17th-19th he should be available for an emergency visit the next day. When Clodfelter told Stoops that there is no way that visit would work out, all parties involved agreed to a visit on the weekend of January 12th-13th. The promise on Oklahoma’s end was that a visit from Domicone and his family would earn Domicone a scholarship offer that they hoped would turn into an automatic commitment. Further, the Oklahoma’s staff apparently read the DDN article on Domicone. Indeed, the Sooners followed up with a verbal scholarship offer almost immediately after the DDN article was published. I think the move is remarkable. In a window no greater than a couple hours, Oklahoma found ample time to read that DDN article and put forward a total dick move. The Sooners must have read that Domicone was in a committing mood (if you will) and that they could probably secure a verbal on his visit. Nevertheless, Domicone obliged on the request for a visit and was set to head to Norman on the 12th of January.

The interest from Nebraska and Oklahoma still didn’t elicit a response by Ohio State until Clodfelter took the initiative to get Ohio State into the fray. The day after Oklahoma called to schedule a visit for Domicone, Clodfelter called Ohio State regarding their coaching clinic. Having just called Ohio State’s staff on that matter, Clodfelter thought he would give one last ditch effort for his star player, knowing Domicone’s dream was to play for the Buckeyes. He called John Peterson, recruiting coordinator for the Buckeyes, on Thursday night to make an inquiry about where Domicone stood with the staff. Peterson called back Friday morning to inform Clodfelter that they were interested in Zach until Clodfelter informed that Domicone was offered by Nebraska and had an implicit offer from the Sooners. A surprised Peterson said that he and Fickell would swing by Domicone’s home on January 13th, but were informed that Domicone would be in Norman by that time.

The news dumbfounded Peterson who, notwithstanding his title as recruiting coordinator for the Buckeyes, still thought Domicone’s offers were limited to the two MAC schools and UConn. To make matters worse, Tressel was out of town at a convention and was not able to be reached for an immediate response. In the interim, Peterson asked Clodfelter if he could discourage Domicone from taking the official visit to Oklahoma. Apparently the Buckeye staff distrusts Stoops’ method of coercing verbal commitments out of players on visits. Further, with this all unfolding rather late in the recruiting game and with Domicone’s attitude (at least as explicitly stated towards Nebraska in the DDN article) positioning him towards an on-the-spot verbal if he felt that he liked what he had seen, Peterson was probably correct in fearing that the staff might lose him for good to the Sooners if Domicone took that official. Clodfelter told Peterson that the only way to get Domicone to cancel his visit to Norman and reschedule a visit for Columbus is if the Buckeyes offered. Domicone, like all good Ohio kids (see Nic DiLillo, Shawntel Rowell, Jermil Martin and indeed most Tarblooders), aspired to play at Ohio State.

Five and a half hours later, Tressel called Clodfelter, informing him that the staff had a scholarship offer waiting for Domicone and that he would like him to visit over the weekend. Apparently both Clodfelter and Domicone were in a weight room at the time. Thus, after Tressel first broke the news to Clodfelter, Clodfelter handed the phone to Domicone so he could hear it for himself. His first contact with Ohio State happened to be the exact moment he got a scholarship offer. Domicone explained later that he was shocked at the contact with Jim Tressel that there wasn’t much he said to him over the phone, if only for sheer disbelief. Afterwards, Domicone raced home, with his parents hurrying home as well. Domicone and his dad cancelled their flights to Norman and prepared for a trip to Columbus for the weekend of January 12th-13th.

His Commitment: With the recruiting process winding down and only about 3 weeks left before signing day, Domicone had been prepared for some time to commit somewhere and bring his recruitment to a close. This sentiment carried towards Nebraska, where the visit tentatively scheduled for January 17th-19th was going to be a confirmation visit with a spot commitment to follow. Further, this is probably why the Sooners pushed an earlier visit on him so that they could coerce the first commitment out of him. However, Domicone’s heart was always with the Buckeyes. He grew up idolizing them and wanting to play for them. If the visit was up to par for Domicone, and if it was every bit as good as he’s heard it would be, he would commit.

This is exactly what happened on Sunday January 13th, when Zach Domicone became the 17th commitment in the 2008 class and the second commitment of the day (behind Jermil Martin from Glenville). Domicone called the visit to Ohio State, and the university in general, the “whole package”.

Where He Excels: I really like Domicone’s highlight film, even though the film is dominated by plays of him as a quarterback. That said, even his play at QB was impressive. His delivery is awkward, but one word comes to mind in watching Domicone play QB: fearless. Of course, I’m not suggesting Domicone has the same caliber of QB skills to his credit as the analogy to follow, but Huskers fans would probably have used the name “Eric Crouch” for a point of reference should he have committed to them. I’m not familiar with Dayton area football and the caliber of teams Domicone was playing against³, but I always love a true competitor on the gridiron. Crouch was a tough, fearless player for the Huskers; Domicone was a tough, fearless player for the Beavercreek Beavers. Again, I’m not saying Domicone is a Heisman-capable quarterback, just that his fearlessness at the QB position should translate well in his move to defense. I don’t see where the Beavers team is capable of winning 6 games in Domicone’s senior season without Domicone’s unflappable leadership. From what I’ve seen, his offensive line gave him virtually no help on passing plays.

Further, there’s a lot to like of what clips there are of Domicone playing in the secondary. He tackles well and I think he performs really well on run defense. Further, I don’t see where Domicone is lacking for effort. His long strides and good top-end speed allows him to make up a lot of ground in a hurry, and I don’t see him taking any plays off. The combination of size, toughness and speed has Scout thinking he could develop into a player similar to former Purdue safety Stuart Schweigert. Granted, I don’t watch a lot of the NFL and I don’t exactly follow Purdue football with any interest, so some readers out there might have to fill in the blanks for me on what Schweigert accomplished at Purdue (I know he was all-Big 10… that’s about it). The other analogy that I think has surface similarities is Tom Zbikowski. Both are tough⁴ players and former dual-threat QBs that underwent (or will undergo) a transition to safety. Both have good top-end speed (Zbikowski especially. I got the feeling watching him play that he could chase down anyone) and tackle just as well. Domicone’s speed is legit, and his strides could give him a similar edge down the road.

Must Work On: Domicone played safety throughout junior high and through his freshman year of high school. Further, it’s the position he worked on in any camp he attended. However, while his high football IQ should assist him in the transition, I’m sure that he’ll encounter some difficulties along the way. His HS coach thinks he could be more effective in a small area. In other words, Domicone becomes really good once the big play has already been given up, either by chasing down a ballcarrier or lining up for a tackle. Reading a play in order to prevent big yardage is something his HS coach feels he should work on.

My curiosity stems from his highlight reel, mostly that there are very little clips of him in pass protection or clips of him picking up a route. Further, in the film I’ll link to below, you can see a play at around the 4 minute mark where Domicone breaks up a pass, but it looks like the referee flagged him for interference or holding. I wonder if that’s an artifact of the fact that most HS teams just don’t throw the ball that much and thus there’s going to be little clips of him as a safety (already an issue because he barely played the position) on pass protection, or if there’s something to that and it’s a weakness of his.

Safety or Linebacker? One of the issues with Domicone going forward is whether or not he becomes a weakside linebacker or he stays at safety. It appears he’s going to get his first look at safety and that it’s the position that the Buckeyes had in mind when they had a recruiting meeting and Domicone’s name came up. Apparently the staff got together after that game in New Orleans that I don’t feel like talking about and recognized the safety as a position to be improved upon in future recruiting. The problem, though, is that Domicone’s frame as he develops might hinder him from becoming an effective safety and thus necessitate a move to an outside linebacker spot.

Granted, I don’t pretend to be a football expert, but I’m hoping he stays at safety because I feel that’s where he can best shine. At 6′3 and 215lbs with a 4.47 40, he brings a different dynamic to the secondary that I don’t think he could otherwise bring to a linebacker spot. Further, I think the talent Ohio State is bringing in at linebacker (Sabino, Sweat, Bell and Whiting) are every down linebackers, and Domicone might get lost in the shuffle. Looking ahead, a safety tandem of Johnson and Domicone would be one hell of an obstacle for long ball throwing QBs. I hope he stays there.

Redshirt? Who knows. If he eschews his redshirt, he gets his first look at safety like I’m hoping for. However, he’s raw and could use some extra conditioning that comes from a rigorous work schedule as a redshirt. That said, if he does redshirt and his frame fills out from the work, I fear he might get moved to linebacker. Domicone said he’s ultimately deferring the choice to the coaches, which means I ultimately think he redshirts.

Highlights: Here is about 13 minutes of Domicone goodness. Things to watch for: [2 minute mark] Grace under pressure to deliver that ball and confirmation that his offensive line was of very little help in pass protection. There’s a few more of these type of plays in this highlight reel. [03:26] Two men in motion at the same time… can’t do that… [4 minute mark] Domicone in pass protection as a safety… was he flagged on this play? I can’t tell. [5:37] 55 yard punt. Domicone did just about everything asked of him by his HS coach.

Miscellany:

• The family business is Domicone Printing, where personal service is just a phone call away! Fine, Fred Domicone (Zach’s dad) might not be able to parlay his son’s accolades into an effective plug for his local business because the NCAA would not approve. However, the NCAA can’t stop me⁵: No job too big or too small! They do it all!
• Zach is the first scholarship player at Ohio State from Beavercreek HS since 1969. I couldn’t tell you who that player was, though.
• Under Zach’s leadership at QB, Beavercreek secured their first winning season (6-4) during Zach’s senior year since 1991. Prior to Zach enrolling at Beavercreek, the Beavers had lost their past 30 games or so.
• Freshman roommates will be Nic DiLillo, Nathan Williams and Ben Buchanan.
• His teammate and good friend Jeremy LaVoie was given a spot as a preferred walk-on at long snapper.
• Give love to good academics, yo. Domicone carries a 3.7 GPA, a 1710 SAT score and is a national honors student. I love the academic overachievers since I’m convinced it translates to the field. Players with the 2.something (or lower) GPAs are precisely the kids that I feel lack discipline both on the field and off of it.

As always, and absent any real good way to close these posts off: Zach Domicone, consider yourself better known… or something.

1. You can just as well read this article and not have to read my section on Domicone’s recruitment. I’ll try not to rely on this article too much in recapping Domicone’s story. [↩]
2. yeah, I said it… [↩]
3. Northmont, Xenia, Centerville, Wayne, Trotwood-Madison and Piqua are all in their conference, though… some good players and teams I should think [↩]
4. by the way, did you know Tom Zbikowski is a boxer and this accounts for his toughness? No really! He is! I had no idea, none whatsoever. It’s times like this that I wish the play-by-play announcers for NBC and ABC/ESPN took the time to let us know this all too important fact. [↩]
5. unless they suspend me again. [↩]