Better Know A Buckeye: Terrelle Pryor
November 3 2007: Mr. Pryor goes to Columbus
The details of the visit are largely par for the course. He was hosted by Cam Heyward, the breakout freshman defensive end from Georgia. He watched the Skull Session at St. John Arena as most recruits on a visit do. Given his position, he watched Joe Daniels, QB coach for the Buckeyes, and Jim Tressel, a QB-minded coach, go over the game plan with the quarterbacks. By this time, Todd Boeckman was lights out from the QB position and had some (way too) preliminary Heisman hype entering the game. However, Terrelle Pryor wanted to emulate Troy Smith more than the dropback catapult QB play of Boeckman. During the course of the visit, Joe Daniels made sure to assure Terrelle that Tressel and staff don’t impose systems on quarterbacks, but rather mold their playbooks to accomodate their players. The threat of Troy Smith tucking the ball and running made the five-wide sets work wonderfully in 2006, but the staff reverted to the I-formation heavy style of play to accomodate Boeckman’s strength (home run passes) and the overall strength of the offense (that is: Beanie). Simply put, Daniels made sure Terrelle knew that if he came to Ohio State, the offense would look a lot different for him than it does for Todd Boeckman.
Terrelle also found time on the visit to step in and watch Thad Matta coach his players, but didn’t have time to do too much talking with Thad. The only thing to note on this regard is Matta’s assurance that he could walk on to the basketball team when he’s done with football and that he would be more than willing to accomodate Pryor’s intent to play both sports.
Pryor did do a lot of chatting with his future teammates during the trip, though much of the conversation was centered around life in general. That said, the Buckeye verbals in attendance did have to clue Terrelle in to Carmen Ohio sung after the game, as Terrelle had no idea what was going on.
As the team sang “Carmen, Ohio” after the win, offensive line recruit Michael Brewster, who has been leading the charge to build the rest of the class, was mouthing the words. Pryor shielded his eyes from the sun while trying to read the words to the song on the end zone videoboard, but when the song ended, and all the commits raised their arms for the “O-HI-O,” Cincinnati receiver DeVier Posey gave Pryor a smile while Pryor kept his hands at his sides.
“I had to explain to him what it was,” Posey said.
Fans hoping that chanting his name during the course of the game like Penn State fans did earlier in September would woo him were again disappointed as Terrelle played his comments on the trip close to the vest (can I use that pun again?). When pressed by Bucknuts to describe his thoughts on the trip overall, Terrelle only offered that “the visit went good” and that the players he met were “cool”.
That said, Terrelle did tell Scout that Willie Mobley was more than in love with Ohio State and told him (Terrelle) that he committed before he left. Indeed, Willie Mobley took a courtesy official to Minnesota the next week and committed to Ohio State soon after. Fans may be disappointed that Terrelle did not join him in publicly issuing a verbal commitment, but anyone following would have to think of Ohio State as the clear leader for Terrelle Pryor. After all, by the end of the month, WVU was struggling to get him in on a visit. After winning the WPIAL AA title by demolishing Beaver Falls 61-12, the Jayhawks were prepping for a state title run. If Pryor was going to visit, he was not going to do it for their Backyard Brawl to watch Rich Rodriguez smite the lowly Panthers in front of a raucous home crowd and secure a spot in the BCS Championship game (tee-hee).
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holy shiiiiittttttt
thanks for getting me fired at the illiteracy factory
Dude. This is 27 pages single-spaced at .7 inch margins, when taking out the images.
Dude.
You’re not expecting anyone to read this, are you? This must be the longest post in the history of college football blogging. When was the last time you went out anyways?
Wow. I now have plans for the evening.
I’d give you two thumbs up, if I weren’t wasting my time giving my computer screen hand gestures. Great work, man.
I love the SpaceBalls reference on page 18…….
Hmm, I don’t know when the last time I got out was, but 27 pages single-spaced? That’s a little exorbitant even for me.
Great article. I think you know more about Terrelle than he does. Thanks for all the hard work – this had to take a while to finish.
Wow. Amazing work. Now I’ll have something to do at my summer job tomorrow for a couple hours.
Vico, you can now open the sweet nectar of Gods, Pabst Blue Ribbon, in a jubilant celebration.
You have now reached “legend” status, my friend.
Speaking of pp 18, is Strawberry Mansion not the coolest school name ever?
Whew! I’m exhausted! I squandered an hour of my employer’s time, and still had to finish it at home. So many cool links to follow. Naturally, after getting my fix, I can only ask … nah, nevermind. Take a few days off, then we’ll all hit you up for the next, and last, BKAB.
I think I’ve read about this somewhere else (if not, I can’t believe I’m the only one with the idea), but on the subject of the signing day postponement that got everybody so freaked out/made Terrelle look like an attention whore: it seems reasonable to assume that TP knew where he was going but didn’t want to deal with hostile crowds at PSU during the state basketball tourney and simply waited till after it was over to announce.
That was a monster of a piece, nice work.
My cat’s name is Terrelle.
Fantastic piece. Incredibly researched and supported. I learned many new things. Kudos.
That was a great post and this has been a great series, now i can’t wait for the last one.
Oh, I forgot to include this: http://www.pittsburghsportsinsider.com/?p=1095
Take a look at what Joe Paterno (allegedly) told Terrelle Pryor early into his recruitment.
senior year stats: http://jeannettejayhawksfootball.blogspot.com/2008/08/rollover-stats-terrelle-pryor.html
and lastly: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07241/812755-365.stm
- pay careful attention to the stories of him stealing the ball of the tee, and hurdling a would-be tackler at the 5 yard line and landing 3 yards in the end zone.
Dude, you made it onto The Big Lead and SI’s Campus Clicks.
Dude.
Bandwidth gets chewed through, but no one’s contributed to the Give Us Money Campaign. That gets a dismayed “Dude”.