Our Honor Defend

January 2007 – May 2007: Odds and Ends

Pryor’s college football recruitment for the rest of his junior year of high school was a rather stochastic process and denies a simple quantification, but there’s definitely a few key themes that emerge by this point that remained issues for the rest of his recruitment.

Distance. Pryor began to open up about his preferences at the end of 2006 and beginning of 2007, one of them being his desire to stay within a 5 hour range of his Jeannette home.  Understanding why goes back to the unique situation regarding his father.  Basically, Terrelle wanted to be within a close distance of Pittsburgh so his father, Craig, who is confined to a wheelchair because of his disease, can see him play with some kind of regularity.  Naturally, Ohio State fell within this perimeter around his Jeannette home, as did Pitt, WVU and another school which would become prominent rather early.

Penn State. Penn State emerges as a significant contender for Pryor’s services early in 2007.  Terrelle had been on a few unofficial visits to Happy Valley before and, given its location, it was within an easy drive from his Jeannette home.  He had also gotten to know Tom Bradley fairly well initially.

To make matters worse for Buckeye fans following his recruitment early on, the recruitment of Pryor became the priority of Larry Johnson Sr by the end of February. For those unaware, Larry Johnson Sr might actually be more loathed than Ron Zook by Buckeye recruitniks for some of his alleged negative recruiting regarding Ohio State.  Whatever the case, it’s undeniable that LJ Sr is Penn State’s recruiting ace, and his results speak for itself.  Though Ohio State was in a good position through much of Terrelle Pryor’s junior year, the introduction of Larry Johnson Sr as the point man for Penn State in Pryor’s recruitment greatly helped their chances this early into the process.

Hurting Penn State’s chances, it would seem, was how uncompetitive their hoops team was/is.  While Pryor arguably made the transition from basketball to football as his focus sport, he still wanted to play both until someone told him he couldn’t and wanted to play both at a school that was good in both sports.  Penn State football fits that bill just fine.  Penn State basketball, however, does not.  However, because he was just as much considering Pitt, which was a lousy football program and a pretty good basketball program, there’s no reason to write out Penn State at this point.

Texas. It may have seemed inevitable with all the comparisons of Pryor to Vince Young, but by the end of February, the Longhorns were in the running for Terrelle Pryor.  The Longhorns’ entry into the Pryor sweepstakes is odd.  Given Pryor’s potential, it’s inconceivable that a program like Texas wouldn’t recruit him.  However, the updates and innuendos regarding Pryor as a future heir apparent to the Vince Young legacy at Texas actually predates Texas’ recruitment of Pryor.

Soon after a visit from Texas coaches around April 24, Terrelle was sure he wanted to use an official visit to visit Texas.  It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out what the nature of the Texas pitch was, at least regarding athletics.  The same coaches that “molded”¹ Vince Young would mold him into that same caliber quarterback that won a national title, secured a high first round draft spot and has a starting job in the NFL.  Pryor, well aware of the Vince Young comparisons, responded in kind.

Distance reconsidered? While in the same vein mentioning that he knows for sure he wants to visit Texas, it becomes apparent that Terrelle might have rethought the issue of distance. In Pryor’s words:

“It would be nice to stay close to home but it doesn’t matter. I’ll get on a plane and fly wherever I feel is the best school.”

It’s clear that Texas falls outside of his five or six hour driving radius from his Jeannette home, leading many to speculate at the time that Pryor was no longer really concerned with distance so long as the school in question was the right fit.

Accordingly, the Florida Gators enters the picture in mid-April, for what must be rather apparent reasons.  Urban Meyer runs a system that fits Pryor’s strengths and Billy Donovan’s basketball program is one of the best in the country.  On that note, apparently Urban Meyer was text messaging Terrelle Pryor during that final game of the 2007 NCAA tournament.

Moving on…

Ohio State. I would be remiss without mentioning where Ohio State stood with Terrelle Pryor during this time, since, though way too early into the process, Ohio State may have been the one constant during what was otherwise a stochastic period during Terrelle Pryor’s recruitment.

By the end of March, Pryor admitted that he was talking with Jim Tressel frequently. An April visit by Tressel to Jeannette’s high school also really impressed Terrelle. Though NCAA regulations stipulate that head coaches can have only so much contact with a junior, Tressel told Pryor’s head football coach Ray Reitz that Terrelle was the only quarterback they were going to recruit in 2008.  Apparently, that made an impression.

In that same Scout article, Terrelle had mentioned Ohio State as the only other place he knew for sure he wanted to visit. He also admitted to being in contact with several other commits in the 2008 recruiting class, such as Jake Stoneburner, DeVier Posey and Mike Adams.  On the issue of the program itself, though, Terrelle noted.

“I just like everything about the Ohio State program,” Pryor explained. “I really like the way they play the game. Jim Tressel is a great man and a great coach.”

Just to remind people of the bigger picture, Terrelle never once said that he had leaders or favorites or was close to a decision.  In February, he said he had no idea where he was going to college.  In late April, he insisted his decision would come on signing day in 2008.

This early into the recruiting process, though, that’s as good of an update as you could ask for regarding Ohio State. Especially considering that Terrelle was on the verge of narrowing his list very shortly.

1. I question this.  I’m from the school that thinks that it’s not Vince Young who took a few years to figure out the system, but the coaches at Texas who took a few years to figure out Vince Young. [↩]

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