Our Honor Defend

It’s already April and I’m not even halfway done with this yet.  Hmm.  This has been the week from hell too.  Otherwise, I think I could’ve gotten this feature online last night.

Undaunted, in the 11th installment of the 2nd edition of this now 25-part series titled Better Know A Buckeye, I again continue in chronological order through the rest of the class.  Next up: Chris Fields, a wide receiver prospect from Painesville Harvey HS.  Chris exemplifies well the maxim that good Ohio kids aspire to play at Ohio State.  Once he got an offer from Ohio State, he jumped on it.  Below, I discuss Chris’ relatively brief recruitment and follow with some commentary on strengths, weaknesses, and miscellaneous things of note.  Afterwards, I conclude that Chris Fields is indeed now better known, and put him up on “the board”… or something.

Height: 6’1
Weight: 180lbs
40: 4.39
High School: Painesville Harvey HS; Painesville, OH

His Recruitment

Chris’ name started to surface in the recruiting world in August 2007 as he was preparing for his junior year of high school.  The nature of his rise this early seems to be typical for most skillplayers who become hot commodities this early into the process: he was fast and there was some jawdropping statistic provided that defied belief.  For Chris, this was his reported forty time.  He ran a reported 4.42 40 according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and was clocked as low as 4.35 at a camp at Akron as a freshman.  In short: he fast (sic).

Not only he fast (sic), but he was all-Buckeye.  Where most kids are rather agnostic this early into the process, or have childhood favorites that are certainly open to a critique, Chris signaled his intentions quite credibly: he wanted to be a Buckeye, and would consider it soul-crushing if he wasn’t offered.  He repeated that sentiment ad nauseum through the course of his junior season.  Consider:

“I wish I would be recruited to Ohio State right now because that’s my number one college and that’s the school that I want to go to”

“If Ohio State gives me a scholarship, no matter what, I’m going to take it, I don’t care if 24 other colleges give me a scholarship. If Ohio State gives me a scholarship, then I am going to take that one. I’ll be disappointed if I don’t get a scholarship to Ohio State.

Fields was a regular at Ohio Stadium during the course of the 2007 season, attending 5 home games during the Buckeyes’ third consecutive Big Ten championship season.  Any time he was pressed for words about the experience, Chris volunteered thoughts that all strongly suggested he would waste no time accepting an offer from Tressel and company if they ever got around to it.

“Ohio State is my dream college I want to go to,” Fields said.  “If I get a full scholarship offer from Ohio State I’ll take it.”

“I’ve been an Ohio State fan since I was a little guy¹,” Fields said.  “But I don’t have an offer yet.  Ohio State is No. 1, then I go from there.”

“They (the coaching staff) are good people there.  I like the atmosphere.  I have a good relationship with coach (Jim) Tressel.  My family likes Ohio State.  It’s Ohio State².  Being in Ohio, it would be a hard decision to go to Nebraska, or Michigan, or Florida or someplace like that.”

Like Jordan Whiting, Storm Klein before him — and indeed: so many others in this class, all the coaching staff had to do in order to secure a verbal commitment from Chris Fields was ask.

However, an offer wasn’t as quickly forthcoming as it was for the aforementioned Whiting and Klein.  Fortunately for Chris, others were throwing their hat into the ring while Ohio State was hesitant to do so.  He had offers from Kent State, Akron and Southern University (TDFKA1-AA) by the end of 2007.  These weren’t exactly major coups, but they were a great place to start considering how early into the process Chris was.  Others were expressing interest.  At the same time, Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pitt, Iowa and — yes — Ohio State, were sending mailers.  Pitt even sent an assistant to meet him.

As the calendar rolled from December 2007 to January 2008, Chris was told to watch out for a new flurry of interest in him.  Specifically, the people sometimes most excited about Signing Day are the star prospects of next year‘s class.  Star prospects in the next year’s class (in this case: the 2009 class, as Ohio State signed its 2008 class) are often on the receiving end of big time offers immediately following Signing Day.  One program couldn’t wait that long.  That program: Illinois.  Zook has made it a strategy to be the first foot in the door for a prospect in the state of Ohio, presumingly using the pitch of the “first big offer” to get into a recruit’s ear (see: Marcus Hall and Melvin Fellows’ Safari Planet).  It seemed to work on Chris as well.

“Coach (Eric) Wolford came down to my school and, to make a long story short, he gave me an offer. I got an offer from Illinios today,” said Fields on Thursday evening. “I’m just really happy that I got my first Big Ten offer and I’m just waiting for some more now.”

It was essentially music to Fields’ starving ears.

“He asked me ‘Have you gotten any Big Ten offers yet?’ and I was like ‘No,’ ” Fields said. “And he said ‘Well you have your first one now. We’re giving you an offer. The (offer) will be in the mail and we’ll keep in contact.’ So it’s really great to get things started like this.”

This quote serves to underscore some of the anxieties growing in Chris regarding why he didn’t have an offer from Ohio State already.  Ohio State’s staff was unnecessarily dragging their collective feet, or at least that’s how it seemed.  In the same breath, Chris mentioned how the Illinois offer was a relief from the frustration over not having an offer from Ohio State yet.

“Coach (Taver) Johnson said to be patient but I’ve been on Bucknuts a few times and I’ve seen a lot of 2009 prospects getting offers and stuff and it kind of frustrates me.”

No one quite knew why Ohio State was dragging its feet, but one possible reason was the concern over his academic performance.  Chris passed the Ohio State and NCAA clearinghouse with no qualifications about his academic resumé, but there may have been some lingering questions early into 2008.  Specifically: Chris had an overall 2.6 GPA by this point and had yet to take the ACT.  Chris had just passed the last semester with a 3.6 overall GPA, so he may not have been an academic risk.  However, a 2.6 is a little on the low end, and it’s within reason that the coaching staff would want to know that this wasn’t a fluke.  Chris’ head coach, Devlin Culliver, downplayed this.  Apparently no one has made a formal inquiry into his grades.

Whatever the case, Chris was already starting to think of contingency plans.  He had a bird in the hand from Illinois and was getting strong interest from Bo Pelini and the Cornhuskers.  The interest from Bo Pelini can be easily explained by reference to Devlin Culliver.  Culliver, like all good high school coaches, always endorsed Fields and his abilities on and off the gridiron.  Further, he and Bo Pelini have known each other since middle school and played together at Cardinal Mooney.  If it came up, it seemed like Culliver could grease a few wheels and get Chris an offer from Nebraska.  The ‘Huskers had become Chris’ second option by this point.

Ohio State started to make its move by this point.  Soon after the Illinois offer and expressed interest in Nebraska, Fields started to get some visits from some big names at Ohio State.  Taver Johnson was soon at Chris’ high school for a visit.  The big gun, Jim Tressel, followed suit a week later.  By the weekend of February 9-10, Chris was back at Ohio State on another unofficial visit.  Chris may have been frustrated over not having an offer already — probably a natural gut reaction when you want something as badly as Chris wanted the offer — but that didn’t stop him from enjoying every bit of his visit.  He spent most of the visit at the hip of Darrell Hazell and Jim Tressel, providing comments about the two that makes fans like me grateful to have both representing Ohio State.  Hazell was able to accurately relay to Chris how much his (Chris’) interest in the program meant to him and the staff, but could only tell him to be patient because Ohio State is very methodical with its offers.  In other words: Ohio State doesn’t take a shotgun approach to recruiting (throwing out a bunch of offers just to see what sticks).  It wasn’t personal; it was just how they did things.  Tressel mostly chatted up Chris about miscellaneous things unrelated to football.  This is Tressel’s strong suit, as you’ll hear guys like Keith Wells say.  Chris responded to this as favorably as everyone else does.  When it came up, all Tressel could tell Chris was to keep improving in the classroom and to take the ACT.  In doing so, I think he confirmed that the staff was a little curious about Chris’ academics.  At the end of the day, Ohio State was still on top of Chris’ list in spite of not having an offer.

His Commitment

Word started to spread that Ohio State finally offered.  True to his words several months earlier, Chris wasted no time in accepting.  On February 19th, Chris finally got the offer he was waiting for and accepted it on the spot.

“Coach (Devlin Culliver) sent for me from class and (OSU assistant coach Taver Johnson) asked me if I wanted to take it and I took it,” Fields said. “Ohio State is a great school, the coaching staff is great and I have a good relationships with all of the coaches and I felt it was a great school for me to go to. And besides, I’ve always wanted to be a Buckeye.”

It was a dream come true for Chris and a feeling of true joy.

“I feel excited. The simple fact is that I’ve been waiting for Ohio State to offer for the longest time,” he said. “I was thinking that even if I got offered I was planning on waiting until February to commit, next February, but when it finally happened I thought you know you might as well take it now. It’s an opportunity to go to the school that you always wanted to go and it’s not too far from home and the coaching staff is great and the atmosphere is great and everything is positive around there. So I thought I might as well just take it.”

And the feeling was everything he thought it would be.

“I always wanted to pick the best college and Ohio State was the best college for me so I stuck with it and in the end it all came through,” Fields said. “I’m excited. It feels good. I already talked to Nic DiLillo and he said ‘Welcome aboard.’ I can’t wait to be a Buckeye.”

Chris’ February 19th decision makes him the 7th verbal in the 2009 class and the first commitment from a skillplayer (excluding the likely fullbacks Homan and Boren).

Where He Excels

Chris is a phenomenal, two-sport athlete and could likely try to make it a professional baseball player if he so chooses.  However, Ohio State football is where his heart is.  He’s not thickly built and may not be able to throw himself into position as Duron Carter can, but he is smooth.

I think Chris’ best features are in his acceleration and change of direction.  It may not seem like Chris has a second gear, but most of that is a function of the fact that he gets from the figurative 0 to 60 almost instantly.  He shoots out of the gates and can accelerate to the ball quickly.  It’s a sure way to get those fast 40 times that everyone craves.  The ability to change direction and reverse field also factors in here.  There’s a little wasted motion and little by way of lost momentum when Chris changes course.  Put all these together, and Chris would thrive on bubble screens, reverses and other short passing routes.  Returning kicks may also be in Chris’ future.

Oh, and he fast (sic).  Those low 40 times were often replicated in different settings.

Must Work On

One of the biggest knocks on Chris is probably something he can’t control.  He played against very weak competition in the Northeastern Conference, sometimes reducing him to a goliath amongst boys and, basically, an unproven commodity.  If he looked like he was unstoppable at the high school level, that level of dominance will certainly not immediately translate to the college level.

I think the most surprising thing I heard regarding Fields was Tressel openly saying Chris may end up in the secondary.  I don’t know offhand why Tressel would say this, but this makes me wonder if it wasn’t a coincidence that Taver Johnson was primarly responsible for recruiting him after all.  The uncertainty here must be that the coaching staff isn’t sure Chris has the natural instincts at receiver.  This was a topic of discussion during the O-D Bowl that Chris attended.  It came up after the fesitivities were over, with Chris being described as a great athlete that plays football.  There seems to be a whole bunch of intangibles that the coaching staff wants that it may not see in Chris, such as breaking towards the ball when the pass is in mid-air, body control, ability to read and react to zone coverage schemes, and, perhaps, route-running.  Everyone has to work on route-running, though.

Redshirt?

Maybe.  There is a youth movement in Ohio State football in the works for the 2009 season, meaning Chris is going to get an immediate opportunity to be in the wide receiver mix for the upcoming season.  Yet, it just seems like players like Lamaar Thomas, James Jackson and Duron Carter are going to be ahead of him on the depth chart in 2009.  It’s not some messianic claim; it’s just a hunch.  Chris says he’s prepared for a redshirt, and I ultimately think he’ll get it.

Highlights

Junior Year.

Signing Day.

Miscellany

• One of the immediate stories about Chris to surface was his prowess as a baseball player.  He even says baseball is his favorite sport of all.  He has said that he’d love to play both.  However, Ohio State football is his first love and he’s prepared to drop baseball (for the interim) if he has to do so.  However, if he’s drafted by a major league team in June, he said he might end up going the minor league baseball route like Devon Torrence.
• His high school coach, Devlin Culliver, might be a name that resonates somewhere deep in your knowledge structure.  He was Shaq Rowell’s high school coach back when Rowell was at Warrensville Heights.  Rowell left for Glenville and Culliver took the job at Painesville Harvey.
• I can’t overstate enough how Painesville Harvey is a relative backwater in the Ohio HS football landscape.  If my understanding is correct, then Chris’ story bears some resemblance to Zach Domicone’s story.  Whereas Zach Domicone was the first Beavercreek player at Ohio State since 1969, Chris Fields (I think) was the first player from his high school to attend Ohio State for football since John Mummey.  Mummey, a legend in Painesville football history, graduated from high school in 1959.  If there’s any Painesville HS football historians out there, feel free to correct me if there’s a misunderstanding here.
• No one could accuse Devlin Culliver of not coming to the defense of his star player.  In this feature, Culliver provides glowing remarks about Chris.  Here’s some quotes from Culliver.  Let’s see if you can spot the hyperbole:
  • “From the kids that I’ve seen, and I’ve been coaching a long time, Chris is probably one of the best high school wide receivers in the last 10 years to come out of Ohio.”
  • “Somebody that saw him on tape said they haven’t seen a kid like him since Cris Carter. That’s who he compared him to. And I took that as a great compliment and so did (Fields). Even though he didn’t know who Cris Carter is³, once I explained it to him Chris got all fired up over it. So that’s just my opinion.”
  • “When the ball gets to his fingertips, he has a first step like Michael Jordan, I mean he’s coming off the ball right now.”
  • “He’s probably the best wide receiver since Omar Provitt out of Warren Harding back in ’90 and ’91⁴. I thought Omar Provitt was the best I’ve ever seen. And then Mario Manningham. Chris is in that same vein or type of kid.”
  • “He’s one of the best kids I’ve ever coached, I wish I had more like him.”
• Chris picked up track in high school to help make him a better runner for football.  In essence, Chris was playing two sports simultaneously in the spring (baseball and track).  He dropped track for his senior season and will focus on baseball.
• Chris represented Ohio State in the 2009 Offense-Defense All-American Bowl.  This was the same exhibition game that Keith Wells played in last year.  Chris’ East team won 29-3.
• Chris will play in the Big 33 game between the Ohio prepsters and the Pennsyltucky prepsters.  He will join Marcus Hall, Adam Bellamy, Corey Linsley, Sam Longo, Jonathan Newsome, and Melvin Fellows’ Safari Planet on the Ohio team.  No future Buckeyes will be playing for the Pennsyltucky side.
• Chris wants to wear no. 9 for the Buckeyes at Ohio State.  With Hartline gone, this number may be available to him (if no other upperclassmen wants it).
• Precompiled stats, courtesy of Bucknuts.  This used to take forever during last year’s class because I had to fish for these myself.

Vital Statistics: Fields hauled in 61 catches and scored 15 touchdowns. He finished the season with over 1,200 all-purpose yards. He returned two punts for touchdowns. Fields was a first-team All-Northeast Lakes District pick in Division III and was a special mention All-Ohio pick. He was also a member of the ONN/Ohio High All-Ohio first team. Fields played in the Offense-Defense Bowl in January and is set to play for the Ohio squad in the Big 33 Football Classic in June. As a junior, Fields had 51 catches for 879 yards and scored 20 touchdowns. He boasts 4.35-second speed in the 40-yard dash. As a sophomore, Fields had 22 catches.

Rankings: He is rated as the No. 6 overall senior prospect in Ohio, according to Ohio High magazine. Also rated as the No. 12 overall prospect in the state, according to The Ohio Football Recruiting News. He is rated as the nation’s No. 37 wide receiver prospect by ESPN.com. Fields is rated as the No. 41 prospect in the Midwest by SuperPrep.

I think Chris is now better known.  As always, it’s rewarding to have people play for Ohio State who so strongly aspire to be Buckeyes.

…and, the board.

Class of 2009
Name	Position	Hometown	Better Known?	Name	Position	Hometown	Better Known?
CJ Barnett	DB	Clayton, OH	02.20	Marcus Hall	OL	Glenville, OH
Dorian Bell	LB	Monroeville, PA		Adam Homan	FB	Coldwater, OH	01.29
Adam Bellamy	DT	Aurora, OH		Carlos Hyde	RB	Naples, FL
Jaamal Berry	RB	Miami, FL		James Jackson	WR	Grand Ledge, TSUN	03.05
Zach Boren	FB	Pickerington, OH	01.22	Storm Klein	LB	Nerk, Ahia	02.02
Corey Brown	WR/DB	Monroeville, PA		Corey Linsley	OL	Youngstown, OH
Duron Carter	WR	Ft. Lauderdale, FL		Sam Longo	OL	Belbrook, OH
Dominic Clarke	DB	Frederick MD	02.11	Jack Mewhort	OL	Toledo, OH	02.05
Melvin Fellows’ Safari Planet	DE	Garfield Heights, OH		Jonathan Newsome	LB/DE	Glenville, OH
Chris Fields	WR	Painesville, OH	04.02	John Simon	DE	Youngstown, OH	03.26
Reid Fragel	TE	Grosse Pointe, TSUN		Jordan Whiting	LB	Louisville, KY	03.12
Kenny Guiton	QB	Aldine, TX		Jamie Wood	DB	Pickerington, OH	02.26
Jordan Hall	ATH	Jeannette, PA

1. Major bonus points scored here at OHD for referring to his youth by virtue of the label of “little guy” [↩]
2. You’re damn right it is, Chris. *high five* [↩]
3. Heh, Buckeye fan, eh Chris Fields? [↩]
4. Wow. [↩]