Our Honor Defend

All the relevant letters of intent are in and now, finally, coaches are at liberty to publicly discuss the incoming recruits and what roles they think they will serve in the future. Eighteen signed for Ohio State, ranging from Ohio to out-of-state hotbeds like Pennsylvania and Florida. States like North Carolina, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana will also send their own to Columbus to play for the Buckeyes, which has always been a diverse, regional team (that is: from all areas of the Midwest).

It is therefore unfortunate that the way the 2010 recruiting season ended has been the topic of discussion so far.  To recap: Ohio State lost on all of its offensive linemen targets.  That Matt James took the offer from Notre Dame over Ohio State is not terribly surprising, as most everyone saw that coming after the hire of Brian Kelly at Notre Dame.  The next two decisions threw me for a loop.  Morgan Moses, originally an ’09 signee with Virginia, was probable to sign an LOI altogether while he worked at Fork Union to earn college eligibility.  I had thought Ohio State was in really good shape either way.  Yet, with qualification still ongoing, and an Ohio State scholarship withheld for the meantime, Moses decided to renew his 2009 commitment to play for Virginia.  Lastly, the biggie — Seantrel Henderson — signed with USC in a signing day ceremony of which I have yet to understand the need or the desirability.  The Buckeyes were second choice again, as they were with Matt James, Sharrif Floyd and likely Jordan Hicks, Latwan Anderson and Morgan Moses.  5 stars must be for closers only and, regrettably, the finale to this class will rehash the “Tressel can’t close” mantra and all the weird, message board reasons you will read for it.  It feels a little like 2007, where the Buckeyes closed out that particular stretch by whiffing on Rob Gronkowski, Josh Brent, Ben Martin, Anthony Davis and Joseph Barksdale.

Yet even that feeling must remind us that class has turned out well for us¹ and, likely, so will this class.  So, being second in these various recruiting battles down the stretch means we miss out on the Cadillac El Dorado.  But we have steak knives, and those are useful… right?  We didn’t finish strong.  In fact, no matter what the coaching staff said in their presser, it’s a disappointment and, frankly, a little embarrassing that they would signal very loudly that they wanted at least 3 OL in this class and came up empty with their remaining OL targets.  Yet, I don’t think we necessarily limped to the finish line.  More accurately, on the final lap, Jim Tressel and company changed their gear into loose sweat pants, plugged in their Sony Walkman cassette player and power-walked the rest of the way to the tune of Percy Faith’s “Theme From A Summer Place”.  So, a marathon-long run devolved into an old people power-walk in the mall before Mervyn’s or JC Penney opens, but there’s a few things to remember about recruiting: A) what’s done is done and B) no recruit is a must have.  I admit that I’m a little uncertain about the OL talent pool in 2011, but having our 2nd 1-OL class in the past 4 years is not immediately devastating².  Looking forward, the Buckeye coaching staff has lots of work to do to correct and, well, I can only hope for better returns in 2011.

Really, there is only so much dwelling I can do on players not coming to Ohio State here.  One of the drawbacks of not having a lot of defections to the pros or graduating seniors is that there’s usually only so many recruits that can enter that same year.  Therefore, the limited scholarships meant that this class wasn’t really going to number more than 20 or so.  Aggregate numbers go a long way in determing class “ranking” and, of course, give coaches more options.  This just wasn’t going to be the year for that.  Still, this class accomplished some needs (OL and safety notwithstanding) and delivered a few interesting players that will be sure to intrigue future patrons of the Horseshoe.

Expressed in Halloween trick-or-treating parlance, I think Darrell Hazell got the best candy.  He’s already raving about James Louis as Santonio Holmes-esque.  I would be very weary of making that comparsion myself (at least doing so immediately), but that Hazell volunteered that thought unprovoked is really telling.  Further, the Buckeyes got another Corey Brown who, unlike Corey Brown 2009, is an athlete that most expect become part of the wide receiver corp.  Brown has some jets and can really fly with the ball in his hand.  Lastly, the Buckeyes add TY Williams to the fore.  You’ll look at TY on, say, Rivals.com and may bemoan that he’s only a 3-star and that we could do better.  Really, TY might (hopefully) be one of those cases where we say that recruiting rankings, useful as they are, are not the end-all be-all measures for college football potential.  TY comes from a HS without any real hype, did not camp anywhere and had to work to be eligible for admission.  When it became clear to the staff that he was, he was offered and accepted.  The fact that he’s 6’7, a wide receiver who may not be moved to tight end³, and has the burst off the snap to create separation and a knowledge of how to use his hands to extend for the ball makes this really enticing.  If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past year-plus, it’s that Darrell Hazell knows what he’s doing.

The headliner of the class may be tailback Roderick Smith, who amassed over 6,000 yards and 66 touchdowns in his 4 years at Harding HS in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Smith is a powerback, something that Ohio State had under Beanie and something desirable to have again.  As such, the Beanie comparisons are already there.  We’ll wait and see of course, but you can watch Smith’s film and think to yourself: “there’s no way that guy is 6’3″.  That’s actually a good thing to say.  He really is 6’3, but he does not have that proclivity as some of the bigger backs do to stand up at the line of scrimmage.  He gets low, leans forward as he runs and, well, brings the power.  The most intriguing quote came from his HS coach, who volunteered this to Bucknuts for in December 2009.

“When he does have a weakness – which he doesn’t any longer – he works at it extremely hard. He’s been starting since he was a freshman and when he was a freshman he had a little bit of a fumbling problem, but he doesn’t fumble any more.

“He’s still a baby a little bit. And what I mean by baby is that he’s never been in the weight room 12 months out of the year because he’s a basketball player also. He’s still 220 pounds and is strong and benches 300 and squat near 500. So, when he gets in the weight room consistently and eats three good meals a day, he’s going to be about a 240-pound back.”

Nice. Said 3-sport athlete who is “still a baby a little bit” was good enough for some of this in HS:

One thing I noticed about this class is that there are already a fair amount of injury concerns.  Chad Hagan, a LB/S prospect from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, had a scare with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome.  For those unaware, it is a condition where your heart has a superfluous electrical connection, making rapid heartbeat a problem and sudden death a scary possibility.  However, this is arguably the least of the Buckeyes’ concerns⁴.  Andrew Norwell, the one OL in the class (from Anderson HS in Cincinnati) who I think is better than he is given credit for, lost the season after the 4th game to a broken ankle.  He was just recently cleared for power-lifting.  Taylor Graham, QB from Wheaton, IL and son of former Buckeye QB Kent Graham, lost almost two years under center to various injuries.  First, he broke an ankle early into his junior year.  Later, an aggravated PCL tear cost him his senior season.  Graham as an excellent arm and throws tight spirals, but scrambling ability/ability to extend a play when protection breaks down is an issue.  Further, Scott McVey, of Saint Ignatius in Cleveland, is rehabbing a shoulder injury.  These are not damning nor debilitating in the long term, but it may already narrow the list of who is able to contribute immediately in 2010.

I am mostly okay with the composition of this class and it gives us interesting possibilites down the road.  Coming up as short as we did down the stretch is very disappointing, but there is always next year.  As such, I’ll be grateful for the batch we have and look forward to better knowing them in the future.

That said, if Tressel decided to yank the coffee pot out of the offices of the WHAC for the rest of the month, citing that coffee is for closers only, I think that would be a pretty cool message to send.  A.B.C, right?

1. …and even that class gave us Brian Rolle on Signing Day. [↩]
2. We are making a national title run in 2010 after all. [↩]
3. Hazell said Stoneburner wouldn’t be moved either.  This time around, I’m more inclined to believe that this big ol’ boy stays at WR. [↩]
4. Important as it is for Hagan’s health, he had the issue corrected.  I think he takes medicine as well.  Further, this list of people with the condition range from NFL athletes to professional musicians/singers and professional wresters. [↩]