| 19 August 2009
A question from Fifty prompted this blog post:
[quote]written by Fifty, August 19, 2009
Agree that getting them on campus has a lot of upside, but Duane, why do you think they are doing this with this game, but during the first tOSU/texas game they didn’t bring in many recruits and even told Aaron Brown not to come, which he ignored because they wanted to fully concentrate on coaching. Why do you think they are taking a different approach for this game? [/quote]
That is a mystery. I have not looked at the schools that most of these players are coming from. Developing good relationships with schools that put out a lot of talent is something every school in the country goes out of their way to achieve. Maybe they are laying the groundwork for the future with those schools but maybe, just maybe, they are not as locked in on players as it appears. If they can impress one of these elite kids you have to think some of those players are going to find themselves with an open spot on their visit list. We think about Jordan Hicks, Ty Williams, Christian Bryant and I would say Will Hagerup as kids we are holding spots for. I think if one of the superstars coming in for this game say they want to be Buckeyes, that list could be pared to one. I see Hicks as the only untouchable. I love Williams. I think he is much underrated but with his academic concerns it makes holding a spot for him tenuous at best. You are going to say no to Corey Brown or even Kenny Shaw, who I think is a little overrated, to wait on Williams? Another thought is the coaches know we are going to have more scholarships. I have debated with fans about the number 16 for scholarship numbers for this class. That is the number we know. The number you are sure of is the only number you can use to make projections. What number we know for sure and what number the coaches know for sure could be different. The list of candidates for early entry, transfer, medical waiver and academic problems is a short one. Some years you can look at what is going on like last year with Wells, who was always a candidate to leave early, and put that one in the scholarship count, but this year there are no obvious early entry kids. With such a young team it is very difficult to project players that could be moving on. Medical waivers often come out of the blue. Lets assume we do have a couple that we don't know about coming open. How different is this class with lets say just 3 more scholarships? It makes September 12th an even bigger deal, and offers a possible explanation for the lengthy and impressive visit list.
One other thing. I see the tight end scholarship in this class as open now. It looks like the Buckeyes have pushed tight end recruiting to next year with the offer to Ben Koyack for the class of 2011 and the fact that Fragel is still at tight end despite all indications that he is a tackle. I still think he will be but he is a strong candiate to redshirt. Let him stay at tight end for emergency depth for now. He will learn a good deal about blocking working as a tight end.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
