| 10 January 2010
The amount of hand wringing and finger pointing around Buckeye Nation is ridiculous. The staff didn't "lose" anyone. They fought as hard as the could for Floyd. He didn't come this way. As far as Andersons is concerned, how did the staff lose a kid with academic issues? What were they supposed to do about the fact that Anderson either could not get in or a conclusion was reached that he was going to have a hard time staying in? Did you see him make his commitment yesterday? All the other kids were smiling and saluting their new school. He looked like there was a gun to his head. I get accused of being negative. I am a realist and you get it from me straight no chaser. Forget about Ohio State. Georgia offered. Miami offered. Anderson "chose" WVa over Miami and Georgia in addition to Ohio State? If you believe that you are just choosing to be negative. Lets not forget the concerns about this kid off the field. At one point I believed he should not be offered because of them. I was that concerned. He is a great player and I put my faitn in JT about those issues. There have been some decisions on players with issues that came back to bite us but I still have a great deal of faith in JT's wisdom when it comes to these things. That we offered does not mean they went away. JT felt he was a coachable kid both on the field and off. We won't see that how that plays out now. There is a little part of me that sees a silver lining in that cloud.
Here is where we chould be focused. Getting John Hankins was huge. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of his offer list. Oklahoma, Alabama and Florida offered him. Those are the schools you want to be fighting with over DLs.
The Pete Carroll news is huge for us. I think we had a great shot at Henderson anyway. Now the main competition is out of the way. Hendersons dad did not seem impressed with all that is going on in Florida, the other school supposedly in it. We come out of this class with the top OL, and arguably the top player in the country, how can you see this as a bad finish? We are going to get Christian Bryant so we still get a top safety out of this class. Brad Roby visited. The staff really liked him at corner when he came up to camp. Can't argue with this staff about it's corner recruiting. We are always at least good at corner. That makes the inability to recruit safeties utterly bizarre to me, but I won't go there right now.
The other two players I want you to keep in mind late are Dominique Brown and guard Quentin Spain from Virginia. Brown is a top ten player in the class now. He is a kid to be very happy about getting should be come in as an athlete. I hear he is going to put schools that will play him at quarterback at the top of his list. I hope that is not the case. I have a high school coach who I respect that has seen him throw a lot more than me, say he thinks he throws well enough to at least get a shot. I say if he will not come in as an athlete that we should pass. He is one to watch. Getting him in here to play as a WR or safety would be a great get late.
Quentin Spain is a beast from Virginia. He has not been a name out there because he committed to West Virginia last February. He had not taken any other visits. He has now decided to visit Ohio State, coming off a performance in the Army game practices that had tongues a waggin'. Saw some film of the one on one drills and he was the only lineman that held his own. He was the only blocker to successfully stop Sharif Floyd.
One last thing. Recruiting classes are built on homestate talent. We think about schools recruiting nationally. Ohio State recruits nationally. You do not get top ten classes off out of state recruiting. Notre Dame is the only school that does that. Look where the best programs are. They are in great high school football states. With the talent in Ohio this year we were never going to have a great class. We still have a very good shot at a good one. Relax and lets see how it plays out.
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