| 18 May 2010
As I look at the Buckeye offensive line verbals I see a bunch of players that look like inside players. I could single out one that could play right tackle or could play left tackle in a pinch, for a half a game or so, but I see no true left tackle and no player I would project to right tackle except for need.
I cannot recall a collection of players like this in the state during the Tressel era. Massive kids. I am not talking about big framed kids. I am talking about serious wide bodies. My thinking when I first saw all these really big kids is it was about need. We don't need to move players down. We don't have time. In 2011 we need guard bodies. We don't need players who come in and get in the weight room and fill out to 320-340 lb "wides". We need them to come in ready to help.
As I continued to mull this over it hit me that we might be looking at a change in recruiting philosophy with offensive linemen. That we were looking to go bigger. We are at our best power running, and we need the push up front to make the athletic quarterbacks we like to be that much better. We want to run some read zone, maybe mix in more read option, add some zone option. It is all about the quarterback reading what is going on up front. Zone blocking is best with really big linemen.
Something Mark Porter said to me got me thinking about this. As I researched this, I came to a revelation. This is not a change in recruiting philsophy. It is exactly what the staff wanted. They want these very large kids. We have not seen a collection of really huge kids that were still athletic enough to get a look from a program like Ohio State. Look at who we have recruited over the years, and look at who we have passed on. Lets back up to 2004-2005. I combine those years because of Alex Boones early verbal. Boone committed in August of 2003, that was before his junior year started. That was less than a month after the Buckeyes landed 2004 seniors to be Ben Person, Jon Skinner and Steve Rehring. Person was recruited as a center. Size does not seem to be a priority with recruiting centers. We have had guys in the 6-2 to 6-3 range like Person and Mangold, and we have taller senters like Brewster and Mewhort, both in the 6-5 to 6-6 range. Rehring was a kid I was never high on. Nobody saw much of Skinner. He was never healthy. We passed on Gerald Cadogan who went on to become All-Big Ten and just signed a deal with the Bears. We also passed on Chauncey Incarnato who signed with Notre Dame. When I look back at the difference I see different body types. Rehring and Skinner were wide bodies. Cadogan and Inacarnato the more athletic bodies. We put Boone, a natural right tackle out at left tackle. We asked Rehring, a servicable guard, out at both left tackle and right tackle, where he struggled. We passed on Zebrie Sanders and took Mike Adams. Last year we passed on Andrew Donnal last year. Sanders and Donnal were very athletic guys. So is Adams. What is the difference? Adams is bigger. He has a wide thick base. Look at Bryant Browning. We asked him to play right tackle. He was lost. Now he might be a candidate for All-Big Ten consideration at guard. I hear that Aundray Walker is being recruited as a right tackle.We are not recruiting Kairo Holts from Indianapolis Warren Central, a left tackle with offers from USC and Florida. We did not offer Christian Westerman from Arizona, a Texas verbal who also had offers from USC, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma. I know we had a conversation with him so the staff knows who he is, but never followed up.
We have gone after great athletic bigs but they have been the best of the best, Mike Brewster, J.B. Shugarts, Seantrell Henderson, even Kyle Mitchum. He was a national top ten offensive tackle who was so athletic that the biggest question about him was is he a DT or an OL. They were all no-brainers. The kind of players no school says no to. When it comes down to picking and choosing, we like the serious bigs. We have a clawful and could be adding more with Walker a heavy Buckeye lean.
This class will go a long way toward proving whether we are going the right way with offensive line recruiting. It will have the numbers and it looks like it has the kind of players the staff has been looking for.
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