| 12 March 2010
I should have included tight end recruiting when I talked about the wide receivers. There is not a lot to say. I see it as a situation that is deteriorating and there is little the staff can do about it. You can't just say throw the ball to the tight end more. That means changing the offense. Most of the tight ends fans are getting excited about are the ones in offenses where the tight end is a primary target on some plays. That is just not what we do and I could not agree with the staff more. The tight end in our offense should be a great blocker and a chain moving receiver. The bad news is we are not going to get the elite athletic tight ends that so many fans want to see in the offense. The good news is we don't need one.
We do need a tight end. I see us regressing in the talent level at the position. I always had my reservations about Stoneburner as a tight end. It is not simply a matter of getting bigger and moving down. Inline blocking is a completely different animal. I still need to see him get comfortable being a blocker at the line of scrimmage. Most teams are right handed because traditionally the tight end lined up on the right side of the formation. That meant the running game gravitated to the right side where it had an extra blocker. We need Stoneburner, or someone else, to step up and be the kind of blocking tight end that can make running to the tight end side an advantage for the offense. We have three sophmores lined up at the position plus I think Baldwin ends up on offense at tight end eventually. Think about that. We have a former wide receiver in Stoneburner, a player most thought would be a tight end in Fragel, and a player who was not recruited to play the position lining up at tight end. Nic Dilillo is the only scholarship player that came here specifically to play tight end. We need to fix this and we need to do it now.
The offer to Nick Vannett is one of the most important this year. Not only do we need a tight end, we need to stop the bleeding. We need to upgrade the talent at the position. It was the night before or two nights before the offer to Vannett that I was passing e-mails back and forth with Mark Porter about tight ends in Ohio. We talked about Hamilton and Mark really likes Darian Bryant from Reynoldsburg. I said I liked Nick Vannett better than either one of them. He is the best fit for the Buckeye offense from the state of Ohio since Kyle Rudolph. He is a big time blocker and very good receiver. No question he is #1 on my board. I would put Hamilton #2 because he is has a chance to be tight end sized. I have my doubts about his listed size. I think he will be enough but I am not sure about him being a good sized tight end. Not the size needed to be a good in line blocker. Receiving skills are impressive. It appears the Buckeyes are not showing a lot of interest and he seems to be looking for a more tight end friendly offense. Good luck to him. I don't really have a #3. Bryant is a really nice receiver but I think he is more a big wide out. I don't know if he is ever going to carry tight end size on that frame. Brian Mihalik is 6-7 and reported to be 245. I don't know about that. He looks to have a really thin frame. Built more like a basketball player. With a gun to my head I would take Mihalik. I can't come up with a #5. This is a class with only one elite talent and no depth. Bad time to be needing a tight end.
There is an argument that Vannett is the most important recuit in the class. We need this one, Buckeye fans. The offense is not going to draw elite tight ends. We need this Ohio born kid to follow his heart and stay home.
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