| 24 July 2011
My great disappointment with the Tressel era was offensive line recruiting. That is not a secret. The staff Jim Tressel assembled was as good as any in the country with recruiting. Look at the number of elite players at most every position on the field that Ohio State produced over the last ten years. Offensive line was an exception but so was safety.
We don't talk about it as much. I think it is a matter of looking at safeties under the umbrella of defensive backs. Corner has been a position that Ohio State does not have to take a backseat to any school in the country as far as producing talent is concerned. Not so much at safety.
So much of the problem with recruiting recently has been decisions to pass on more highly rated prospects to go off the board after kids that so often did not even play the position in high school. In particular recruiting high school quarterbacks to play safety. I am a firm believer in moving down. Moving over is another matter. Moving down is asking a player to move closer to the line of scrimmage. A corner moving to safety is not a big deal. We have seen the Buckeyes have great success moving corners to safety. What good safeties we
have seen in the last ten years came to Ohio State at corner. Donte Whitner and Kurt Coleman came to Ohio State as corners. C.J. Barnett was coming off a monster game when he was injured last year. He too came to the program as a corner. Moving a safety to linebacker is not either. A linebacker may relish the move down to defensive end. Defensive ends may not like moving inside to tackle but that is the easiest move down of them all. Moving a player over to a position he never played in high school and asking him to make that move at the highest level of college football is asking too much.
It looks like it has finally gotten through. The quarterbacks to safety was not working. The one where it looks like it may work is with Verlon Reed who after an initial move to safety has found a home at wide receiver. Two years ago the staff recruited safeties to play safety with Jamie Wood and got a starter out of Christian Bryant. Last year the Buckeyes took another pair of high school safeties in Jeremy Cash and Ron Tanner. I think both are much underrated players. I think both push for playing time as the veterans did not show they were ready as none stepped into a depth chart with reps laying right there on the field to be had after the injury to Barnett and the lackluster performance of Ohrian Johnson that forced a change in the lineup for a time.
I could not be happier about safety recruiting this year, especially with the news that Trotwood Madison safety Bam Bradley was offered. This is a player I have been high on for two years. I never believed the talk that the lack of film of him in coverage was behind the lack of an offer. Ohio State has offered Devon Bogard as a corner despite the fact the kid plays what amounts to linebacker in high school. There is not one play of Bogard in coverage on his full junior highlight film. I think it was a concern that Bradley could very easily grow into a linebacker. My argument was, so what? Whatever the reason the offer is out there and I don't think he waits too long to be a Buckeye.
Speaking of Bogard, he is another reason I am happy with safety recruiting. I know he is being recruited as a corner. So was Kurt Coleman. So was another former Tarblooder, Donte Whitner. So was C.J. Barnett. Bogard is a search and destroy strong safety/Star. I think the staff will find out quickly that whether he has the tools to play corner does not matter. Like Whitner and and Coleman before him, Bogard will not be able to tame his natural instinct to chase and hit.
Tyvis Powell is also being projected as a corner. I would love to see him at corner. I need to see a 6-4 corner to believe it. I have seen some 6-2 and even 6-3 corners. Back in the heyday of the bump and run bigger corners thrived. Hall of Famers like Mel Blount and Michael Haynes were in the 6-3 range. A 6-4 corner is unprecedented. If he can do it, great. I am not saying he can't. I am saying that the odds are he ends up at his more natural safety. Right now I am calling Powell the steal of the class. I suspect that will not change come signing day.
It took some time but it looks like the staff is back on track with safety recruiting.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
