Looking ahead to Ohio State's football prospects in 2010, and a few thoughts on the recruiting season just completed.
2010:
We Buckeye fans have become so spoiled that we look at 2009 and say, "Well, we did win another outright Big Ten title and we did beat meeeshitagin for the sixth year in a row and we did win the Rose Bowl and we did end up 11-2 and ranked in the top five.....but.....we didn't win it ALL."
As a matter of fact, last year was a rebuilding year. We had lost twenty-eight seniors to graduation and three juniors to the NFL and were starting a very young team. Before the first game people were saying that 2009 would be a good year but 2010 would be the year for a run at the national championship. 2009 turned out to be better than "good" and I suspect 2010 will be the year we hoped it would be because we are loaded!
Quarterback. They are all returning and Pryor has paid his dues and is ready to step foot on the Hiesman stage. Kenny Guiton red shirted and is now availible to play and we added one freshman.
Running Back. They are all back and added to the mix will be five star Jamaal Berry who red shirted last year with injuries as well as freshmen Carlos Hyde 6-1 230, and Rod Smith 6-3 220. Smith rushed for over 6,600 yards in his high school career. This will be the deepest group of running backs in the Tressel era.
Fullbacks. They are all back.
Wide Receivers. All starters are back. Two red shirts come off and three freshmen are added.
Tight ends. Jake Ballard is off to the NFL, all backups return and this will be the year for which we have been waiting to see Jake Stoneburner shine.
Offensive line. We lost starter Jim Cordle and backup Moses. The other four starters return as well as all other backups. Marcus Hall returns as well after starting the last three games. The red shirt comes of Mewhort, Linsley and Longo and we add one of the top linemen in the country in Andrew Norwell.
So as you can see the offense is pretty much in tact. The two starters we lost to graduation will be replaced by guys that have been playing in backup roles for years and are more than ready to step in and play at least as well. The defense was hit a little harder but, again, I see no drop off from the number five rated defense in the country in 2009.
Defensive ends. We lost junior Thad Gibson to the NFL and senior backups Rose and Wilson. But we have Cameron Heyward returning and he will dominate in 2010. Nathan Williams will replace Gibson. He played a lot as a true freshman and as a sophomore played in every game and looked very, very good. We lost some backup depth but the red shirt comes off of Kieth Wells and Melvin Fellows and we added three freshmen.
Defensive Tackle. We lost starter Doug Worthington and starter/backup Todd Denlinger. Senior to be Dex Larimore returns as a starter and the other spot goes to John Simon who worked his way into the two deep as a true freshman and has future star written all over him. He also happens to be the strongest guy on the team. Garrett Goebel joins the two deep and the red shirt comes off of Adam Bellamy. Johnathan Hankins, 6-3 310, will be a true freshman next year.
Linebackers. We lost Spitler to graduation. All other starters and backups return as well as Tyler Moeller who was slated to start but missed the entire season. We are so deep and so talented at linebacker that we red shirted five star Dorian Bell last year because there simply wasn't enough room for him to see the field. We added two more freshmen for 2010.
Corner backs. We lost backup Andre Amos to graduation but return both starters and all other backups. The red shirt comes off of Clark and Brown and we added two freshmen for 2010.
Safety. We lost starters Coleman and Russell but return "star back" Jermale Hines and top backup, Orhain Johnson to fill the other starter position. Three other backups return and the red shirt comes off of Jamie Wood. Two more freshmen were added for 2010.
Kickers. Barclay returns as the place kicker and will be backed up by sophomore Ben Buchanan or true freshman Drew Basil. Ben Buchanan will be the punter and will probably be backed up by Drew Basil.
The schedule is favorable as we get Miami of Florida at home as well as Purdue, Penn State and meeeshitagin. Two tough road games will be at Wisconsin and Iowa. With a little luck we could run the table.
RECRUITING:
If you are an Ohio State football junkie like some people I know then you understand about teeth gnashing and hand wringing and the hanging onto every word spoken by some seventeen year old snot-nosed, pimpley-faced, ratty-haired, wire-toothed, tattoo-covered behemoth that weighs 320 pounds or runs a 4.3 forty yard dash. Ninety percent of the kids that are recruited are good students that are well mannered and polite and humble and have learned to say the right things and present themselves as fine young men representing their schools and their communities. The other ten percent go to the SEC.
My personal favorites are the ones that know where they are going but like to string along schools until signing day so they can stay in the spotlight and bask in their own aura. Of course there is a kid on the recruiting trail that would have given anything to have that spot but because it was held for "Hey, look at me" they ended up signing with their second choice to assure themselves of a scholarship. And then there are the ones that play that stupid hat trick game on ESPN. They have three to five hats of potentially lucky schools sitting before them on a table and they pick one up and almost put it on their head and then put it down and then grab another one and go through the same game throwing yet another potential suitor to the heap of the unwanted until they eventually put on the final hat which is that of an SEC school. They have no clue as to the disrespect they are showing to the schools and coaches and fans of the schools they toss aside. And of course ESPN loves the drama. And their few friends think it is really cool.
So how did Ohio State do in recruiting this year? I tend to measure a class by how well we filled our needs and based on that I would have to say we didn't get the job done. We had twenty openings and signed eighteen kids. I felt we needed at least one tight end, three offensive linemen and two defensive tackles as the top priorities for this class and we landed one offensive lineman, one defensive tackle and no tight ends. Now, I understand that Tressel knows more about the needs of the team on his little finger than I could ever learn. But I also know that he offered several other offensive and defensive linemen and didn't get them. And I also know that the other two times that Tressel only signed one offensive lineman in a class it came back to bite us in the butt big time. Bollman kind of just shrugged it off and said we would just make it up by taking an extra one next year which means they will want to take about four next year. They couldn't even get two this year and they tried as hard as they could to get three. Yes, there is still a slim shot at Henderson but I think his Dad is sailing that ship and can't get past the glitz and glitter of Southern California and the charm of Lane Kiffin who, as it turns out, is even slimier than Nick The Snake Saban.
As to the ones we got, I couldn't be happier. We brought in a nice 6-5 225 quarterback, two big outstanding running backs, perhaps the best group of receivers in the Tressel era and the number two rated lineman (per Scout.com) in the country. On defense we signed three defensive ends, one defensive tackle, two linebackers, two corner backs and two safeties. We also brought in one of the top kickers in the Midwest. Except for the holes mentioned above, a great class.
NIS & NAT & NARYTANE:
Pope Urban of Meyer signed the #1 rated class in the country. One guy that was leaning our way was defensive tackle Shariff Floyd. Urban called him after his "I'm in, I'm out, I'm in" dance and said he had a dream and in that dream he was on the sidelines of Florida next year and he was coaching Shariff Floyd. This will forever be known among recruitniks as the "I have a dream speech." Floyd interpreted that as, "Man, the dude said he would die for me." and switched his alliance to The Pope. You just have to take your hat off to those SEC coaches.
"Lane Kiffin is Nick Saban without the wins."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the recruiting trail is Lane Kiffin at USC. Lane Kiffin is Nick Saban without the wins. Kiffin crapped all over Tennessee after one year and a 7-6 record and returned to the land of starlets and tree huggers. Of note is that while he was informing the Tennessee football players of his decision to leave them after one year, one of his assistant coaches was on the phone telling the kids that they recruited to play for Tennessee not to enroll in classes the next day so that they could recruit them for USC. Now, is that not one of the lowest and slimiest things you have ever heard of in recruiting?
"Mike Garrett is the AD at USC. With all of the problems they are facing from the NCAA why isn't ESPN demanding his resignation for running a rogue program like they did Andy Geiger?"
Mike Garrett is the AD at USC. With all of the problems they are facing from the NCAA why isn't ESPN demanding his resignation for running a rogue program like they did Andy Geiger? Just wondering.
By the way, the NCAA began investigating USC in April of 2006. We are almost four years into this thing and they are just starting to lift the rug to see what's been swept under there.
My favorite quote of the new year came from Mark Sanchez when Pete Carroll decided to coach in the NFL: "I completely disagree with his decision. Statistics show it is not a good choice." That is exactly what Petey said when Sanchez decided to go out early to the NFL.
I could not understand why Skip Holtz would leave East Carolina to go to a Big East school. I actually consider that a step down. So I asked my Pirate friends in North Carolina and they told me it all boiled down to two million dollars. Oh, okay. Arrrgh, it all be about riches.
The number one recruit in Ohio, which also happens to be the number one linebacker in America, chose to sign with Texas. That is our payback for taking David Boston and BJ Shugarts from them. Speaking of Texas, Colt McCoy proposed to his girlfriend on the Texas field while on one knee and with the scoreboard reading "Will you marry me?" Have you seen his girlfriend? I mean, what the hell took so long?
Factoids: Tressel teams have finished in the top 20 eight years in a row. Seven of those were in the top 10 and six of those were in the top 5. The Big Ten ended up with three teams in the top 8, OSU #5, Iowa #7 and PSU #8. Jim Tressel is 8-1 against meeeshitagin while Thad Matta is 9-2 and Jim Foster is 12-0.
Ohio State announced a seven dollar increase per football ticket for 2010 bringing the price to $70. If you take someone you are looking at $140 plus gas and parking and $4 for a bottle of water, etc. If you take someone you can figure on dropping at least $200 for the day. At the same time they announced that Ohio State would be opening against Marshall on a Thursday night. Yeah, that's right, us, the MAC and the WAC. Boy, I want to drop $200 to spend a Thursday night in the South stands watching us play Marshall. Well, its either that or sit at home and watch it in HD on my big screen TV. Hmmmmm.
DickRod just keeps building up that meeeshitagin program. He signed eleven players from the state of Ohio this year. Not one of the eleven was even offered a scholarship from Ohio State. But his best recruit this year is a young man named Demar Dorsey. Dorsey has, to say the least, a checked past. He was arrested twice for felony counts but was able to avoid conviction both times. We all thought DickRod was going to leave that kind of recruiting in West Virginia. But he is getting desperate. He probably needs at least eight wins this year to keep his job and his cupboard is pretty bare so why not take a chance on the kid? As Bob Dylan once said, "When you ain't got nothin', you ain't got nothin' to lose."
The Coach