Ron Zook’s Staff Will Beat You Down for Recruits
In your state, enjoying your amusementsFascinating story from the Morning Journal’s Jason Lloyd about the recruitment of Melvin Fellows and Tressel’s efforts in holding off Illinois and Michigan State, two teams that are coached by Ohioans with strong connections in the state.
The meat of the Fellows tale involves an email sent to Tressel from a member of the vast Buckeye spy network:
Eric Wolford, an Illinois assistant coach, was at a bar with the Garfield Heights coaching staff. It was Illinois’ last-gasp effort to keep Melvin Fellows, a four-star defensive end prospect from Garfield Heights.
”Illinois is doing whatever it takes to keep Melvin,” according to the e-mail, obtained by The Morning Journal. ”Eric told me his (he) is prepared to fist fight (OSU coaches Jim) Heacock and Tavier Johnson for Fellows.”
Wolford was obviously joking (and good thing, see: Johnson, Wolford), but Lloyd goes on to illustrate just how hard the Illini, in particular, are hitting Ohio for recruits. He seems to imply, and I would have to agree, that Zook’s habit of early offering was a big reason why the 2009 Buckeye class got to the early twenties so quickly.
Fellows, of course, would eventually come to his senses, but he was the first big shot fired into the chosen land by the Zooker and there will certainly be more to come. Fellows’ teammate (and fellow Buckeye recruit) Chris Fields summed up the Illini approach:
“They’re really good people when it comes to persuading,” Fields said. “They almost caught me, but I went, ‘Hey.’ Melvin fell in the little hole they got there, but he popped out and now he’s a Buckeye.”
Beware of that little hole they got there.
I wasn’t one of the lucky few to have caught the Buckeye practice on the BTN last night* but the hometown paper was kind enough to blog about it. In short:
- Beat writer Ken Gordon may be envious of the openness of Rich Rodriguez’s practices.
- Beanie is catching slants, which will only help his NFL stock (as if it’s needed)
- Abdallah is running with the first team instead of Larimore
It’s not up yet, but the footage will be posted to the network’s web site here. Anybody else catch it last night?
Crazy factoid of the day: the Buckeyes have finished dead last — 119th — for three straight years in opponent penalty yards per game. The good teams are definitely going to get the shorter end of the stick here, but to come in last three years in a row?
*8/15 is the big day for those of us fortunate enough to cede sizable amounts of our earnings in exchange for the craptacular offerings of Comcast.
Is that a J Lehman sighting in the background?
11W has finally hit the bigtimes. You guys were mentioned on espn.com:
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/bigten
here is what they said for those of you who were to lazy to click the link:
“The Ohio State blog Eleven Warriors takes a look at the Buckeyes’ projected starting offense and defense, complete with diagrams. Some good analysis here.”
When’s the IPO?
a few things after reading that Lloyd article.
- Javon Ringer, as good as he was Chaminade-Julienne, curiously omits that the reason the staff wanted him to grayshirt was because he not only had the ACL tear in October 2004, but was failing to meet Ohio State’s increasingly high standards for admission. Ringer qualified for the playoffs his junior year by only a few hundredths of a percentage point and had not made enough progress towards being a full qualifier by OSU’s standards to warrant an offer. He’s also wrong on Ohio State kids forcing redshirts on their players, as the staff provides a player information about where he stands on the depth chart and allows them to make a decision. Entering 2005, the Buckeyes had only two returners at RB (Pittman, Haw and a much of nobodies that I don’t count.). Barring whatever lingering effects from the injury, it’s implausible to think Ringer would’ve redshirted if he got a scholarship and attended Ohio State. After all, Mo Wells, the other running back of interest for the Buckeyes in the 2005 class, was the second leading rusher (at tailback) on that team.
- I think the class being at its current size reflects more on the staff’s wishes to be done with recruiting before the season begins (so they can focus on the season) more than it does on Zook. As much as Ohio State’s staff hates to see talented Ohio prospects head elsewhere in the Big Ten, I think it would be wrong to attribute the class’ size to Zook.
- The early offer thing works two ways. While it works to Zook’s advantage to get the preliminary list of the top 20 in Ohio in the class of 2010 (and through 2022) and offer every single one of them a scholarship and be the first “big” offer they get, he also falls into the trap of being tricked by the hype. Zook fell head over heels for the Will Studlien freshman highlight tape hype, but now no one in the Big Ten wants Studlien (save Northwestern). Those highlight tapes can be deceiving…
- The easiest way to control for the Zook problem is to squash any claim he can have to being the first offer from a “big” program. I hope that starts this year in Champaign.
One reason for the opponent penalty YPG ranking is that the Buckeyes can decline a bunch of penalties that they don’t need. Though dead last three years in a row is a bit odd.
We get “homered” every game including the home games. I just can’t figure out why.
How many Big Ten refs are allowed to live in Ann arbor?
Dead last in opponent penalties once is an outlier.
Dead last in opponent penalties twice is a trend.
Dead last in opponent penalties thrice is a conspiracy.
Heacock would take him.