It appears as though the recruiting sky has not yet fallen: 4* DE Jalyn Holmes officially committed to the Buckeyes yesterday.
This is good for several reasons:
- The Gray Box is BACK baby.
- The Buckeyes got a heck of a player in Holmes. He's a 6'5" edge rusher ranked as a .955 on the 247 composite.
- He has some room to grow and add good weight, but his speed off the line is already fantastic.
- Maybe fans will slow the chicken little-ing about the recruiting class in June.
So welcome Mr. Holmes aboard the Meyer train, tip your hat to Zach Smith, and look for Jalyn on the 2014 website.
If you're in the mood for some more recruiting news, then boy are you in luck. Our own Jeremy Birmingham will be blowing up Twitter all day today as he covers the 2013 OSU one-day position camp. Make sure to follow him on Twitter if you're not already, but you Twitter-less folks can certainly check back in the forums for the most important developments throughout the day.
In other recruiting news, Ohio State hosted the cat's meow of 2014 running backs with Derrell Scott. Scott is one of the top running backs in the class and one that Ohio State is really pushing for.
Big time offensive tackle Damian Price rolled in to Columbus late last night for his visit as well, so hopefully the staff/fellow recruits can make a good impression.
#GETOPEN. The Opening continues to release their team rosters, finishing up 4/6 (minus the quarterbacks) today.
In case you're behind on who/what is getting open, here are some details:
The top 162 high school football players in the nation as selected by Student Sports after film evaluation plus in-person evaluation at an event. The Opening presented by Nike Football is four days of dynamic training, coaching and competition for many of the country’s most elite high school football players.
The Field Generals have the most future Buckeyes, with Kyle Trout, new commit Jalyn Holmes, and Parris Campbell. Your second favorite team is probably the Alpha Pros, which include Damon Webb and Dante Booker.
Defensive lineman Dylan Thompson is a Landshark and Kyle Berger has yet to be placed, so that means you can pretty much forget about the Apocalypse team.
CHECKING IN WITH RICHROD. Richrod has been one of my favorite coaches in college football for a while now – besides never being a Michigan Man, he seems like a generally OK guy that runs an interesting offense.
So when he gets in to a war of words with Bret Bielema, it's extremely easy to pick sides. Bielema recently echoed Nick Saban in wanting offenses to slow down and play turtle football. Here's what Rodriguez answered when asked about whether fast offenses jeopardize player safety:
Rich Rod wants to see more speed in college football"Not at all. If you're in shape, you still have time to substitute with all these timeouts and stoppages for play," said Rodriguez. "You have three-minute timeouts in every quarter for TV. I don't see that at all.
In fact, lets up the fun in football:
"I'd like to have less stoppages and play faster. You talk about entertainment and fun to watch, I think we're fun to watch when we're playing. I don't know how much fun it is to watch a huddle. That's the biggest waste of time in football. I think from an excitement standpoint and the players, I think they like to play."
So, what say you? More speed = more fun?
DRY RUN IN 2013? Stewart Mandel penned an excellent article questioning why the NCAA doesn't use next season as a dry run for the college football playoff selection committee.
The NCAA's logic looks something like this: "Whichever team hoists the crystal football on Jan. 6 shouldn't have to face questions about who it might have faced in a hypothetical second postseason game, or whether it would have finished No. 1 in the new system."
Obviously that's just ridiculous. Every college football columnist under the sun has constructed a mock playoff to simulate a hypothetical second postseason game. Just because the NCAA doesn't want the practice doesn't mean that others won't pick up the mock playoff slack.
HEAT GET THEIR SECOND. The Heat picked up their second consecutive national championship over the Spurs in a tight game.
Regardless of your feelings on LeBron, he was absolutely clutch in the waning minutes of Game 7, hitting an 18 footer and then both free throws in the last 25 seconds. He was rightfully given the Finals MVP.
LINKS ON FIRE. Clemson is on the hunt for the Howard's Rock perps... Bob Stoops' car was taken out of his garage while there were people inside the house... Bill O'Brien gets a new contract... Conference USA gets a new transformers-esque logo... UNC avoids big penalties... The Buckeyes had a football job fair–very cool idea that looks like a great opportunity.
