But just had this sent to me from an O-zone article where someone asked Urban about the punter situation. Found it interesting:
“We will punt, by the way,” clarified after his initial comment drew a large applause from the crowd aboard the Buckeye Cruise for Cancer on Sunday.
“Our punting situation is Drew Basil is going to be a our starting punter. Frank Epitropoulos is also going to get a shot. Other than that, we’re struggling.”
Epitropoulos is a redshirt freshman who came to the Buckeyes as a wide receiver last season, while Basil is the team’s starting place kicker. Meyer and his coaching staff had hoped to the fill the role with someone outside of the current roster, but Johnny Townsend, a highly touted punter out of Orlando, Fla. flipped his commitment from OSU to the University if Florida just before National Signing Day.
“I can talk about it because a recruiting is over,” Meyer said Sunday.
“We have a scholarship issue and we were going to try to get a guy to walk on. Some other school comes in and offers a full scholarship and we lose him. It wasn’t like at the end we lost a guy, we knew that might be a problem.”
Considering this was the worst case of all the best-case scenarios, I think this stings just a little but not that much. The Urban haters (Muschamp, Saban) lost on Trey Johnson and others, so they can enjoy this small victory.
I still think punting is an area of concern, but I am less concerned about this than our new D line coming together and playing at a high level right away.
Yep agree with MN -- we'll still punt but this won't be as big of an impact as it would be if we didn't have a coach who knew how to coach offense. And fortunately Urban not only knows how to coach offense, but goes into every drive with the mentality of "we want to score a TD" and as soon as we cross the 50 yd line, there's a good chance he's going for it on 4th down as long as we're not playing an elite opponent in a really tight game or something.
So I thought Townsend had a full scholarship offer? The wording below seems to indicate otherwise. Was this paragraph referring to another punter?
“We have a scholarship issue and we were going to try to get a guy to walk on. Some other school comes in and offers a full scholarship and we lose him. It wasn’t like at the end we lost a guy, we knew that might be a problem.”
I'm pretty sure he did until Bell and Clark signed.
To me it almost sounds like it was never a full scholarship, and always more of a "walk on this year and you'll get the scholarship once we get out of restrictions" type of offer.
Sorry Urban, Woody is still my favorite
Yeah I could be wrong but I thought I remembered reading that we were is first scholarship offer.
This was likely, you have a full rude unless we fill up.
I kinda like the idea of an athlete like Epitropoulos punting. Especially when it's time to for a fake or if there's a blocking breakdown.
Even if he's not the full time puner, they could toss him in on shorter punting situations to mess with other teams. Imagine a punt from the 50 on 4th and 5 with an athlete like Frank back there.
Right. I'd up vote this if I could.
I knew that's what it was. No room so we asked him to walk on (sorry just now noticed my phone didn't save the whole senetence...got to love technology;-)
For the you know what's...
What the hell does this mean to you all.... right out of the mouth of Urban???
"There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you."
"I love football. I think it is most wonderful game in world and I despise to lose."
Woody Hayes 1913 - 1987
To me I have always felt Urban and Co basically were telling Townsend that they were expecting a player or two to leave after spring ball, thus opening up another scholarship. If we stayed with OSU he would get that scholarship once it opened up but he didn't want to 'oversign' on NSD which is what it would have looked like had Townsend signed. Once other teams had spots open up (specifically Florida where we got Smith opening up their scholarships) those teams could then give him a guaranteed scholarship on NSD. Its always a tough situation but I wish the kid the best and I think we will be fine with Basil/Frank E/ a walk-on who can come in and earn the spot.
But when Townsend committed, what was he committed to? I know that is a strange question, but how could he commit if the offer was contingent upon a certain scenario.
I'm just trying to wrap my head around how he could commit like it was a full ride and no one knew any different.
Well a walk-on can commit to attending a school. It may not mean much (even less than a regular commit, if that is possible), but there is no reason they couldn't do that. In fact William Houston and another one or two "committed" to us at some point.
This is pretty much what I understood the situation to be based on the info from Alex, right as usual...
EDIT: just realized that you (Alex) posted this. Give yourself a pat on the back.
Damn scholarship reduction. Will make our Natty Championship that much sweeter knowing we did it with reduced scholarships.
Dear Ohio State Fans,
While the punting situation is not ideal, your team will be fine. There are only a couple of games on your schedule where poor punting could have an impact on the game. You may not have much success sticking a team inside the 15 yard line without a solid punter, but you will be able to get punts off and should survive just fine.