The Hurry Up: Caleb Kelly Talking Up Buckeyes, Buckeyes Offer 2017 Detroit Defensive Back and More

By Jeremy Birmingham on May 21, 2015 at 7:45 pm
Caleb Kelly is big-time talent.
Caleb Kelly
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Welcome to The Hurry Up, which runs Sunday through Thursday, serving as your last stop for recruiting news and notes nightly. We'll recap the day as it happened and preview the days ahead while keeping our ear to the ground on the Ohio State recruiting scene.


CALEB KELLY TALKING UP BUCKEYES

The country's third-ranked outside linebacker, Clovis West (Fresno, California) standout Caleb Kelly, says he's shuffling his Top 10 after a host of new offers, including one from Ohio State, forced him to reevaluate where things stand. In an interview with Scout.com's Greg Biggins, Kelly talks about the Buckeyes and how he hopes to get out for a visit soon.

Ohio State has one commitment at linebacker – Illinois' Tuf Borland – and are in a position where they aren't chasing a linebacker to finish out the class necessarily, but a player of Kelly's caliber is too good to not at least make tepid effort for. So, Kelly is talking about a Buckeye visit, but as I've said here before, unless he schedules one and makes it happen, it's hard for Ohio State's coaching staff to know how interested he really is. There is currently no coach on the staff assigned to California for recruiting purposes, so sending a coach out to visit Kelly is not something they'll be regularly doing unless they know he's got legitimate interest in the school.

As he noted in his interview, Kelly won't take any official visits during the season. A Buckeye visit this summer is going to be instrumental if there's any real chance for Ohio State to be in the mix come February.

AMBRY THOMAS NEXT DETROIT DEFENSIVE BACK WITH BUCKEYE OFFER

Yesterday afternoon, Ohio State had a pair of coaches at Detroit's Martin Luther King, Jr. High School – Kerry Coombs and Zach Smith – and a new offer to one of the Crusaders' best young players was extended.

Ambry Thomas, a 5-foot-11, 160-pound cornerback, added the Buckeyes to an impressive early offer list that includes Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, LSU, and a host of others. 

Thomas told 11W it felt "great" to receive an offer from the national champions, and that the Buckeyes haven't been recruiting him long. Kerry Coombs made an impression on the country's 150th-ranked 2017 prospect.

Flag-planting in the works? There's a long way to go, but it seems the Buckeyes are going to continue to stay active in Michigan as long as the enigmatic Coombs has a say in the matter.

TERRELL HALL SPEAKING HIS MIND

In case you missed it last Friday, Maryland's recruiting class got its first real big fish of the 2016 cycle when quarterback Dwayne Haskins, Jr. committed to the Terrapins. Immediately, the drumbeats about a revitalization of Maryland football – #MarylandPride – hit the social media circles hard and Ohio State commit Terrell Hall was a focus of many who bleed red, black, yellow, white and whatever other color Maryland uses these days. The mantra, the decree? Maryland takes care of their own, so the kids should stay home and take care of Maryland.

Hall, the country's 8th-ranked weakside defensive end and 130th-ranked overall prospect, didn't appreciate the way he was being talked at by Maryland fans and let loose the dogs of war on Twitter.

Hall isn't one to mince words, apparently. Although the Twitter tirade eventually waned, he re-tweeted an equally relevant Tweet from another Buckeye commit who hears much of the same "you should stay home and be a hero" scuttlebutt from his peers, running back Kareem Walker.

Valuable words, and ones to remember even in a football mecca like Ohio. Sometimes what these teenagers are going through, the pressure they feel to do what's best for others makes people forget they're making the biggest choice of their lives. If a kid from Ohio leaves Ohio, wish him well, just as you'd welcome a key coming in from another state.

NEW 2017 LINEBACKER OFFER 

Ohio State extended a new 2017 scholarship offer today to Baron Browning, a 6-foot-3, 220-pounder from Kennedale, Texas.

Browning is the country's top-ranked 2017 inside linebacker and has offers from Texas A&M, Texas, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Stanford, Duke and others. Recruiting Texas is becoming increasingly difficult, but getting an early offer out to a player of this potential is the only way to get involved down the line.

POTTER SHOWS OFF GAME 

Buckeye 2016 basketball commitment Micah Potter has been very busy this spring, playing basketball all around the Tri-State area and even in Italy. The Adidas Gauntlet is one the country's premier AAU events and there's substantial film on Potter from this year's event.

 

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