The Hurry Up: Ohio Speedster to Visit this Weekend, Decision Day Coming for Taylor, Hammond Visit News and More

By Jeremy Birmingham on March 25, 2015 at 7:45 pm
Joshua Hammond
Hallandale's Joshua Hammond
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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.


MCCALL TO VISIT COLUMBUS THIS WEEKEND

This coming weekend is turning into quite an important one for the Buckeyes. Demario McCall, Ohio's top uncommitted player for 2016, will be on campus at Ohio State. The country's third-ranked running back, McCall has a cousin playing in the Ohio High School basketball tournament in Columbus and decided he'll stop in to check out Urban Meyer's squad practice on Saturday.

"Yeah, Demario is visiting this weekend," Luke Durbin, the head coach at North Ridgeville told 11W. "His cousin plays for a basketball team in the state tournament so he's killing two birds with one stone."

McCall's basketball season ended at the hands of 2015 Ohio State signee Rashod Berry, and right now he's taking a little time to rest before he'll get back to competing in April for the Rangers' track team.

HAMMOND WILL SEE MIDWEST'S BIG THREE

Hallandale, Florida wide receiver Joshua Hammond is slated to visit Columbus this weekend according to sources in South Florida. The three-star wide receiver will stop in and check out Notre Dame and Michigan before heading to Ohio State with his brother, Kansas City Chief and former Florida Gator, Frankie Hammond. The elder Hammond played for Urban Meyer during his time in Gainesville.

"He's flying into Columbus," the source shared Tuesday night. "But he'll visit Notre Dame or Michigan first. He's going to try and see them all in one trip."

The Buckeyes have offered Hammond, and the relationship with Urban Meyer is strong.

"Obviously his brother played for Urban," the source added. "The family has a really good relationship with (Mark) Pantoni as well. He's a really good player right now but he's got even more upside."

LEVONTA TAYLOR DECISION COMING SOON

On Monday night Levonta Taylor, the country's second-ranked cornerback and 18th-ranked overall player, took to Twitter to inform the masses that his college choice is coming.

Taylor added some intrigue a few moments later with another – now deleted – tweet that suggested he'd taken a handful of college visits recently which he had not made public. He had mentioned a few weeks ago that he wanted to visit Ohio State while he was in Ohio during a 7-on-7 tournament, but that visit did not happen, according to a number of different sources in Columbus and Virginia.

The five-star cornerback is likely headed to Virginia or Florida State, where he visited this past weekend, but according to people I've spoken to it's almost certainly going to be the Seminoles. Florida State signed Virginia's best player in 2015, defensive end Josh Sweat, as well.

CHAD CLAY HAS BUCKEYES IN TOP FIVE

While the Buckeyes appear to be out of contention for Levonta Taylor, they are still in the mix for Suwanee, Georgia's Chad Clay. Clay, the country's 22nd-ranked cornerback and the 220th-ranked overall prospect, told Scout.com that the Buckeyes are in his top five schools, but they're trailing the homestate Georgia Bulldogs.

Clay cited his relationship with Ohio State defensive back coach Kerry Coombs and defensive coordinator Chris Ash – as well as Ohio State's on-field success and tradition of winning – as a couple of things the Buckeyes have working in their favor. 

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