Resetting Expectations: With Recruiting Process Over, It Will Soon Be Time for Ohio State’s Incoming Freshmen to Face Rigors of Entering Cutthroat Program

For the 21 high schoolers who penned their cursives and faxed their letters to Mark Pantoni, for the families who made the sacrifices for those players (in some cases, parents working two jobs of the blue-collar variety to put their sons through football camps and get them the proper training and nutrition to become Big Ten-caliber athletes) and for Ohio State’s coaching staff that grinds away with constant texts, phone calls and FaceTimes to see the payoff of a day like today.

So we’ll let the celebration last into the night. 

But it won’t go much longer than that.

The real work begins soon for the players in America’s No. 2-ranked recruiting class. For six of them, it won’t start until June; for the other 14 (but probably 15, if Emeka Egbuka enrolls early as I strongly suspect he will) it begins in three weeks when they move into their off-campus apartments in Fifth by Northwest.

When they take their first trip over from their new homes and into the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, it’s going to come crashing down pretty hard that they ain’t in Kansas anymore. Or Arizona or Texas or Virginia or any of the 13 states that make up this 2021 class.

“It’s two words: Mickey Marotti,” Pantoni said on Wednesday. “From day one when they come in, he de-recruits them real quick. They get that wakeup call. But, honestly, when they get out there they see the effort and the leadership from our veterans of how much work they really put in.

“These guys have no idea what hard work is until they get here and they see the veterans leading the way of what a pro really is. The type of kid that we recruit, it doesn’t take a lot. They know what they’re coming in here for.”

Strength and conditioning coach Mickey Marotti is the one who Mark Pantoni says “de-recruits” the incoming freshmen when they begin workouts under his guidance.

In just about any interview with five-star defensive end Jack Sawyer – the one who’s expected to become the Buckeyes’ next Joey Bosa, Nick Bosa or Chase Young – the country’s No. 4-ranked overall player refuses to back down from any mega expectations. He loves hearing them from fans and loves bestowing them upon himself to meet them. That’s why, just a few days before the early signing period, he wasn’t backing down from what he’s been saying for the two years he’s been committed to Ohio State. He wasn’t resetting his own expectations for his first year in the program.

“I think it’s gonna be full throttle (when I get on campus),” Sawyer told Eleven Warriors. “I thrive off having those expectations because everyone looks at me as being the next great Rushman. So I take that as a sense of pride. I wanna continue that legacy and be able to pass that off to someone by the time I’m gone. I’m definitely going there full speed, and I’m not looking at it as I need a year to catch up. I think I’m ready to go in there and compete right away and help the team win however I possibly can, really.”

But Sawyer is, after all, going to go into a practice facility that houses players who hail from recruiting classes that ranked No. 2 (2018), No. 14 (2019) and No. 5 (2020) in the past three years and that have future NFL draft picks that he’ll be going up against in practice. Is Sawyer nervous that one of those guys is going to put him on his ass during spring practice?

“No, I don’t think about that,” Sawyer says with a laugh. “I don’t think about them putting me on my back, I think about putting them on their back, you know what I mean? My mindset on that is I’m going in there and I’m gonna bust some heads. Definitely not thinking about that, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. There might be a couple moments where I’m like, ‘Damn, these dudes are strong.’ But I don’t think anything extreme like me getting put on my back is gonna be happening. I’m not gonna go for that.”

Full throttle to the bottle. That’s the mentality of the Buckeyes’ fourth-highest all-time recruit because of course it is. Wouldn’t have gotten this far if he thought any other way.

Sawyer’s approach is just one example of the way it goes for many of these 17- and 18-year-old prospects. Whether they said it out loud in an interview setting or not, their expectations are to come into the program from day one, lay the hammer down and compete for a starting spot as a true freshman. Or at the very least, make a major impact as a freshman even if they don’t start.

But that’s simply not going to happen for all of them. Maybe even for any of them. No matter how great Sawyer or fellow five-stars Egbuka, TreVeyon Henderson, Donovan Jackson or Kyle McCord are.

And that’s OK, Ryan Day stressed on Wednesday.

“I think one thing that you talk about in the process – you have to do this in recruiting and no one really wants to talk about this, but it’s the truth – is that everybody’s journey is different,” Day said. “And the only guarantee is that whatever you think your journey’s gonna be, it’s not gonna happen that way. It never does. So you have to be able to adapt and to have the motivation to go get on the field and play right now, I mean that’s what you should have. But to create expectations for yourself to get let down is not (good). So what do you do? The goal is to just maximize every day. Fight to be the best version of yourself and eventually, if you have enough talent and you develop enough, you’re gonna get on the field. It’s just gonna happen naturally. When? Who knows? 

“There’s a lot of things that come into play there. There’s injuries, there’s things that get in your way. So we talk to them about that in recruiting. It’s not like we tell them, ‘Hey, you’re gonna come in here and play the first day you walk on campus.’ Well, that’s not gonna happen. There’s a lot of good players that have been recruited and developed in the program before. But they do have an opportunity to come in and make an impact right away and compete for the job. And for those who can do it, certainly the blueprint is there. There’s been a lot of freshmen who have come in and played right away and go get it. But if it doesn’t happen all at once, then you work through that adversity.”

They obviously are terrific talents, some with a more realistic shot to break through the two-deep as first-year players than others. But all of them are in for a whole new animal. That starts with the program’s foundational centerpiece in Marotti.

“the only guarantee is that whatever you think your journey’s gonna be, it’s not gonna happen that way. It never does.”– Ryan Day

That’s when Pantoni references both receiver Julian Fleming and offensive tackle Paris Johnson Jr. from the Buckeyes’ 2020 class. Both were ranked in the top 10 overall and No. 1 at their positions, but when they came to Columbus it was essentially: Congratulations. Now get in line with the other four- and five-stars.

It’s all about responding to that type of message. Fleming and Johnson, Pantoni says, never flinched. 

“Those guys didn’t say a word,” Pantoni said. “They knew their role, they wanted to be great, and they just followed the leaders of that unit. That’s the types of kids we want. They’re gonna work hard, but heck we’re gonna play the best players so don’t be afraid to try and come take someone’s spot, either.”

So there’s a balance at play here.

Yeah, on one hand the coaches want these guys to come in with an alpha mentality. Championships are built on players like that. But be realistic about what to expect.

“I feel like there will be a learning curve that I’ll have to get down, but I do feel like I can compete with the guys at Ohio State and the guys in the Big Ten,” five-star offensive guard Donovan Jackson said. “With the constant competition there, I have no choice but to get better. So I’m looking forward to it because this is probably the first time in my football life where I am almost forced to get better. I’m not coming in as one of the best people. So I’m really excited about that.”

Jackson says the coaches haven’t really had to talk to him about resetting his expectations because he knows what he’s getting himself into.

“They haven’t had to have that conversation with me,” Jackson said. “I feel like that’s just reality. Everyone in that program is the best where they come from. So me going there, I’m just another guy in the locker room. So I feel no sense of self-superiority over anyone. First of all, I’m a freshman so I should have none of that anyways. It’s just the sense of respect I have for everyone in that program so I’ve never really had to have that conversation.”

Part of the reason that Jackson feels that way can be attributed to Ohio State’s honest approach in recruiting.

While a lot of other schools were throwing out fairly tales to some of these players during the process, Ohio State was Pvt. Jackson from Saving Private Ryan – careful you don’t step in the bull****.

“I’m pretty glad (Ohio State) didn’t tell me anything like that like, ‘You’re gonna be a star’ or anything like that,” Henderson said. “I’m pretty glad because coaches say things like that and then they come in and players see otherwise. They see a change in the coaches. So I’m pretty glad they didn’t tell me that.”

Says tight end signee Sam Hart: “They were a lot more different, and I could feel their honesty. I could tell they were being 100 percent real with me. They told me they had a bunch of guys leaving like Luke (Farrell), Jeremy (Ruckert) and some other guys. So they told me I’d have a good opportunity of playing early but that I’d still have to work for that and earn my spot.

“When we watched film, every other school would just show all the receiving plays from their tight ends. Ohio State was up front and honest: ‘You’re gonna get the ball every once in a while, but you’re mainly gonna be blocking here.’ It was nice to not see all the fairy dust and all these things that aren’t real like I’m gonna be catching it all the time. It was really nice to see a school be completely honest with me. … (Other schools) would just sugarcoat it and only show me film of their tight ends catching the ball. They just tried to make it seem like it’s too good to be true.”

So the opportunities are there for these guys. It’s more likely at some positions than others (like a defensive tackle room that’s expected to be thin, for example) where there is a path ahead to carve out some early snaps. But whether they wind up contributing next fall or not until four falls from now, Day says it’s part of the process.

He wants to eventually show his new Buckeyes the Senior Tackle tradition so that they can hear the stories from the guys who, just like they are right now, showed up to the first days of spring practice with monumental expectations only to get a dose of reality and have to grind away to get to where they are now.

“When you hear these seniors talk about all the adversity they’ve been through and their process and what their expectations were when they walked through the door, it’s really significant,” Day said. “And that’s the reality that’s not typically what people wanna hear in recruiting, but that’s the truth. And that’s why you wanna recruit great character people and great culture fits. Because in the end, that’s what’s gonna keep them here because they picked Ohio State for the right reasons.”