Brooklyn's Finest: Ohio State's Curtis Samuel is Blossoming Into One of College Football's Brightest Stars

Buckeyes quarterback J.T. Barrett snapped the ball as Samuel exploded off the line of scrimmage. Samuel then hit Sotolongo with a wicked move, faking outside before quickly rerouting inside to leave his defender in the dust. Barrett delivered the ball on target and 79 yards later it was a touchdown for Ohio State.

It was one of many in the Buckeyes' 77-10 season-opening win.

The entire sequence took a little over 10 seconds. Samuel went from running back to wide receiver to the end zone 80 yards away in the time it takes to tie your shoes.

Welcome to one of college football’s most daunting tasks: trying to defend Ohio State’s do-it-all weapon of mass destruction.

Curtis Samuel runs away from Bowling Green during Ohio State's season-opener

“It’s pretty close to impossible,” Buckeyes linebacker Chris Worley says.

It has certainly looked that way so far.

Through five games, Samuel is Ohio State's leading receiver with 23 catches for 345 yards. He’s also second on the team in rushing, trailing only Mike Weber, with 410 yards on 50 carries. Samuel has six total touchdowns on the season.

No player in college football history has ever had 1,000 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards in the same season. Samuel has a legitimate chance at becoming the first.

Ohio State lines Samuel up all over the field. He has played running back, wide receiver and even taken Wildcat snaps from the quarterback position. If the Buckeyes’ offense is a chess set, Samuel is the Queen piece, possessing the ability to go anywhere he wants anytime he wants.

If it sounds like Samuel creates a lot of headaches for opposing teams, well, it should.

“I think Curtis is one-of-a-kind, honestly,” Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett says. “The versatility he has, at whatever position he chooses to play, is incredible. He has a big impact on our games.”

The scary thing? This might only be the beginning.

It did not take very long for Danny Landberg to realize Curtis Samuel was a special talent.

The very first play of Samuel’s career at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, New York, where Landberg is the head coach, went for a 65-yard touchdown. It was in that moment Landberg realized he might just have a future star on his hands.

“His very first carry on varsity was a jet sweep where he actually dropped the ball," Landberg recalled. "But then he picked it up and still scored a touchdown from about 65 yards out.

"It was incredible." 

Samuel quickly assembled quite the highlight reel as he turned into one of the top football prospects in the country back in 2014 despite playing in an area not exactly known for its football prowess.

Schools like Ohio State, Alabama, Clemson, Florida and many others took notice and extended the then 6-foot, 180-pounder a scholarship offer.

“He was one that wasn’t hard to find, he was one of the top-10 or 20 players in the country,” Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer recalled of Samuel’s recruitment. “I think that I had never recruited Brooklyn before in my life until that.”

Landberg said back in the early 2000s when Samuel was only just beginning his football career, he developed an affinity for the way Meyer coached his offenses. The spread offense Meyer somewhat revolutionized at the collegiate level was mesmerizing to the high school coach.

“I fell in love with Urban Meyer’s play at Utah,” Landberg said. “I fell in love with the whole shovel pass, bubble screens, triple options back then.”

Landberg wanted to emulate Meyer's offense with his high school team.

Landberg said he has known Samuel since he was just 7 years old, but when he finally got to high school at Erasmus and blossomed into a big-time recruit, there was a pretty clear comparison for how the dynamic playmaker should be used.

“I don’t think he’s a straight 20-carry guy, so the whole point was to move him to H and it was definitely because he always wanted to be Percy Harvin,” Landberg said. “It gets thrown around a lot by you guys and other people, but he actually wanted to go and play for Urban Meyer and be Percy Harvin since the Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin era, however many years ago that was.”

“I always wanted to follow in the style of Urban Meyer as a coach,” Landberg continued. “Curtis and I, together, were on the same page as far as what we like and how he should be utilized, hence where he is today.”

Meyer is well-known for telling recruits they could be the next Harvin. He did the same with Samuel and that was music to the ears of the kid from Brooklyn. 

"Growing up and watching coach Meyer at Florida, I studied a little bit about the Percy Harvin-type role," Samuel said. "I just felt like he was the best coach to teach the position."

In the end, it was a relatively easy decision. Samuel was going to play for Meyer at Ohio State.

Terry McLaurin did not know who his roommate would be for his freshman year at Ohio State, but when he wound up paired with Curtis Samuel there was something the now-redshirt sophomore wide receiver instantly noticed.

“Yeah, it’s the accent,” McLaurin says.

McLaurin hails from Indianapolis, a large Midwestern city where accents aren’t exactly common. As a kid from Brooklyn, Samuel’s sound was distinct.

“I feel like since he’s been up in the Midwest he’s kind of lost a little bit of it, but definitely when I first got here I could definitely tell the Brooklyn accent,” McLaurin said. “Some of the things he says and some of the things he eats, too, is a little different from the Midwest.”

What exactly does that mean?

“This Jamaican food, man. He’s always talking about this Jamaican food,” McLaurin said. “Something they get down in Brooklyn, oxtails and all that stuff. I guess it’s something he eats down there. I haven’t really tried it. He really wants me to, but I’m used to the food up here.”

Sometimes, it may get a little loud at Samuel's residence in Columbus. 

“He comes from Brooklyn, New York, and those guys don’t know how to shut up,” joked fellow wide receiver Parris Campbell, another one of Samuel’s roommates. “They just keep talking all the time.”

Added McLaurin: “When we play video games, we almost get into arguments if one or the other loses.”

It’s all part of Samuel’s Brooklyn flare. He's flashy, on and off the field.

It's clear from talking to those close to him he has a goofy personality. Away from the football field, he's making people laugh. On it, though, defenders aren't often smiling when trying to contain him.

“He’s like my brother, man, and I love him to death,” Campbell said, “But he’s a goofball, definitely.”

Urban Meyer stood at the podium for his postgame press conference following Ohio State’s victory over Indiana last weekend, but the Buckeyes’ head coach wasn’t asked much about what went right in his team’s three-touchdown victory.

The first question Meyer received was about Curtis Samuel and his nine touches against the Hoosiers. It wasn’t enough, Meyer said. Ohio State’s No. 1 playmaker needed to touch the ball more.

A few more reporters inquired about other topics before the conversation shifted back to Samuel. Would there be more of an effort to get him involved from the get-go as the Buckeyes move forward?

“Yes. It’s duly noted,” Meyer quipped. “Thank you.”

Meyer knows his team is at its best when Samuel is getting 15 to 20 touches per game, however those may come. And there will almost certainly be an added emphasis on getting Samuel involved early and often when second-ranked Ohio State travels to Madison on Saturday for a date with No. 8 Wisconsin under the lights at Camp Randall Stadium.

The Badgers will surely have all eyes on Barrett, the Buckeyes’ quarterback who drives the Ohio State offensive machine. But they’ll also be peeking at Samuel, one of college football’s budding superstars.

Samuel says he doesn’t care about how many times he touches the football in a given game, that all that matters is winning the game when the clock expires.

“I don’t care about the touches,” he says. “That don’t really mean anything. The win is all that matters.”

“If [Samuel] was to stay next year, he could win the Heisman Trophy.”– Erasmus Hall High School Coach Danny Landberg

But the thing is: For Ohio State to win this game, Samuel is going to need to have the ball in his hands quite a bit. The Buckeyes are going to need their Swiss army knife on offense to make some big plays.

Samuel’s path from Brooklyn to Columbus is quite unique. Now a junior, his career seems like it’s only just beginning. He backed up Ezekiel Elliott at running back during the 2014 season and then last year was somewhat lost in the shuffle as Ohio State’s offense was flooded with playmakers like Elliott, Michael Thomas, Braxton Miller and Jalin Marshall — all of whom are currently on NFL rosters.

Samuel didn’t let that lack of playing time — and touches — deter him.

“That was a non-issue and it never came up,” Meyer said. “I think he knew. He understood his time was coming and, most importantly, it was when someone came and tapped you on the shoulder, be ready.”

Now, the kid from Brooklyn is shining.

In sports, we often try to figure out an athlete’s potential. What is their ceiling?

For Samuel, there might not be one.  

“If he was to stay next year, he could win the Heisman Trophy,” Landberg said.

Who knows, maybe he’ll win it this year?