Flag Day Skull Session: Urban Meyer's Message to Recruits, Tate Martell Draws Favre–Tarkenton Comparisons, and a Guilty Verdict in Beanie Wells' Extortion Case

By D.J. Byrnes on June 14, 2016 at 4:59 am
Denzel Ward brought the muscle for the June 14th 2016 Skull Session
Denzel Ward
69 Comments

#Shoutout to Old Glory, which is objectively the best flag in the world. (Sorry, Kiribati, maybe next year... but probably not.)

Oh yeah, and go Cavs!!!!!

 URBAN'S MESSAGE. Folks, I'm old enough to remember a time when people said Urban Meyer's hiring would unleash a criminal wave in Columbus. Though Meyer will be the first to admit he learned some things about recruiting at Florida, the foretold criminal wave never came to fruition.

That's because Meyer got better at identifying the type of player he wants. Being good at football is no longer enough; players must fit Ohio State's off-the-field blueprint as well.

Here's Meyer explaining his scouting process to prospects at Saturday's camp in Columbus, from coachingsearch.com:

“For some reason, this recruiting thing is blowing up. ‘I have to go to this 7-on-7, do this, do this.’ I’ve got a better idea. Go become a great high school football player on your team. When (we) walk in that high school, guess what that high school coach says? ‘Take him.’ You know what we do at Ohio State when he says that? We usually take him. I don’t care what you do at those other camps. I want to hear your high school coach say, ‘Take him.’ If I have relationship with that high school coach like I do with these NFL coaches, guess what happens? We take him.

“Don’t worry about (all the camps). That’s all fun stuff, that’s great. But that’s not why Ohio State recruits you. I can speak for the majority of my friends that coach football. That means nothing. What means something is the recommendation of the high school football coach. Go become a captain. If you’re a captain of your high school team and you’re talented enough, you’ve got a great chance of being here. If you’re very talented and you’re not a captain, I’m going to find out why, because something’s not right.”

[...]

“I have parents ask all the time, ‘Should I send him to that camp?’ Sure, if you have 80 bucks to blow, go ahead,” Meyer said. “Here’s where you start: Go make your high school coach so proud of you that he’s going to tell the college coach, ‘Take him.’ How cool is that? It’s real simple. Don’t complicate things."

Looks like I finally know who to blame for my lack of football scholarship: My damn high school coach!

 WHAT IS HYPE CAN NEVER DIE. Tate Martell, the nation's No. 1 dual-threat QB, committed to Ohio State on Sunday. I was aware Martell was previously committed to Texas A&M but did not know he was a Washington Husky before entering eighth grade.

From foxsports.com:

In July 2012, as a 14-year-old soon-to-be eighth-grader, Martell -- then a home-schooled student and protege of West Coast QB coach Steve Clarkson -- €”accepted a scholarship to Washington when that program was run by Steve Sarkisian.

Clarkson showed Sarkisian (also a former Clarkson protege himself) film of Martell and told him, "If you could clone Fran Tarkenton and Brett Favre, you would have Tate Martell."

A coach offered an eighth grader and didn't stick around to see that player graduate high school? I AM SHOCKED.

I've seen opposing fans knock Martell for his height and his hand size(!), but even a football layman like myself can see the talent. However, I understand why Michigan fans are trying to throw cold water on this commitment:

MAKES U THINK

If a Michigan legend like Tate Forcier is backing Martell, how can he fail?

 BOLD DEFENSE STRATEGY GOES UP IN SMOKE. Franklin Conley, standing accused of trying to extort Beanie Wells and threatening his life, went with the bold defense of "I was just trying to recoup money lost from a drug deal set up by Beanie Wells."

The jury didn't buy it.

From cleveland.com:

AKRON, Ohio — A jury on Monday found an Akron man guilty of trying to extort former Ohio State football star Christopher "Beanie" Wells out of money lost in a botched drug deal.

Franklin Conley, 28, was convicted of Hobbs Act extortion, three counts use of a communication facility to facilitate a drug offense and one count interstate communication with intent to extort.

The jury found him not guilty of possession with intent to distribute heroin, which the FBI said was based on a shoebox full of heroin found during a search of his co-defendant's house.

Hard to believe somebody gambled their life on a defense like that, but you don't get to a point in life where you're cool with extorting hard-working citizens by being a smart and rational person.

 ROLL TIDE. When Nick Saban retires, I say Alabama could do worse than hiring this entrepreneur to take over the reins:

Don't do meth, kids. Not even once.

 THAT WOULD BE NICE. Donovan Peoples–Jones, a five-star WR from Cass Tech, posted this edit Monday morning:

It features Peoples–Jones and five-star Tate Martell with five-star WR Trevon Grimes, five-star RB Cam Akers, and five-star WR Tyjon Lindsey.

That'd be a helluva way to finish the 2017 class, which is already No. 1 in the nation. The future is bright in Columbus, and the haters would be wise to ask their mothers to buckle up their car seats. They're headed for turbulence.

 THOSE WMDs. The Audition... How to bolster your internet passwords... The worst free throw of all time... The economics of New York City's food trucks... What brings you to Florida, ma'am?

69 Comments
View 69 Comments