Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / 5-Star Ohio State DE Commit Eddrick Houston Making Surprise Visit To Alabama

Transcript

5-Star Ohio State DE Commit Eddrick Houston Making Surprise Visit To Alabama · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

• 0:00
  Welcome to buck Eyes tomorrow morning for Sunday, December seventeenth. I'm your host,
• 0:03
  Tom Moore. The Cotton Bowl game against Missouri is in twelve days.
• 0:07
  The game against Michigan in three hundred and forty nine days. On yesterday's show,
• 0:10
  we brought in Mark Gifler to talk a bunch about recruiting, and then
• 0:13
  the plan for today's show was that we were going to be loosely focusing on
• 0:17
  the transfer portal, what Ohio Step might be looking to do there, some
• 0:20
  guys Ohio State has not gotten or has maybe passed on, and what that
• 0:24
  might tell us about the overall strategy for the buck Eyes this off season.
• 0:29
  And then right before we were about ready to hit record, some news broke
• 0:32
  and it is not necessarily great news for the buck Eyes. Mark Edward Houston,
• 0:38
  five star defensive end commit for the buck Eyes has been committed for quite
• 0:41
  a while. We here we are three days from signing day and Edward Houston
• 0:48
  is in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and he's not there necessarily just to eat Dreamland
• 0:51
  barbecue. Mark, how big of a concern is this? Yeah, it's
• 0:57
  a big concern. It's a high level of concern. This was a this
• 1:02
  is a last minute visit. You The problem with these visits is you can't
• 1:07
  really swing the momentum back that easily because you can't get them. You can't
• 1:11
  get them back on campus. You can't go in there and do the in
• 1:14
  home. That's all going to close off here in the next twenty four to
• 1:17
  thirty six hours, so you don't have this chance to sort of let a
• 1:22
  visit digest or or flip the momentum back your way. If you're losing momentum.
• 1:27
  Signing period is going to open up here in a few days, and
• 1:30
  that's going to be that, you know, the one silver lining here,
• 1:36
  as I was told that he did, let Ohio State knows was happening.
• 1:40
  So this wasn't a necessarily a sneak in and Ohio State finds out the way
• 1:44
  everyone else does on social media type of thing. But there's no question,
• 1:49
  I mean, it's this is the school that they probably battled the hardest for
• 1:53
  it to get Edric's commitment the first time around. So it's it's a concern
• 1:57
  for sure. And the Buckeye currently as of right now, including Eduardcution,
• 2:01
  have two defensive linemen in their class. It's just him and Eric Mensa,
• 2:07
  the three star who the buck Gys flipped from Virginia Tech this fall. So
• 2:10
  this is not a deep class. And we talked on yesterday show, but
• 2:14
  a couple of guys they could bring in still potentially to this class. But
• 2:20
  this is you know, you only took one Edge player last year, and
• 2:23
  you could you know, you've got guys on the roster you could end up
• 2:25
  moving there. But you know, this is this is one of those spots
• 2:29
  where they really can't afford to even take a small class, let alone.
• 2:35
  You know, theoretically, if he leaves, then you're down to zero current
• 2:38
  currently committed Edge guys. This, you know, in addition to the fact
• 2:43
  that he's a five star, the fact that he's a five star at Edge
• 2:46
  feels like that's a that's a I mean, make that only makes this a
• 2:51
  more concerning for the Buckeyes. I mean, I think he's the most important
• 2:54
  player in the class even more. Like we talked out in yesterday's show,
• 3:00
  we talked about losing Jordan Lyle, and you don't want to lose Jordan Lyle.
• 3:04
  He's a great running back. But you've got another great running back in
• 3:07
  James People's you've got Sam Williams Dixon in the class, You've got Ohio giving
• 3:12
  you possibly two and twenty five if you want to take those two, you
• 3:15
  can find running backs pretty easily. Like you know, if that happens,
• 3:20
  it happens type of thing. And even like someone like Jeremiah Smith, who's
• 3:23
  a generational talent. They bring in five star receivers every year. They've got
• 3:28
  another one in the class in Milon Graham, and they're not going to lose
• 3:30
  Jeremiah Smith. But just to kind of put this in a context of how
• 3:34
  big this would be with Edric Houston is I think he's their second best player
• 3:38
  they've got committed behind Jeremiah Smith. They obviously need defensive ends. Defensive end
• 3:42
  is a premium position. It's this, This is not good if this happens
• 3:47
  to them, this is really bad. If they lose Edric Houston. There's
• 3:51
  no way to sugar coat this one. Yeah. And in addition to the
• 3:53
  positional thing, you might see Alabama in the expanded College Football Playoff starting next
• 4:00
  season and beyond. You know, Tony Gerderman and I have talked about this
• 4:02
  on the Buckeye Weekly podcast a few times. When you lose a player to
• 4:06
  Miami. It's it's like they've sort of fallen into the springfield mystery spot and
• 4:11
  you never see them again unless you happen to be watching a you know,
• 4:15
  the three thirty ABC window when there's not another good game on and it's so,
• 4:18
  look, Wake Wake Forest in Miami. How about that? Are they
• 4:20
  going to go seven and five again this year? I don't know, maybe,
• 4:25
  but will they look? Will they have lots of uh, you know,
• 4:28
  smoke machine and all that stuff. Absolutely? Uh. And if you
• 4:30
  think we're being mean, well go back and look at the last twenty years
• 4:33
  of Miami football. Yeah, Alabama, though, you're gonna see those guys.
• 4:38
  You know, High State's gonna be watching some guys that they lost to
• 4:40
  Alabama playing in the Rose Bowl against Michigan in the playoff. So yeah,
• 4:45
  that that that is definitely a big concern for Ohio State. So with that,
• 4:49
  we're gonna we're gonna slide the recruiting to the side. Now we're going
• 4:53
  to talk about the topic we were planning to talk about in today's show,
• 4:56
  and that is the transfer portal and what's going on with the Buckeyes and the
• 4:59
  portal. We got to start Mark of course with the quarterback position. That's
• 5:02
  what that's all anyone wants to talk about. Pal McCord obviously in the portal
• 5:06
  not coming back, but what what you know, where do things stand now
• 5:11
  with the Buckeyes and maybe bringing in a quarterback? And while you're answering that
• 5:15
  question, also what do you think the answer to this question means about how
• 5:19
  they're managing their name, image and likeness, money, you know, sort
• 5:23
  of in terms of the class on the whole and existing players versus potentially new
• 5:29
  players. Yeah, right now it's looking more like they're going to pass on
• 5:34
  a portal quarterback in terms of bringing in a guy with the notion he's going
• 5:42
  to start or even be a strong competitor for the starting job. What I
• 5:46
  think is probably going to happen at this point is we may see I'll call
• 5:50
  it Chug four point zero at this point, because we had we had Chug
• 5:54
  hopeby So we're a Chug four point zero now I think at this point.
• 5:58
  And that's a depth body to fill out the room eventually, and who knows,
• 6:02
  with with are Nolan coming in early, maybe they just roll with three
• 6:05
  all the way through the spring. Let the kind of drive the competition there,
• 6:11
  but it just doesn't look like they're going to make that all in move
• 6:14
  on any of the portal guys. They kick the tires on cam Ward.
• 6:16
  Doesn't look like anything's any strong push has been made there. You know,
• 6:20
  Riley Leonard was always going to Notre Dame. They they haven't really done anything
• 6:26
  with Will Howard, who would be a guy of interest, and so all
• 6:30
  we can gather at this point is that they're just not gonna make that type
• 6:32
  of push. And you know, yeah, there's there's some This is this
• 6:36
  is more than just these are complicated decisions. This is not we've talked about
• 6:40
  this on the on the site you know this week is this isn't just pay
• 6:44
  do we want a portal quarterback? It's do we want to pay two million
• 6:47
  dollars for a portal quarterback? Because that's the going rate is between one and
• 6:51
  a half and two and a half million dollars. That's what if you want
• 6:54
  to get Malik Murphy, if you want to get Will Howard, if you
• 6:58
  want to get Riley len if you want to get these guys, that's you're
• 7:00
  gonna have to come with an nil package in that vicinity. And so for
• 7:08
  an Ohio State team that again, I can roll your eyes at this if
• 7:12
  you want. They like their quarterback room, they would have. They wanted
• 7:14
  McCord back, they wanted they wanted this to play out, they wanted another
• 7:17
  competition this offseason. They liked the talent in their room. And so if
• 7:20
  you're a high state you look at this and say, well, you know,
• 7:24
  if we've got two million dollars, do we throw that at a portal
• 7:26
  quarterback and then God forbidd he comes in. He's not better than what you
• 7:29
  have anyway, Uh, you know, Devin Brown beats him out or Lincoln
• 7:31
  Keenholtz beats him out, and you just paid two million dollars for a wasted
• 7:38
  roster spot. Or do we take, you know, two million dollars and
• 7:40
  do we try to entice some of these fourth year players to come back instead
• 7:45
  of leaving early for the NFL and kind of shore up some other areas of
• 7:46
  the roster. And that's what it looks like they're doing right now to me.
• 7:51
  Well, one of the other places on the roster they might be interested
• 7:54
  in shoring up is the offensive line. They the line was not good at
• 7:58
  the beginning of the year and kind of Okay Ish decent at the end of
• 8:01
  the year. And they had some success in the portal last year and some
• 8:05
  not success bringing in Josh Simmons, who is the starting left tackle this year,
• 8:09
  who improved quite a bit during the course of the season and ended up
• 8:13
  the year looking pretty solid over there on left side and has another year and
• 8:18
  we'll be back next year and potentially anchoring that left tackle spot again. And
• 8:20
  they also went into the portal and tried to get bring in Vic Cutler and
• 8:24
  that just didn't work out and he never got you never really made a push
• 8:28
  for that starting center job behind Carson Hinzman. This year. There were three
• 8:31
  names we've been talking about quite a bit and the offensive line. Two of
• 8:33
  them are Ohio natives, Carter Smith and Zeke Carrell. Neither of them are
• 8:39
  going to end up with Ohio State. Carell ended up going to North Carolina
• 8:41
  State. Carter Smith ended up walking into the portal and then doing the Homer
• 8:46
  Simpson walking in and in and out of the bordello gift and no, sorry,
• 8:52
  Grandpa Simpson, Sorry sorry sorry? Uh how did I scrup a Simpsons
• 8:56
  reference? I was thinking Homer in the bush. It doesn't anyway, he's
• 9:01
  never going to forgive you. I hope Tony doesn't hear this anyway. Carter
• 9:05
  Smith back back with Indiana. So that leaves one other name that's definitely someone
• 9:09
  who Buckeye recruiting heads will remember. Chase basantis who is someone that they looked
• 9:15
  at very seriously and we're making making a pretty serious runout at a high school.
• 9:18
  He went to Texas A and M. He is now in the portal.
• 9:20
  Is Chase basantis a legitimate you know, does he have a decent chance
• 9:24
  of ending up a Buckeye when all is said and done. They're they're trying,
• 9:28
  you got to get that. You gotta have that official visit, and
• 9:31
  that's what they're working on hammering out right now. It's going to be a
• 9:35
  pretty intense competition for him. I do think he's going to stay north,
• 9:41
  closer to home. Not necessarily, he doesn't have to go to like Rutgers,
• 9:43
  doesn't go right down the street necessarily. But you know, Penn State's
• 9:46
  a school that I've heard a lot as far as the school that Ohio State
• 9:48
  thinks is pretty serious with Chase basantis. So right now, I think Penn
• 9:54
  State or Ohio State would probably be my kind of two favorites. If Ohio
• 9:58
  State can get him on campus. They're optimistic that's going to happen, but
• 10:01
  it hasn't happened yet as of this reporting. So we'll see if they can
• 10:05
  get something set up here in the next few days, at least get something
• 10:09
  on the calendar here as we head toward Christmas. That's not you know,
• 10:11
  so this is gonna be something they get the guy get done here pretty quickly.
• 10:16
  But you know that's the guy they've pushed for. You know, they
• 10:18
  kicked the tires on Correl a little bit, They didn't really do much with
• 10:22
  that. They kicked the tires a little harder on Cardiff Smith, but they
• 10:26
  didn't really go full full bar there either. But they are very much in
• 10:31
  the chase besant to sweepstakes. Well, we will see how that sweep steak
• 10:33
  shakes out. That covers the offensive side of the ball, the defensive side
• 10:37
  of the ball. We get three names here, three names at the three
• 10:41
  different levels of the defense. And I'll just run through the three names and
• 10:45
  the and you know the guys who they're taking a look at, and you
• 10:48
  can tell me if you think any of them are you know, real serious,
• 10:52
  seriously likely to end up as Buckeyes this offseason. UCLA safety Kamuri Ramsey,
• 10:56
  cal linebacker Caleb elam's Or and Michigan State defensive tackle Derek Harmon. Those
• 11:01
  are all people that they have, you know, there's been some mutual interest
• 11:03
  there. Any of them that you think end up you know, are maybe
• 11:07
  the most likely to end up as buck Eyes. Yeah, I think if
• 11:11
  I do, I'll just rank this. I think elam's Or is probably the
• 11:16
  most likely. Now. Elam's Or and Ramsey are both on their official visits
• 11:22
  kind of as we speak right now, but kind of coming into the weekend,
• 11:26
  I've got elams Or as the most likely of those three. They've wanted
• 11:28
  a veteran linebacker. This seems to be their top guy that looks like they're
• 11:33
  making a legitimate push there coming from cal So. I think this has a
• 11:39
  good chance of kind of coming together. We'll see what he says coming out
• 11:43
  of the visit this weekend. But that's one that immediately jumps out to me
• 11:46
  as a guy that can get the Kamario Ramsey one is interesting too. I
• 11:50
  probably have him second. Again, they're gonna need safeties and this isn't so
• 11:54
  much they have to get a starting safety as much as they got to one
• 11:58
  protect against Layth and Ransom going pro. And two, even if Leaythan Ransom
• 12:03
  doesn't go pro, you've lost several bodies to the portal. So you'd really
• 12:05
  like to have another body in there that can not just be a warm body
• 12:09
  on the depth chart, but that can actually drive competition and push for for
• 12:11
  playing time next year. And Ramsey would fit that bill. And he was
• 12:16
  very interested in Ohio State coming out of high school. And I just you
• 12:18
  know, I think Matt Barnes didn't exactly do his best work on that one
• 12:24
  and and sort of maybe didn't make him feel as loved as some of their
• 12:28
  other safety targets at the time, and so you know, ended up ended
• 12:31
  up out West. And but this is a kid who I think very much
• 12:35
  would like to come to Ohio State, and so I think that's one that's
• 12:37
  very possible as well. Harmon. I think that there's a chance there,
• 12:41
  But I don't think they're selling quite the same situation to Harmon, who who
• 12:48
  you know, as as they are maybe to these other guys where they really
• 12:50
  need bodies or they need a body. I think defend the interior of the
• 12:52
  defensive line. There's there's some good buzz right now that they could get at
• 12:56
  least one of those two guys back, between Michael and Tyler Williams, and
• 12:58
  that they're trying to get them both back, So that may be a more
• 13:01
  you know, if they've got them on campus last this past week, but
• 13:05
  that may be more of a wait and see how the NFL draft decisions shake
• 13:09
  out. Well, we will be waiting to see how those NFL draft decisions
• 13:13
  shake out, how the potential Bowl opt out decisions shake out. Still several
• 13:18
  big names that we have not heard one way or the other on, so
• 13:22
  we'll be tracking that over the coming week, tracking the NFL draft decisions,
• 13:26
  tracking the recruiting and the early signing day, and boy it is it is
• 13:31
  almost here. Quite a quite an eventful week ahead and the transfer portal and
• 13:35
  oh yes, by the way, the bowl game coming up in less than
• 13:39
  two weeks, the Cotton Bowl against Missouri. Lots of stuff going on,
• 13:43
  lots of interesting insight and intel and analysis at buckey huddle dot com, our
• 13:48
  whole team of insiders working hard to bring you the absolute latest on all of
• 13:52
  this and much more. You can find us are at bucke huddle dot com
• 13:54
  and of course at YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle. We post pretty much
• 14:00
  constant, a constant stream of podcasts. We're not quite a twenty four hour
• 14:03
  news network, but we're getting We're getting closer and closer every week, it
• 14:05
  seems. Lots of lots of insight, lots of analysis shows, all sorts
• 14:09
  of stuff, highlights, high school football stuff that Mark Mark has been traveling
• 14:13
  all over the place for He'll he'll be on his Southern swing coming up soon.
• 14:18
  Lots of great content there as well at YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle.
• 14:22
  That will do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining us.
• 14:24
  Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.