Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Ohio State Football Insider: Buckeyes Add Five 5-Stars On Wild Signing Day

Transcript

Ohio State Football Insider: Buckeyes Add Five 5-Stars On Wild Signing Day · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

0:00
Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Thursday, December twenty, first time your host
0:03
Tom Moore. The cotton ball game against Missouri in eight days, the game
0:06
against Michigan in three hundred and forty five days. Early Signing Day is now
0:11
in the rearview mirror, or at least mostly in the rearview mirror. It
0:16
is always one of the crazier days on the college football calendar, and we
0:20
got a real inside look at all of the insanity on Wednesday, not one
0:26
but two five star prospects making their final decisions involving the Ohio State while we
0:32
were sitting in the team room at Ohio States. You get to watch Ryan
0:36
Day sort of react to put things live as they happened. His press conference
0:41
got interrupted twice, once by a phone call, once by a Big ten
0:44
Network appearance. It was one of those days, one of those days,
0:49
Tony Gerdaman, that we are going to remember for a long time. I
0:52
suspect as one of the wilder ones on the Ohio State beat. That's always
0:55
one of those fun topics like, oh, it was the craziest day you
0:57
could remember. And just as I was sitting there and they're sitting in there
1:00
watching all of this unfolding around me. I could just feel this day kind
1:04
of like climbing up that list of the crazier days in Ohio State football history.
1:10
Yeah, a major college football coach like Ryan Day doesn't have to answer
1:14
to many people, but ironically, they do have to answer to a five
1:19
star defensive end on the phone when they're making a call. No matter when
1:22
that call is being made, they do have to step away and take it.
1:26
You know, we did Buckeheadle. We did a seven hour signing day
1:30
marathon, and it was basically a tale of two halves, tale of two
1:34
shows, where for the first part of the day, Edrick Houston is drifting
1:40
away and Jeremiah Smith You're not sure what's going to happen there because there are
1:46
reports and rumors that he might be headed to Florida State or Miami or whatever.
1:51
And so this is the tone of the show. And then, you
1:55
know, during that press conference was kind of like the midpoint of the after
1:59
the whole affair, they get both of those guys, although they Ryan Day
2:04
was never able to talk about jered Maya Smith because the letter of hadn't been
2:07
sent in yet, and so the day. The show ends on a much
2:14
happier beat than the one it began on. People in the comments were in
2:17
a good mood. It turns out the sky that stopped falling and it was
2:23
actually returning to its normal glory up in the heavens by the time the show
2:28
was over. And an entertaining day all around, certainly not entertaining for the
2:35
coaches who have to live it. And as Ryan Day said, I think
2:38
maybe after the second sabbatical he took any came back. He's like, now,
2:43
you guys kind of understand what it's like on signing days when things are
2:47
happening and you've got to go step away, or you've got to go do
2:50
this, you got to go do that. Well, And we've seen Ohio
2:53
State football seasons sort of hinge on one thing, one tiny little thing that's
2:59
going to be difference between they beat Michigan or they don't beat Michigan. You
3:02
know. Branday was asked at one point during the press conference about Josh Shimman
3:07
stepping on Donovan Jackson's foot, and then that led to Cale mccorr getting pressured
3:12
and hit right as he was throwing it, and that was the difference between
3:14
an interception and potentially completion on that last drive. And you know, this
3:16
is after all the Jeremiah Smith stuff had happened, and maybe the Edric Houston
3:21
stuff too, and he just was like, I understand what you're asking,
3:23
but man like it was basically, don't harsh my vibe. Man was the
3:28
sort of the answer there, and then he went on and answered it.
3:30
But it was it was so crazy that they, you know, Jeremiah Smith
3:35
deciding between Miami and Ohio State swings the narrative so much, and Edward Houston
3:40
deciding between Alabama and Ohio State, and both of those, by all accounts,
3:45
came down to the day and just as of the time of recording,
3:47
which is four fifty five Eastern time, Jeremy Smith Jeremiah Smith has not actually
3:52
technically sent in his letter of in ten Ohio State, has not tweeted anything
3:54
out officially announcing him as part of the class, so the drama may or
3:59
may not actually be done there. There was a tweet from many Navarrow,
4:02
who was on the scene at Jeremiah Smith's announcement. He said, Jeremiah Smith
4:05
said he had two hats in his bag Miami in Ohio State He ultimately decided
4:10
in a final two minutes he wanted to go to a place with the strong,
4:13
strong track record of first round picks. That was the difference. You
4:17
want to know why the Ohio state head football coaching job ages people faster than
4:23
the US presidency. That's why. Because there's a kid in South Florida sitting
4:27
with two hats in a bag, and after years and years of recruiting,
4:30
it comes down to what is he feeling right before he announces? I can't
4:36
you know, we got to see Ryan Day. He just he hit like
4:40
it was a little theatrical, but his knees buckled a little bit as he
4:45
was sort of like processing the news. Mark Pantoni sort of popped in the
4:47
back door and gave him, I don't know, thumbs up or something to
4:50
indicate like, yes, the news is the good news. They couldn't officially
4:55
announce it until Jeremiah Smith signed it, but signed, but man, it
4:59
was just you get a sense for what life is like and how stressful things
5:03
are in that building on a day like this. Yeah, and I agree.
5:06
Though the leg buckle was a little bit theatrical, he did that for
5:11
effect, but you could also hear his breathing at his speech after that that
5:15
was to me, not theatrical, that was legitimate, like the sigh of
5:20
relief, the you know, the concern that things weren't going your way,
5:25
the avoidance of that narrative that could have turned with just that guy leaving.
5:33
And so you get to keep him, we believe at this point, and
5:40
you got you got the crown of the class there and obviously keeping Edrick Houston.
5:45
You're just able to keep things, keep the wolves at bay basically with
5:49
with those two things, and you lose Jeremiah McClelland the four star wide receiver
5:56
who switched and flipped to Oregon, but that all gets that gets wiped away,
6:03
that gets kind of overshadowed by the fact that you kept Jeremiah Smith.
6:10
It's kind of like, you know, twenty thirteen when they re kept Ezekiel
6:15
Elliott. You know, you get these things that that's what makes some of
6:18
the signing day signing days themselves a winner loss. Like if you have somebody
6:25
that just creates some drama and sides with you even though they've been with you
6:29
all along, it can make the day seem like a win, whereas if
6:32
they had said nothing, and there's no drama, and they signed with you
6:35
and they were the third person to send their facts, and it's like,
6:40
yeah, that was that's great, But what's happening at two pm? You
6:44
know, if you don't have the right kind of drama day, signing day
6:48
can seem you know, disappointing because a lot of times the only drama is
6:53
bad drama. Most times the only drama is bad drama, especially on signing
6:57
day for Ohio State. Well, and the Jeremiah McClellan flipped to Oregon was
7:02
a little bit of bad drama. But it feels like that that was almost
7:06
a forgotten part of the day very quickly, because I mean, first of
7:10
all, where is Ohio State best position to lose a high four star and
7:15
just kind of go, yeah, I don't worry about it. We got
7:16
a bunch of others. Wide receiver seems like, yeah, if you were
7:19
going to choose a unit to lose a high four star off of wide receiver
7:24
feels like the one where they would say, Okay, you know you have
7:27
the depth there that it's not as much of a concern. You know,
7:30
assuming Jeremiah Smith does sign, you got the guy you absolutely had to get
7:34
out of that class, out of that wide receiver position, you know,
7:40
the well you can kind of hand wave it to a certain degree. Was
7:42
absolutely not the case with Edric Houston. He was you know, they had
7:46
already lost Justin Scott in the class. They had missed out on several other
7:50
defensive ends in the class as well, and so Edwarck Houston when he started
7:56
waffling a little bit towards the end of the process, he took a visit
7:59
to Clemson, took a visit to Alabama. There was a lot of smoke
8:03
from some very respected national recruiting people who are not just sort of drumming up
8:07
drama. There was a lot of smoke from a couple of those guys that
8:11
Alabama was trending with Edric Houston and it looked like he was slipping away from
8:13
Ohio State. That was the phone call that Ryan Day left the room to
8:18
take. He walked out to talk to Edric Houston, was gone maybe ten
8:22
minutes or so, and then came back in in a great mood, I
8:26
mean, like big smile on his face. There was nothing theatrical about it.
8:30
It was just, you know, I we thought back to the end
8:33
of the twenty nineteen Michigan game when he was asked, it might have been
8:37
you who asked him, you know, what are you feeling right now?
8:39
Is it you know, excitement and joy or is it relief? And it
8:43
looked like maybe a little bit of both for Ryan Day, And he couldn't
8:46
say exactly what the news was. But then a few minutes later the Edward
8:50
Houston staying with Ohio State News broke and so it was pretty clear why Ryan
8:56
Day was in such a good mood. But that was one where that was
9:00
when you couldn't lose because they were thin at the defensive end position in the
9:01
twenty twenty two class or twenty twenty three class. Now in twenty twenty four,
9:07
he's their only edge player so far. We'll get to the you know
9:11
what could what else could be coming in a little bit, But you know,
9:13
that was one where you had to get execution. There was no you
9:18
know, there was no fallback play that was like, well almost as good.
9:22
That was the difference between you've got a great player in a probably too
9:26
small class and this is a disaster. Yeah, when what guy could double
9:35
your class size, that tells you how how small that class was. Looking
9:39
to be and then not to just double it. You'll go from one to
9:43
two. But a guy that is very, very talented and right I think
9:48
Rand that they expect him to play next year as a true freshman. So
9:52
now you've got somebody that adds to the depth, not just adds to your
9:56
class, but ads to the depth next year. And you know it,
10:00
maybe more importantly adds to the depth in twenty twenty five when maybe if you
10:05
get Jack Sawyer, you get J T. Twee mullowile back next year than
10:09
twenty twenty five is the year where everybody else needs to step up even more
10:13
so. So yeah, this is another one where you're chasing away the narrative
10:16
and you close and defensive end has been so difficult for Ohio State the last
10:22
few years to land the five stars that they're leading for forever and then they
10:28
go off to their different places, and you know, it's like they go
10:31
to Ohio State for summer camp to make friends for life, and it's like,
10:35
oh, okay, you know, we'll stay in touch forever, and
10:37
then they all go their separate ways and they never speak again. And that's
10:41
what defensive and recruiting has been like. For Ohio State. But it was
10:45
interesting to me that Ryan da Minch said that Larry Johnson is expected to be
10:48
back next year, and I wonder how much that went into Edrick Houston's decision
10:54
as well, where you know, at this point it seems like there's going
11:00
to be no change there, which is what somebody who's being recruited wants to
11:03
hear. So you know, they got the guy they needed to get.
11:09
And now so you got what interior guy, what exterior guy? And maybe,
11:13
like you said, there may be more coming well, and the more
11:16
coming could be Dominic Kirks. He is a defensive line prospect, defensive end
11:22
out of Painesville, Ohio that's up in the Cleveland area, ranked two hundred
11:26
and fifty first overall in the nation, thirty third ranked defensive lineman in the
11:31
two four to seven Composite, twelve ranked player in the state of Ohio,
11:33
and he's someone who Ohio State has had in for a visit, and I
11:37
think there's just sort of been a little bit of a division on the Ohio
11:39
State coaching staff. Do you offer him, do you not offer him?
11:43
He hasn't hadn't been offered, hadn't been offered hadn't been offered. You got
11:46
the signing day he was expected to sign with Washington, who's been committed to
11:50
for quite a while now, and then he didn't sign with Washington. He
11:56
committed to Washington at the end of June. He had visited Ohio state this
11:58
far, and as of five pm on the East East Coast, he's still
12:03
not signed with Washington. There's a lot of smoke that he may be,
12:07
you know, Oo State, maybe trying to get back involved there and that
12:09
may be part of the decision, you know, the delay in signing with
12:13
Washington. This is another one Tony that feels like after taking a thin defensive
12:20
line class, especially at the end position last year, you can't just take
12:26
two guys. They get Eric Mensa and the interior they got Edric Houston on
12:28
the on the edge. It feels like I have been waiting for them to
12:33
offer Dominic Kirks for months and months and months, and it hasn't happened.
12:35
It hasn't happened. It hasn't happened. It feels like maybe they might try
12:39
and swoop in at the eleventh hour. They just stole Lincoln Keenholes from Washington
12:43
last year. He was a Washington commit before he signed with Ohio State.
12:48
They you know, if they can do it again here, it would not
12:50
only be big for the defensive line class and for Larry Johnson, but it
12:54
would also probably set the Ohio State Washington rivalry up for a little bit of
13:00
drama when they become conference mates next season. Well, and I said this
13:03
on the live show in signing days, this is part of the danger in
13:09
a Washington coach going after an Ohio player, where sure Ohio State may not
13:13
be interested in them now, but they're going to keep an eye on him,
13:16
and if they need to come in and swoop in later on, you're
13:20
gonna have to deal with that. And you know, Caylen de Bor can
13:24
talk about loyalty and we've been with you the entire way, but what does
13:28
Kaylen Debor say to his quarterbacks? And he's recruited and he is also bringing
13:33
in transfers to start over them. So this is this is a two way
13:35
street in terms of loyalty, and so every player has to do what is
13:39
best for them now. Obviously, Dominic Kirks loved fell in love with Washington
13:46
and he may still end up being you know, going there, but this
13:50
is also a very serious decision, so it's I guess we shouldn't be surprised
13:54
that something like this would take a long time once the home school gets involved.
14:01
You know, a lot of guys in his position grow up dreaming of
14:05
playing for the home school, whether it's Ohio State, whether it's Michigan,
14:07
Penn State, whatever, and then that dream kind of goes away, and
14:13
so you move on. But then you get a knock on the door or
14:16
call on your phone and say, hey, that's your dream, and not
14:20
knowing that it is even his dream. But we've seen this play out so
14:24
many times before and recruiting that this can be hard to overcome for an out
14:30
of state school. Of course, we've also seen where kids can get really
14:35
hardened if they don't get an offer from that end state school and really just
14:41
build up a callus towards that school and be like, there's nothing you can
14:43
do. You have scarred me, you have hurt me, you know,
14:46
disrespected me, all of those things. I can't wait to beat you when
14:52
you know, when Washington joins the Big ten or whatever like that. Sometimes
14:56
this is how heroes are made and sometimes it's how villains are made. Well,
15:01
Dominic Kirks. Jeremiah Smith still technically up in the air right now until
15:05
the ink is on the paper and the paper is emailed, not facts in.
15:11
It's not official yet. But I did want to take a look at
15:15
the class on the whole because you can. This is one of these things,
15:18
like it's remember the dress, and it was like some people thought it
15:22
was green or blue or whatever, and some people thought it was like black
15:24
and gold, and it's like, how could you possibly see it this way?
15:26
And it was just some people saw it one way, somewhere sleeping.
15:30
Some people saw it the other. The Ohio State twenty twenty four recruiting class
15:33
is like the dress in recruiting class form. Here's the pro The Buckeye signed
15:39
five five stars in the two four to seven composite if you include Jeremiah Smith.
15:43
That's the most of any team, more five stars than a two four
15:46
to seven composite than any other team. Jeremiah Smith, Mylin Graham, Edward
15:50
Houston, Aaron Scott, air Noland. They have two corner cornerbacks ranked in
15:54
the top sixty overall classes, third overall in the nation, classes, second
16:00
in average player rating behind only Georgia and ahead of Alabama. So if you're
16:06
recruiting in that area, it is a great class. However, right now
16:11
they have two defensive linemen committed. They needed to be taking like five this
16:15
year they got. They have four offensive linemen, but they just have not
16:18
been able to add that one premium national guy, the Jordan Seaton type who
16:25
is speaking of signing day drama, currently not signed, even though he committed
16:27
to Colorado a few weeks ago, rumors possible flip to Maryland of all places,
16:33
keep an eye on that for you. But you know, it felt
16:36
like, boy, in some ways, this is such a great class.
16:41
In some ways, boy, they are. They fell short in some areas
16:45
where they really couldn't afford to fall short this year. But it, you
16:52
know, landing Edward Houston means maybe it's okay in the defensive line room.
16:57
If it's not spectacular, it's a lot better than it could have been.
17:00
So I don't know. At this point. Let's just assume Jeremiah Smith science
17:04
and you know, call Dominic Kirks of you know whatever, fifty to fifty.
17:10
What is this class to you? What I mean, it's gonna finish
17:15
top five most likely, And right now I think it is the number five
17:18
class in the composite, like you said, and yeah, you look at
17:23
the class for the misses, because sometimes the misses are what cost you,
17:33
you know, like with the defensive line class as it is right now,
17:38
and you combined it with the defensive ends that they recruited last year that they
17:42
didn't get, you start to put these things together and that becomes the story
17:49
of this class being a successor. Everybody wants to have the number one class
17:55
in the nation, but you also have to have the right guys. And
18:00
we came into this thinking that Ohio State into this recruiting cycle thinking Ohio State
18:04
is going to get between twenty seven and thirty players because they could because of
18:08
the way things are now. And they're sitting at twenty one commits, twenty
18:15
one signtees eight nineteen sinetyis whatever it is at this point twenty and maybe they'll
18:21
add in some more between now and February. They are not a lot of
18:23
names out there, so they're not going to hit that. I don't think
18:27
they're going to hit that twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine number.
18:30
So you make that up in the portal. But also they're waiting for certain
18:36
guys to leave before they decide if they want to go after anybody in the
18:38
portal at those positions. And as Ryan Day said, they're at like eighty
18:42
two or eighty three scholarships right now in time. I found it interesting that
18:48
Ryan Day never talks about scholarship numbers when they're over, and the only time
18:52
he talked about it recently is when he was asked if they did well enough
18:56
in their defensive line numbers in this class, and it's like, well,
19:00
you know, we have like eighty three or eighty two eighty three scholarships,
19:03
so we don't really have much room remaining. And it was just interesting to
19:07
me that, you know, they've never had an issue going over before,
19:12
and now in defense of the numbers on the defensive line, he's said,
19:17
well, we can't go over. Yeah. I mean, this is not
19:22
the deadline where you can't be over eighty five that comes in August, and
19:26
you got to figure there's going to be NFL draft declarations in January and there's
19:30
going to be another wave of transfers after next spring, possibly transfers in and
19:34
out. So yeah, the number right now, I think most college coaches
19:40
are going to treat that as almost meaningless. So in Ohio state has certainly
19:44
seemed like they did not treat it as particularly meaningful in the past. So
19:48
I'm not sure how much stock they really put in that as a deciding factor
19:51
on whether to take guys or not, but they're going to be. There
19:55
will probably be more names in this on this roster between now and med January
20:00
or so, when some of those NFL draft declarations take place. He talked
20:03
about potentially going into the portal to add some guys. You're gonna have some
20:07
NFL draft decisions coming up, gonna have some guys making decisions on playing or
20:11
not playing in the Cotton Bowl coming up. Got to well, we'll find
20:17
out whether tomorrow's show we know where whether Jeremiah Smith has signed or not.
20:21
By tomorrow's show, we will find out whether Dominic Kirks has signed somewhere by
20:25
tomorrow's show. There's a whole bunch more, a whole bunch more to talk
20:27
about uh here at YouTube dot com, slash bucke Hudle on your podcast platform
20:32
of choice, and of course at buckey huddle dot com, where we had
20:34
a very long and active signing day thread. It had a very long,
20:38
what seven hour live show on our YouTube channel. Mark and Kevin and Tony
20:42
and I all on there for a little bit talking, answering thousands of questions
20:48
it felt like, and much more so. Make sure you check us out
20:51
at bucke huddle dot com, YouTube dot com, slash bucke Huddle, and
20:53
on your podcast platform of choice. We'll be back with plenty more to talk
20:57
about on recruiting and the transfer portal and the Cotton Bowl and u oh yeah,
21:03
Michigan got the notice of applications dumped on them by the NCAA on Wednesday.
21:07
Probably talk about that at some point as well. All at buckeyehuddle dot
21:11
com. Thank you guys all for joining us. Have a great day.
21:14
We'll talk to you tomorrow.