Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Ohio State Recruiting Insider: 5 Big Visits Coming In March
Transcript
- 0:01Welcome to Buckeyes Tomorrow Morning for Saturday, February twenty fourth. I'm your host,
- 0:04Tom Moore. The Akron game is in one hundred and eighty nine days.
- 0:08The game against Michigan in two hundred and eighty days. We're doing something
- 0:11a little different on today's show. Wanted to do a recruiting show with Mark
- 0:16Gifler offuckey huddle dot com, and then I listened to the Skull Session recruiting
- 0:19podcasts that Mark did with Kevin noon this week and said, well, that's
- 0:23pretty much exactly what I was going to talk to Mark about. So you're
- 0:26getting a little bit of a bonus episode today. It's actually a little longer
- 0:28than a typical morning show. This is Mark and Kevin on the Skull Session
- 0:32recruiting podcast talking about five visitors who are coming to Ohio State in the month
- 0:37of March. Names you're going to want to know. Names we're going to
- 0:40be talking about in the coming month as spring football kicks off. So this
- 0:44is more or less what we're going to talk about on the show anyway.
- 0:46So Mark and Kevin did a great job on this. If you enjoy this
- 0:50one, make sure you subscribe to the Skull Session Recruiting Podcast. Mark and
- 0:54Kevin do a great job on that show. It is going to be worth
- 0:57your time every every time they drop a new episode. But it is worth
- 1:00your time to go ahead and subscribe to that show right now. Also,
- 1:03if you enjoy this, leave the me a five star rating it and review
- 1:06as well. That's always a nice thing to do. So here it is
- 1:08Mark Givler and Kevin Noon with the Skull Session Recruiting Podcast. Hello everyone,
- 1:15welcome to the Skull Session Recruiting Podcast, brought to you by Buckeye Huddle dot
- 1:18Com. I'm Mark Givler got Kevin Noon with me here today. We are
- 1:23about to come out of a dead period. The month of February is a
- 1:26dead period. No recruiting visitors are allowed on campus, which opens up in
- 1:32March and becomes a big thing. So the Buckeyes will open spring ball March
- 1:37seventh, Kevin, I believe, and then from there we will see a
- 1:44lot of visitors come through throughout the month of March, and so there's some
- 1:48really big visits on deck here the next five or six weeks. I kind
- 1:51of wanted to set the table on that some of these guys there's gonna be
- 1:56different baskets here. Some of these guys are in decision mode right now.
- 2:00These visits are gonna be huge. Some of these guys are more Ohio State
- 2:04kind of needs to get them on campus and get a feel for where Ohio
- 2:07State sits with these kids. And then there's a couple others that are just
- 2:10kind of in state. There's an in state guy we're gonna talk about who
- 2:15doesn't have an offer yet, and you know, that visit may be more
- 2:20of a feeling out process and more of an eyeball test process as the Bucky's
- 2:25trying to find out if they're going to offer or not. So we're gonna
- 2:29go in. You know, we're gonna talk about every March visitor. We
- 2:30don't even know every March visitor yet, but we're gonna go through about five
- 2:34interesting visitors for the month of March that again are all at kind of different
- 2:38parts of their recruiting process and kind of set the table for March. So
- 2:42the first guy we want to talk about is Nolan Davenport. He is a
- 2:47offensive tackle from Masslin Washington High School here in Ohio. He is starting to
- 2:53get a lot of Big Ten interest in offers and is, in my opinion,
- 2:59the next best offensive tackle in the state of Ohio behind Carter Low,
- 3:02who Ohio State obviously has committed. So Nolan is scheduled to visit on March
- 3:07seventh, And this one's kind of a different visit, I think than the
- 3:12other visits we're going to talk about, because again, he doesn't have an
- 3:14offer, but I think he's on the radar enough that there's at least a
- 3:23fifty plus percent chance that he does get an offer. And I think one
- 3:29of the big things Ohio State's wanting to see, and this may not be
- 3:31able to take place until later in the spring or even in June, but
- 3:36I think they want to see how he is able to put on weight,
- 3:40and how he is able to move at that weight, and how he looks
- 3:44at that weight. Nolan was a tight end up until about I don't know,
- 3:49maybe a year and a half two years ago. He is a converted
- 3:52tight end, so he started at offensive tackle obviously this year from Maslin for
- 3:57a state championship winning team. He had a great year, great junior season.
- 4:01At one point was only playing at like two thirty five to forty.
- 4:04I think he's supposed to be up around two fifty five to sixty right now,
- 4:10and so Ohio State's gonna want to kind of eyeball him on this visit,
- 4:14get to know him better. Kevin. It just doesn't feel like they
- 4:18have all these amazing options right now out of state. This could be an
- 4:23important visit just to kind of take the temperature on things and see how close
- 4:27maybe they are to offering right These types of visits now were the see you
- 4:32in camp visits when the calendar was a little slower. You didn't necessarily need
- 4:39to move as quickly and be making these types of decisions. Potentially in March,
- 4:43you could make it to your camps. He is about two sixty.
- 4:47You want to get eyes on him. I mean, obviously he's going to
- 4:50be there checking out Ohio State's spring practice. There's a practice on the seventh,
- 4:56with that being the first week of practice before the buck guys go at
- 5:00spring break and then do all the remainder of spring practice on the back end
- 5:02of the Ohio State spring break. But we've talked about it through the years,
- 5:11well before we ever had podcasts, you know, years and years and
- 5:14years ago that Ohio State and any in state school has to be careful when
- 5:18it comes to how it approaches an in state kid, regardless of it is
- 5:26at a powerhouse school that turns out a lot of talent and you know,
- 5:30your Saint Edge, your mass in Washington's your pickeringt in schools, et cetera,
- 5:33et cetera, et cetera, or a school that turns out a kid
- 5:35wants every blue moon. And when you offer, then you better be ready
- 5:41to accept the offers. So you're not going to see Ohio State paper the
- 5:46state with a ton of offers and then have to back away from things.
- 5:50Slow play kids, whatever, whatever the terminology that you may want to use.
- 5:56So this is going to be an important meeting for the Buck guys to
- 6:01kind of see how how Nolan is growing into an offensive lineman's body if he
- 6:09is still you know, if he still has that type of mobility. I
- 6:12mean, you're not having the benefit of putting him through a camp, but
- 6:16you best know what's going on with somebody before you get to that camp season.
- 6:24Yeah, and so another thing that will help Ohio State here that kind
- 6:29of more of a recent rule change is you know, the state of Ohio
- 6:32is now allowing some football activity in May during the spring evaluation period, So
- 6:38we covered a lot of this stuff last May. High schools would have like
- 6:43pro day type things, or they'd even do some seven on seven stuff and
- 6:46there'd be fifty college coaches there and so they'll get a look at Nolan in
- 6:50May, even though he won't be able to camp with Ohio State yet.
- 6:55So that'll be another key data point I think is getting up to Maslin in
- 7:00May to just watch him go through drills, watch him, just see the
- 7:04progress his body has made and just how he's moving it that weight. But
- 7:08this is a key visit I think for everyone. You know, if you're
- 7:12Nolan, you know you have big ten offers right now. You're getting a
- 7:15lot of interest right now. I think you want to make sure that Ohio
- 7:18State's interest is genuine when you're on your visit. And if you're Ohio State,
- 7:23you want to see, okay, how you're carrying that to sixty and
- 7:28so do I expect an offer to go out on that visit? I would
- 7:31say no, it wouldn't stun me if it did. I mean, he
- 7:35may show up at two seventy and they'd be like, oh my gosh,
- 7:39he looks great. We're going to offer we we like the film, and
- 7:42we liked the film at two fifty. Now he's two seventy, Like,
- 7:44let's just do this. I'm not rolling that out, but I would guess
- 7:48it's maybe more of a may or June. But yeah, so I think
- 7:54that's an interesting visit, and that'll be kind of one of the first visits
- 7:58of the spring session. So that'll be one of the first kind of name
- 8:01guys they bring in. And again with all the talk about offensive line recruiting,
- 8:05I think that'll be an interesting one to watch here and follow the next
- 8:07couple of months. Moving into mid March, this has a completely different dynamic
- 8:16for me. On March eighteenth, Ohio State is set to host to four
- 8:22star defensive linemen from the state of Texas. Both guys are, you know,
- 8:26kind of listed as defensive linemen. I think they're both probably going to
- 8:33be defensive tackles, and that is Gus Cordova out of Lake Travis, familiar
- 8:43familiar school in Austin, Texas, and land and Rink is out of the
- 8:50Houston area. So these guys are again, these are four star prospects.
- 8:56They've got a lot of the big offers down in Texas. You know,
- 9:00it's these are you know, Texas, Texas and m Oklahoma. Those are
- 9:03the those are the guys that are competing with right now. With these two
- 9:07prospects. This is a kind of a different feel in that we've talked a
- 9:13lot about the Midwest and how good that looks for defensive linemen this year and
- 9:18how much that could maybe help Ohio State. So they need to know very
- 9:22early, like you know, you've got all these bodies in Indiana and Ohio
- 9:26and Illinois that you can go after. You need to know by the end
- 9:31of March where you're at with the Texas guys. You don't want to be
- 9:33chasing these guys in October holding off a kid from Indiana who might might be
- 9:39a similar player because you're you're holding out for the guy from Texas who may
- 9:43or may not be a long shot. I mean, I'm not saying that
- 9:46you need to walk away committed in March, but you need to have an
- 9:50idea like, Okay, are we are we in the top two or three?
- 9:54Are we leading? Are we just a hat on the table? And
- 9:56if we're hat on the table, we need to walk away. So that's
- 9:58good me, Big I talked to Land and Rink a little bit this week.
- 10:05He says he's talking to Larry Johnson every day, so that was interesting.
- 10:11You know, Larry's pretty selective with who he talks to every day,
- 10:13so that that kind of raised my eyebrows a little bit. But you know,
- 10:20getting these guys on campus is an important thing, Kevin, and just
- 10:22kind of getting some clarity on where they're at, yeah, exactly, and
- 10:26specifically with Land and Rank being in in the Houston area. Devin Sanchez is
- 10:33somebody I'm sure that could get into his ear as he and his family have
- 10:37both been very active in talking to kids, you know, whether or not
- 10:43it's been just on open Twitter X or whatever the hell we're calling that for
- 10:46that that platform right now, or private messaging text messages. But you do
- 10:52want to know where you stand with these guys because there is so much about
- 10:56being like, Okay, you are going to be a top two team,
- 11:00top three team for this guy. You're in the group, or you're just
- 11:05you know, you're there, and it's great to sit there and say you
- 11:07have an Ohio state offer, but you're not leaving the state, You're not
- 11:11leaving the region, whatever, what have you, and you have to you
- 11:13have to determine these things because no matter how hard you want to work,
- 11:18Mark Pantoni and the coaches and everybody else involved in the recruiting effort, Aaron
- 11:22Dunstan, et cetera, there are only so many, so many widgets that
- 11:30you can have, and you have to figure out where you're going to put
- 11:33In this basket, we're going to put ten, and then this basket we're
- 11:35going to put two, and in this basket we're not going to put any
- 11:39because we're just a hat on the table. As you said, So you
- 11:43want you want to know, and we're talking about seventeen, sixteen, seventeen
- 11:46year old kids and things change. You don't know exactly what you determined in
- 11:52March doesn't mean that that's how the kid is going to feel in May or
- 11:56August or October or December when it comes to I'm to signed, since most
- 12:01kids signed in the early period at this point, but I think these are
- 12:05very important, you know, players for Ohio State to get an idea about,
- 12:09because we've watched last year in Ohio State stayed in on a lot of
- 12:13kids and there were some that I was like, well, I think they're
- 12:16going to get them and things look great, and then it fell apart,
- 12:18including the defensive tackle out of IMG Academy last year that didn't he end up
- 12:24going to Texas if I remember right. So you need to kind of sort
- 12:28all these things out because I think we are going to see with Nil that
- 12:37things are going to level out a little bit. Your top kids are still
- 12:39going to end up at top schools and everything. And both these guys are
- 12:43like four stars, so we're not We're not putting them and just lumping them
- 12:46in the middle. But if you take the temperature and the temperature ain't right,
- 12:52you bet you know it's best to sit there and make sure you're putting
- 12:54widgets and other baskets because there's no reason to, you know, to waste
- 12:58time. But especially again with Landon, you know, and I certainly can
- 13:03talk some on Cordova, guess Cordova as well. I mean, if he's
- 13:05talking to Larry on a daily basis, you know, Larry Johnson has brand
- 13:09new contract for a couple more years. I'm sure he's still being recruited against
- 13:13that he's just seconds away from retirement. But you know, I think that
- 13:18that shows how Larry feels about about about land And in terms of where his
- 13:24recruitment stands. And then certainly with with Gus Cordova coming out of Lake Travis,
- 13:28which is just a you know, a huge talent producing school out of
- 13:31Austin, Ohio state has tried to get in there multiple times. It's had
- 13:33a little bit of success. But yeah, I think that these are both
- 13:37going to be huge, you know, huge visits. And while you know,
- 13:43while we've done Texas before on the Southern Swing and we have it in
- 13:46other years, I mean, if if both of these guys are looking good,
- 13:50maybe I might be able to get some BUCkies in my future out of
- 13:52the state of Texas. Yeah, they were interesting to me. I knew
- 13:56they were, Honestly, I knew they'd offered. I knew they were talking
- 13:58to land In a little bit. But my quick conversation with Landin was kind
- 14:03of a little bit eye opening. So I think that one's especially worth watching.
- 14:09But again, you're gonna be talking about short lists of Texas, Texas
- 14:13and am Oklahoma, Ohio states. Well, who's the outlier and what does
- 14:16that mean? And why are they an out Are they an outlier? Because
- 14:20that's where he's that's where he's leaning or are they an outlier because it looks
- 14:22good on the on the table when you pick Oklahoma or Texas. So it's
- 14:28always interesting trying to decipher some of this. But again they've got to figure
- 14:31this out in March. They've got to know, like, Okay, are
- 14:35you serious about Ohio state? And because if you're not, I if this
- 14:39visit wasn't for you, if you're not gonna leave Texas, if you're not
- 14:43gonna you know, really put too much thought into relieving the region, then
- 14:48you know, let's let's put resources elsewhere. So these are two I think
- 14:52important visits for a high seat to kind of take the temperature that brings us
- 14:58to the next which are enormous visits. I think these look, there's a
- 15:05lot of March visits that haven't been scheduled yet that probably will be scheduled here
- 15:09the next few weeks, but I don't know that we're going to see anyone
- 15:16eclips these two upcoming visits in terms of importance. First one is TJ.
- 15:22Offord, you know, four star linebacker Vero Beach, Florida, March twenty.
- 15:30Third visit March thirtieth. Decision not a not a slam dunk that Ohio
- 15:41State's the last visit, just because there's so many Florida schools involved with him.
- 15:45He could sneak somewhere in Florida before that, but decent chance there's the
- 15:50last visit before he before he sits down and makes his announcements. A lot
- 15:58to unpack there. My personal feeling has been a little high state leads.
- 16:04You know, at some point in the last three or four months, has
- 16:07taken the lead from Florida, who I think was the early team to beat.
- 16:10I think that was before the offers started rolling in and the things really
- 16:14visits started happening, and before the process really got started. I felt like,
- 16:19all things equal, Florida was probably the favorite. But then he visits
- 16:25Ohio State a couple times, he gets around the country a little bit,
- 16:30starts building relationships with all the coaches, the football season happens. I think
- 16:36somewhere along the way, Ohio State took the lead, and so that was
- 16:40my stance. And then you have the Laura Nitis, the James Lauraitis situation,
- 16:45and boy do I think that helped. I don't know. If you
- 16:48don't promote James Laura Nidis and he goes elsewhere, like he goes to the
- 16:56NFL or something. I don't know. If you can win this on March
- 17:00thirtieth, now you might be able to win it back later. I mean,
- 17:04who knows. I mean, nothing's done on March thirtieth. If he
- 17:07can't sign anything on March thirtieth, but I don't think you can get his
- 17:11commitment on March thirtieth. So I think this was huge. I think this
- 17:18was a huge piece of the puzzle for them. Yeah, because we wouldn't
- 17:25have even known if if Ohio State doesn't promote James Lornidis, is it because
- 17:29they bring in another like another defensive line coach as kind of that plan for
- 17:36you know, when Larry hangs it up, they have the air apparent in
- 17:38place in Jim Knowles is still really your linebacker coach? Do they pursue another
- 17:42linebacker coach? You know, we had all of our theories, and certainly
- 17:47we had our sources that were telling us, you know, what things could
- 17:51have been, But we haven't heard point blank from Ryan Day, and we
- 17:53never will hear point blank from Ryan Day exactly how all of that went down
- 17:57with one hundred percent certain So we don't know, We don't know. Ohio
- 18:03State certainly had the opportunity to probably sneak back in because let's be honest,
- 18:07Florida Gators are hot mess. There really are a hot mess right now in
- 18:12terms of their on field product and so on and so forth, and Billy
- 18:17and Apier just has not necessarily worked out there yet. But that doesn't change
- 18:22the fact that when it comes to a March thirtieth decision date that there was
- 18:29a lot of a lot of emphasis that Florida was early on was the team
- 18:36Ohio State. Even around the time of last Southern Swing. He was on
- 18:41the list of kids that we were going to try to see. Vero just
- 18:45was not necessarily somewhere that I think we went through Vero b to like eight
- 18:49pm at night as we were driving down to South Florida just wasn't meant to
- 18:55be on how it was, on how our travels were. But the James
- 18:59Laura Night is fast, Hector is going to be huge, and James Laurnidis
- 19:03when he was kind of the interim tenth coach as they were still sorting things
- 19:07out and recruiting with Ryan Day, I know for a fact that you know
- 19:11he was very impactful with the linebackers that he was getting out and talking to
- 19:15and so on and so forth. So whether or not Ohio State is the
- 19:18last visit on the twenty third, you know that remains to be seen,
- 19:22as you said, just because of proximity. And it's not that hard to
- 19:26jump in the car and throw your son pass in the in the in the
- 19:30in the in the windshield and drive to one of the big three out there
- 19:33or whatever. But you have to like Ohio State's chances right now, especially
- 19:37with James Laurniitis and having that locked in and everything else, and and schools
- 19:41will not be able to recruit against Laurentidas of this unknown future as he is
- 19:47now officially that tenth coach under contract, et cetera, et cetera, et
- 19:51cetera. Yep, So there's gonna be a round of visits here for TJ.
- 19:56He's gonna get to Miami, he's gonna get to UCF. He's very
- 19:59good chance will end up getting like a Florida maybe a Florida State and there
- 20:03as well. He's got a couple more. I think he's trying to set
- 20:04up. So he's gonna try and get to like all his top schools here
- 20:07again before that March thirtieth decision, but the Ohio State one is locked in
- 20:12for the twenty third. I would say it's gonna be Ohio State right now,
- 20:19but obviously we got to get through the visits. I think the I
- 20:25think the timing is phenomenal for Ohio State, with the visit kind of right
- 20:29before the decision with James Laurnitis just being announced. I talked to TJ about
- 20:33that a little bit the other day. There was a story on that on
- 20:37our site, Buckley Huddle dot com. If you didn't check that out,
- 20:40just saying basically I'll paraphrase, but just saying, you know, if I
- 20:42was gonna pick a High State, I would I would want James Laura Nitis
- 20:45to be there, So he's gonna be there, so we'll see. But
- 20:52yeah, I like where High State stands. I think they've got a really
- 20:53good chance to close the close the deal there on that last visit, but
- 21:00we'll see how everything plays out here the next month. There's another visit just
- 21:04a couple of days after that one that is, if not more important,
- 21:12even equally at least equally important. Top one hunter running back Jordan Davison Out
- 21:18of Modern Day is going to arrive on March twenty seventh, and it's going
- 21:23to stay for about like ninety days or something. No, it's like staying
- 21:29through like April. Second. I think he told me so. It's like
- 21:33a five day visit. And as we know from seeing Jordan a camp and
- 21:37some other stuff, you know, he travels with an entourage. I say
- 21:41that tongue in cheek. It's his family. I mean, it's like his
- 21:44his you know, mom and dad and grandparents. He but he bring the
- 21:48whole crew was out last summer, so I suspect there will be a good
- 21:52sized crew coming in with him here this spring. I have always given Ohio
- 22:00Ate an edge here. There's just been a really good feeling for me about
- 22:03this one, just talking to Jordan, talking to people around him, watching
- 22:07what he's doing with all the visits. You know, he's made it a
- 22:10point to get back to Ohio State multiple times. His fourth I want to
- 22:15say, is fourth. Don't hold me to that, but it's he's been
- 22:18down several times already, so he's taking this very seriously. Clearly, Ohio
- 22:27State's prioritized him. This has kind of been their top guy. You know,
- 22:36Alabama, Georgia, Texas have kind of been the three. I think
- 22:40Oregon you could probably throw in there. Those are probably the four I've like
- 22:44thought about. There doesn't seem to be quite as much happening with Georgia right
- 22:48now as maybe there was a year ago. With Alabama. The Saban thing
- 22:55is like, Okay, I don't know how he can. If he's gonna
- 22:59wait until the seven, that's fine, but I don't know how he could
- 23:02make it a spring decision. Just too much uncertainty. I think around Alabama
- 23:07right now, what that's gonna look like moving forward. And so for me,
- 23:10this is kind of Ohio State in Texas right now, with Oregon maybe
- 23:15trying to play spoiler. Jordan has told me in the past he's leaving California,
- 23:19which is why you don't see USC or UCLA or any other schools on
- 23:22there. You know, Oregon's still a West Coast school, but that's far
- 23:26enough of what's not Eugene Oregon is not is not so it's not Orange County,
- 23:32it is not not the same place. So Oregon's get maybe a compromise
- 23:37if if he doesn't want to be that far, if what's gonna you know,
- 23:40be able to get a decent flight. I don't know, but even
- 23:42flights out there are a couple hours. I think people really think that's like
- 23:47it's a hop, skip and a jump, but it's still a decent flight.
- 23:48So he wants to get away from home. Could he pull the trigger
- 23:56out of this? Like, That's what I'm wondering. Can he could?
- 23:59Could they get commitment coming out is I don't think it's out of the question.
- 24:03So many things I want to say here, So let me see if
- 24:06I can say I'm in an order where it makes sense and I get all
- 24:08of my thoughts out. First of all, for like the distance, Yeah,
- 24:11it's like flying from like Jacksonville to like New York City or something like
- 24:17that. I mean it's it's not like it's you know, like a thirty
- 24:21minute flight from from lax to San Francisco or something like that. It's it's
- 24:27it's it's it's a real flight. Modern day has kind of been that Bugaboo
- 24:32School, Ohio State hasn't landed a kid since Niki Sualua. Now remember that
- 24:37is also the school now where Chris Henry Junior is at. So at some
- 24:41point I can stop bringing up the Nicki Sululua thing once Once Chris Henry Junior
- 24:48signs, but he's a twenty six, and Jordan Davison is is a twenty
- 24:52five. Ohio State has a lot of options at running back, and there
- 24:59was a question of how many running backs Ohio State would be able to take
- 25:03in this class of twenty five, and one way or the other, the
- 25:08seas opened up a little bit when Jordan Lyle leaves the class and Ohio State
- 25:14only takes two running backs instead of three running backs in the class of twenty
- 25:17twenty four. Now, Jordan Davison wants to go to Ohio State, He's
- 25:21not going. He's not somebody you're going to say no to. I don't
- 25:23I don't care what anybody says. You take them, You absolutely take them.
- 25:30But with Marquise Davis and Bo Jackson in State, could Jordan Davison just
- 25:34sit there and say I'm going to lock my spot in and at this point
- 25:38and just do that and make Ohio State have to figure out what it wants
- 25:41to do between Marcus Davison and and Bo Jackson and what you know and what
- 25:47happens there. So I know there's been a lot of Texas buzz, certainly
- 25:52amongst Texas writers. I think, you know, I think that that the
- 25:56interest in the Longhorns is very real. And you look at what you look
- 26:00at what Texas has done recently on its ground game and its running game has
- 26:03been more impressive than Ohio States as of late. But now you look at
- 26:07Ohio State with the addition of Quinnhawn Judkins, you look at Ohio State with
- 26:12the addition of Chip Kelly and what his offenses look like. Does that create
- 26:18even more of a comfort factor for when he comes on campus because he's still
- 26:23going to be deciding before he would see any of the on field product from
- 26:27twenty four But I could certainly see an avenue of where he's like, I've
- 26:33seen what I need to see. I mean, of course you're going to
- 26:34have to hang on for dear life because Creuton is s crutin. But I
- 26:38mean I could see a scenario of where this is very much a quick business
- 26:42decision. It I mean, this is a long visit. He took a
- 26:48long visit last summer. They were on campus for like three or four days
- 26:52last summer. So I don't think they need to do this. I really
- 26:59think this is like coming down to the wire. Now it feels like it's
- 27:03coming down to the wire. It feels like these are these are visits that
- 27:07are We're gonna spend as much time as possible on this campus to try and
- 27:12uncover a reason why this doesn't fit. You know, we need to unearth
- 27:19every stone, you know, unturn every overturn every stone. I really think
- 27:23that's what this is. Like I said, they've already done the multi day
- 27:26visit to a high state that done the game day visit, Like they don't
- 27:30need to do this. So if they didn't, if this was like an
- 27:33in and out thing last summer and then they just came in and out for
- 27:37the game and they've never really done anything outside the football facility, this would
- 27:41make more sense in terms of, oh, they just need to see more
- 27:45of the camp, like they've seen everything. So this is a want to
- 27:51Now, this is a you know, we've done what we need to,
- 27:52Now what do we want to do in terms of visiting And so I think
- 27:59it's a very signed for Ohio State. Of course, I'm not going to
- 28:04get overconfident here until like the signature's in in December. But I've just I've
- 28:11always given them the edge here and I'm going to continue to do that,
- 28:14and I think this visit could I really would not shock me if one of
- 28:19two things happened coming out this visit, either a relatively quick decision or something
- 28:27where it just pushes them into the driver's seat. And maybe there's a return
- 28:30official in June to kind of put a stamp on it. But I think
- 28:34I think they're in great position here to put the clamps down on this one,
- 28:40and that would be something. And that, yeah, that gets into
- 28:41all sorts of other discussions of like, Okay, if you can get him
- 28:47early, what do you do about the Ohio kids? What do you do
- 28:52about Byron Lewis, who from everything I've been told, Tony Alford is gonna
- 28:57have to be drug you know, kicking and screaming away from Byron Lewis,
- 29:02Like he's just not going to let that one go. Despite what's happened the
- 29:07last couple of years down there with with Fletcher and Lyle, He's just not
- 29:11willing to to stop recruiting Byron Lewis. So this could lead to a whole
- 29:17different series of decisions that need to be made for sure, But like this
- 29:22has been their guy that they've zeroed in on, and here's their chance with
- 29:26a five day visit. Like, I'll even take the negative side. I'll
- 29:32take the other side. Let's go to the other side of this. So
- 29:34he did this thing last summer where you had them on campus for multiple days.
- 29:40He's done the game, so he's done all this stuff. If you
- 29:42come out of a another you get him on the campus for five more days
- 29:45and you don't feel good about him, what are we doing here? Kids
- 29:52spend two weeks on campus all right, without even taking an official So if
- 29:56you don't feel good about this coming out a five day visit, I don't
- 29:59know what tell you probably need to be wrong, And I don't think that's
- 30:02going to be the case. I mean, I just think this is all
- 30:03setting up very well for them. When recruiting running backs against Texas, Ohio
- 30:10State needs to recruit the grandmother. So it's a good thing that she's part
- 30:12of the entourage. If we remember Bjeon Robinson and everything that that happened there,
- 30:18I mean, I'm I am will never be moved off of my position
- 30:23that if it was not for grandma coming in, Bjon Robinson would have been
- 30:29at Ohio State, so I can share this now. He's in the freaking
- 30:33NFL and we were at the oh what did they call it, the Rivals
- 30:41Challenge five Star Challenge, five Star Challenge. Bijon Robinson told half of that
- 30:49locker room he was going to Ohio State that weekend. And anyone who knows
- 30:56Bijon knows he's not a game player. He's not a person who misleads pre
- 31:03straight shooter. So you know something happened. Yeah, we all believe it
- 31:11was, you know, Grandma and grandpa kind of we want to be closer
- 31:19and it's closer, and please don't go all the way up there and right,
- 31:23but you know, with with with Jordan Davison, you don't you don't
- 31:29load up the family on an unofficial I mean granted, even on an official
- 31:33you can only bring two guardians with you now under under under the newer rules
- 31:37it used to be one. You don't load up everybody and fly two thirds
- 31:42of the way across the country to spend March in Columbus, Ohio because it
- 31:48can snow in Columbus, Ohio into the third week of April. If we're
- 31:52being honest with ourselves, you just don't know whether it could be kind of
- 31:56unpredictable. I would much rather be in Newport Beach, Californi or something along
- 32:00those lines, not that far away from the modern day campus in Santa Ana.
- 32:06So there is definitely something to it. If you're going to spend a
- 32:10grand total of two weeks with the family and everything else, it's serious.
- 32:16Uh, you know. Obviously Ohio State has to do its part and produce
- 32:21a great visit, and I'm sure that'll be the case. And then we'll
- 32:24then we'll see. Then we'll see whether or not, as you said,
- 32:28and official follows in June, just to be the final thing, or if
- 32:30he's like I've seen enough, And then of course we know when it comes
- 32:35to kids as well, and each kid's going to be a little bit different.
- 32:38I'm committed, but do more visits take place after that point? You
- 32:42know? And that's that's something that we can't necessarily predict. I mean though,
- 32:46we do have some kids that are so transparent they're like, I'm going
- 32:50to commit somewhere, but I'm not nearly done. So And and last point,
- 32:54you know, we talked about you talk about Chris Henry Junior a little
- 32:57bit. He's already on it. He's all right working Jordan Davison, He's
- 33:00already working this Sear Wyatt, who's a kind of an outside linebacker edge prospect
- 33:05that James loriniis has taken a liking to. So Chris Henry I kind of
- 33:12joked about it on the board, but there's some truth to it that he's
- 33:14kind of he's kind of an Ohio State plant out there break the modern day
- 33:19curse. Let's send Chris Henry Junior out there covert operation. I don't know,
- 33:24I don't know how COVID it is. It's it's it's I don't think
- 33:30it was planned like that, but I certainly think it's going to play out
- 33:34that way. I mean, he's going to be out there doing the Lord's
- 33:37work in at Modern Day and probably at some other places out there too.
- 33:42So I think Ohio State is gonna be able to take a little bit of
- 33:45advantage of that. So big, big march coming up. You want to
- 33:51be on bucket huddle dot com. Get all the premium information will be dropping
- 33:54on the visits, UH skull sessions, just quick hitters, insight predictions,
- 34:01all the latest intel we get from a monster month of visits. Spring ball
- 34:07again maybe the most highly anticipated spring that we can remember, I mean seven
- 34:15eight years, may I mean at least since maybe the year after the national
- 34:19championship when you still had the quarterback competition going. I mean maybe that certainly
- 34:23fifteen, and I think before that twelve and year one of Urban Meyer Ingham
- 34:29on Office six and seven, how that was going to be. But I
- 34:31think fifteen is the safe answer. Yeah, So great time to sign up
- 34:37for Buckehetdle dot com if you're not already, get all the spring ball updates,
- 34:40all the recruiting updates is gonna be happening. March is gonna be a
- 34:44monster month, so is April. So it's a great time to get started
- 34:46now and give us a shot. If you're watching on YouTube, please hit
- 34:51the like button and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, because that
- 34:53helps other Ohio State fans find us, and if you're listening five star ratings
- 34:59or appreciate it on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you're you're listening, and again
- 35:04that also helps other Ohio State fans and college football fans find us. So
- 35:08I hope everyone enjoyed this episode. We're gonna do some interesting stuff here the
- 35:12next week or two, with some new episodes, we're going to talk about
- 35:14some of our top targets, uh, you know, most important target lists.
- 35:17We're gonna do some cool stuff like that, some interactive stuff. I
- 35:21thin we're gonna do a listener questions episode as well. So keep it locked
- 35:23in here, but appreciate everyone watching, appreciate everyone listening, and we'll talk
- 35:28to you soon