Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Ohio State Recruiting: 3 In-State Prospects Who Earned Buckeye Offers
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to buck Eyes tomorrow morning for Thursday, June sixth I'm your host,
- 0:03Tom Moore. The Akron game in eighty six days, the game against Michigan
- 0:06in one hundred and seventy seven days. Ohio State Summer camp season opened yesterday
- 0:12and it opened with a little bit of a bang. A lot of very
- 0:15talented players there, a number of whom earned offers. Today were going to
- 0:18be talking about three guys from within the state of Ohio who have probably been
- 0:23dreaming about an Ohio State offer for quite a while, and if so,
- 0:27those dreams came true. On Wednesday at the Woody Hayes Athletics Center, Mark
- 0:30Kivler of Pucke Huddle was there along with Tony Gerdaman and Kevin Noon. Had
- 0:34the whole had the whole crew out there. We're gonna be out there again
- 0:37to on Thursday. But Mark, let's start talking with Jamir Brown. He
- 0:42is a twenty twenty seven wide receiver. It is not easy to earn an
- 0:47offer from Brian Hartline. It is certainly not easy to earn an offer from
- 0:50Brian Hartline when you're not going to be able to start playing for another three
- 0:54years at the college level. But then you watched Jamir Brown at camp and
- 0:59you went, oh, oh yeah, oh yeah, I get it.
- 1:00I see it. Yeah. He had a great camp, made a lot
- 1:04of plays in one on ones, obviously looked great in drills, kind of
- 1:08a deep or it was like a receiver athlete. But it looks like he's
- 1:11definitely going to be a receiver at the next level. Caught, I think
- 1:15led the team in receiving as a freshman and Caught. They have a few
- 1:18other upper classmen who are our prospects, not not maybe Ohio State caliber prospects,
- 1:23but our prospects, and he had more catches than those guys this past
- 1:26year. So and he can run. I mean someone told me ran a
- 1:30ten to five as a freshman was like runner up in the state one.
- 1:37So he can absolutely fly. Offer makes a lot of sense. He had
- 1:42a great day to day. It was clearly one of the top guys there,
- 1:45regardless of age. So I think we've got a pattern now of Brian
- 1:52Hartline just not being afraid to do this. He did it with Milon Graham
- 1:56at an early age when before he had anything. He offered Chris Henry going
- 2:00into his freshman year, which we weren't sure if he would actually pull a
- 2:02trigger that early on someone, And so we're seeing him kind of trust his
- 2:07eyes, I guess to put it, you know, mildly and just kind
- 2:10of if he sees that, if he thinks he sees something, he's going
- 2:15to just offer. He's not going to look at look at it as an
- 2:17age thing to say, well, I can't he's too young or this or
- 2:20that. So he's been trusting his evaluations, and when there's a kid there
- 2:24that he likes, he pulls the trigger. And the track record there I
- 2:29think would certainly back up the fact that his eyes have been doing a pretty
- 2:32good job of evaluating receivers. You know, I even go back to Jackson
- 2:36Smith and Jigba and Jackson Smith and Jigbo was kind of a little bit of
- 2:38a who but why are they offering a guy who was rated that low?
- 2:43And then you saw what happened with Jackson Smith and Jigba. The track record
- 2:46is there, and you know they they do not give those offers out easily.
- 2:51It's not like he's fire hosing those out to all over the place.
- 2:53They had a lot of talented receivers there, but that was that was the
- 2:57offer that went out to the in state state receiver Jamiri Brown for twenty twenty
- 3:01seven out of Wayne High School. I don't know if I said that,
- 3:04but out of Wayne High School. So that is number one, number two
- 3:07twenty twenty six cornerback Victor Singleton out of Toledo Central Catholic. He was one.
- 3:12I started the thread for the day one of camp on our message board
- 3:15and I said, he is the guy I am perhaps most interested to see
- 3:19if anyone there. The ratings are sort of there at some of the national
- 3:23national sites. It was a top fifty player I think according to two four
- 3:28seven, but didn't have that Ohio state offer until Wednesday, and then he
- 3:31went out there really performed well and earned that offer. Yeah, I'm a
- 3:38huge Victor Singleton fan. He's in my top five in the state of Ohio
- 3:44for twenty twenty six. It has been since I put out those rankings a
- 3:46long time ago. So in fact, I think he was the only guy
- 3:51in the top seven or eight that didn't have an Ohio state offer. So
- 3:53I kind of threw out that piece of the puzzle and just kind of trusted
- 3:59what talking about trusting our eyes, like I trusted my eyes on that one.
- 4:02And he he didn't camp at Ohio State the last two years, and
- 4:05I think that's part of what kind of held him back from maybe getting this
- 4:10earlier. But he was tremendous today. Six feet tall, he's super long,
- 4:15can really kind of cover a lot of ground. He's one of those
- 4:18guys when you're that tall and long, you can you can kind of be
- 4:21on the back hip of the receiver and still be in great position. You
- 4:26don't have to be running directly with the receiver you can. You have to
- 4:29make up potential there with that length. I can be a heck of safety
- 4:33too. But I think you try him at corner first. He was the
- 4:38best player in the state championship game this past year, and and that game
- 4:41had several Power five prospects in it. So just a phenomenal talent. And
- 4:46again was my top guy in Ohio without an Ohio State offer. And I
- 4:50think again one of the one of the maybe six or seven guys in Ohio
- 4:54in this twenty sixth class that could be top one hundred prospects nationally. And
- 4:59in much the same way, you sort of trust Brian Hartline's track record in
- 5:02terms of evaluation and offers and production. I think Tim Walton has certainly worked
- 5:08himself into that same tier of recruiting at Ohio State. So when he throws
- 5:12out an offer to an in state guy at his position group, you kind
- 5:15of go, yeah, I think he probably has a pretty good idea what
- 5:17he's doing. One more defensive back in state who got an offer on Wednesday,
- 5:23Jacob Weatherspoon out of Avon. He's another twenty twenty six prospect. What'd
- 5:27you say out of him? Yeah? And I had seen a lot more
- 5:30Singleton to this point. I had seen Victor in the state championship game.
- 5:33I'd seen him in some camps this offseason. Jacob was kind of a newer
- 5:40I guess evaluation for me. Knew of him, but just hadn't really kind
- 5:45of dove into that one yet. He was tremendous. Another kid, big,
- 5:47strong, athletic kid, bigger than I thought you would be. Another
- 5:51kid who's got a really good track background. So again there's kind of a
- 5:57common theme here. Guys you can run. Sounds silly, but you know
- 6:00it sounds obvious. But skis with track backgrounds who can really go. And
- 6:05again, good size and physicality. I thought, you know, again,
- 6:10one of the guys that jumps out to you when you watch the one on
- 6:13ones and then you kind of figure out who's who out there is go,
- 6:15yeah, that kid was really good today. So that's one I think to
- 6:19watch moving forward, as well as far as potentially being in the class of
- 6:23twenty twenty six for a high state. But boy, it's it's nice to
- 6:27have this this group in state. It's it's kind of crazy what twenty six
- 6:32is doing. And that's even without Chris Henry Junior. Now, who's going
- 6:35to get, you know, thrown into the California rankings. But this is
- 6:40a this is potentially special in state class in twenty six. I'm super excited
- 6:45about it. I've been excited about the top ten to twelve guys for a
- 6:46long time now, but as we start, as Jacob Weatherspoon kind of emerges,
- 6:50as some of these other guys start to emerge, it gets more and
- 6:54more exciting to see that this Ohio class has is fifteen to twenty deep on
- 7:00ready Well And I talked to Tony Gerdaman about this on an episode of Buckeye
- 7:03Weekly that we ran earlier in the week, and I wanted to ask you
- 7:06about it as well. My theory right now is with NIL driving a lot
- 7:12of recruitments and with the transfer portal being something that you know, you get
- 7:15guys from out of state. They you know, they come for a year
- 7:17and sometimes they pop right back in after being on campus for six months or
- 7:21something like that. It feels to me like that might make in state recruiting
- 7:28and building the foundation of your class with Ohio players maybe even more of an
- 7:33important fact, you know, part of that construction of your class than it
- 7:38even was before. And it's you know, Ohio state classes have always been
- 7:41built on the foundation of Ohio players. But you know, do you think
- 7:45that there's some truth to that. I think I think what you're laying out
- 7:50is the ivial way now Ohio has to cooperate and have the talent. There
- 7:56was definitely a lull there, like you know, like twenty nineteen through tw
- 8:00twenty two, twenty one, twenty like they had some some lean years there
- 8:03for a few years, some top heavy classes where yeah, like the top
- 8:07three guys were really good, but then after that it was kind of hard
- 8:09to to work some other guys into the class. I think now you're seeing
- 8:15the talent kind of come back to where we're used to seeing it the last
- 8:18few years. And again, I think twenty six is going to be a
- 8:22really good class. But yeah, I think you want to be able to
- 8:28take eight to twelve Ohio kids if you can, and you know, at
- 8:33the same time, you have to remain relevant nationally. It's it's, you
- 8:37know, the country is like it's never been smaller in the sense that kids
- 8:43are starting to make more broad national decisions versus maybe staying in their regions,
- 8:50staying in their state. I think it's easier to get out of state kids
- 8:54than it used to be. Whether that's social media, whether that's nil,
- 8:58I don't know. I mean, that's be a good kind of case study.
- 9:01But yeah, I think if you can, if Ohio can produce some
- 9:05some you know, elevated classes, some some strong classes, that's you don't
- 9:11have to like to your point, you don't have to play the games you
- 9:16may have to play with a kid from Florida or Texas, you can kind
- 9:18of rely on that and you can rely generally speaking to them to stick it
- 9:24out for a couple extra years if they don't get on the field right away.
- 9:28You know, it's a lot easier for a kid from Georgia or Florida
- 9:31to be like, eh, I'm going to go back to the SEC and
- 9:33go go somewhere and play. If I don't play my first year, then
- 9:37it is for an Ohio kids. So there's there's certainly a lot of positives
- 9:39to being able to get that base from Ohio. And well, they are
- 9:43going to pull the base from Ohio. They are not going to build the
- 9:46whole class out of Ohio. They might build it out of, for example,
- 9:50Louisiana. That is not a place where Ohio State has pulled a ton
- 9:52of kids over the years, but there is some talent down there on the
- 9:56Bayou, and Brian Kelly will not keep it all home home. And on
- 10:01Thursday, the number one player in the class at twenty twenty six, Jeckem
- 10:05Stewart, who is out of Louisiana. He is going to be on campus
- 10:09at Ohio State. This is obviously not an official visit. He's still a
- 10:11twenty twenty six guy right now. I know there's been a little bit of
- 10:13a scuttle but about you know, maybe a reclassification, but none of that
- 10:18has happened yet. So this is an unofficial visit. But Mark. This
- 10:22feels like one that is that this might be one of the most consequential visits
- 10:26of the summer, because if you can get someone from the Deep South to
- 10:30come up to campus on his own dime, that tells you, you know,
- 10:31this is someone who is seriously thinking about Ohio State and as the number
- 10:35one player in the class, that feels like that could be a pretty big
- 10:39deal if they can make some hay on this one. And this is his
- 10:43second visit since mid April, so I mean, he's backing up his talk.
- 10:50You know, we spoke to him on Southern Swing and he's mentioned that
- 10:54Ohio State was his best visit, his spring visit. Now he's gonna get
- 10:56to come back and work with Larry Johnson a little bit in the morning,
- 11:01and we'll see. I'm I'm always going to be a little skeptical of Louisiana,
- 11:09of getting a kid out of Louisiana. That's just what we've seen some
- 11:13guys over the years that they just couldn't quite land that. Being said,
- 11:18you know, I had someone tell me we were on the trip and someone
- 11:22kind of told me that they don't think he's going to LSU. And so
- 11:26if that's true. Once you once you eliminate that you have, everyone has
- 11:31to think they have a shot. It'd be like a five star kid from
- 11:33Ohio and someone you know, he's probably not going to Ohio State. Well,
- 11:37that would give everyone in the country some type of reason to believe that
- 11:41they would have a shot. So I think that's interesting. I think the
- 11:46possible reclassification is interesting because I don't know if you're Ohio State, like you're
- 11:52offtill a good start right now, do you want this to go eighteen more
- 11:54months or do you want this to go six more months? I think you
- 11:56probably want this to maybe go six more months and maybe try and get him
- 12:01back, you know, do the November December official if you officially reclassifies,
- 12:07and so it's it. To me is the most interesting visit of the of
- 12:13the summer of the unofficial visitors. Obviously the official visitors are the big story
- 12:16of June, but to me, this is the most intriguing twenty twenty sixth
- 12:20visit of the summer. And yeah, I'm fascinated to see, you know,
- 12:24we caught up with them a couple of weeks ago. I'm fascinating to
- 12:26see kind of the comments now after working with Arrie Johnson and getting a second
- 12:30look at things well, Mark and Kevin, an Tony and I will all
- 12:33be back out at the Woody. He has Athletics Center on Thursday, watching
- 12:37ja Keem Stewart camp, watching a bunch of other big name players camp as
- 12:39well. This is this is potentially a really really good day, another very
- 12:43interesting day. You saw what about a half dozen or so offers come out
- 12:48of that just that first camp day. It would be a busy month of
- 12:50June over at the wood He has the Athletic Center and of course give me
- 12:54a busy month of June at Buckey Huddle dot com as well, where we're
- 12:58gonna have coverage of all those camps, all the seven on seven's, all
- 13:01that fun stuff that's coming up all month long, along with all the recruiting
- 13:05visits officials, unofficials. Marcus had a ton of good content on the huddle
- 13:09board presented by Jeffruby Steakhouse, lots of interesting insight on how last week's visits
- 13:15went. He kind of put his flag down. Everyone's planted his flag on
- 13:18this one. Everyone was sort of talking about bo Jackson, Oh is he
- 13:20going to go to Georgia? And Mark said, this is it is Ohio
- 13:24State. I'm not moving off of Ohio State and lo and behold Bow and
- 13:26Jack. But Jackson committed to Ohio State. About twenty four hours later,
- 13:31he put that flag down in another prospect as well. You can find out
- 13:33who that is on the huddle board presented by Jeff Ruby Steahouse but become a
- 13:37member of buckey huddle dot com. Got our annual membership sale going on right
- 13:41now. You can get access to the site for a full year for about
- 13:43forty percent off the usual price. Great deal. It is not going to
- 13:48last forever, and there's a lot of content coming this month that you're going
- 13:50to want to get access to, so you should go ahead and sign up
- 13:52for that right now at buckeyehuddle dot com. That'll do it for today.
- 13:56I thank you guys all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll
- 13:58talk to you tomorrow.