Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / What Makes Tim Walton Such An Elite Recruiter For Ohio State?

Transcript

What Makes Tim Walton Such An Elite Recruiter For Ohio State? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

• 0:00
  Welcome to Buckeyes Tomorrow morning for Wednesday, February fourteenth. I'm your host,
• 0:03
  Tom Moore. The Akron game in one hundred and ninety nine days, yes,
• 0:07
  we are under two hundred. The game against Michigan in two hundred and
• 0:10
  ninety days, Well we're under three hundred. There, that's something. So
• 0:14
  today we're going to be hearing a little more from Ryan Day. There was
• 0:17
  a lot of stuff he had to talk about. Last week. Kind of
• 0:20
  got the quick synopsis of one of the busiest, craziest months in Ohio State
• 0:24
  football history all in one shot from Ryan Day. So there has been a
• 0:28
  ton to talk about, a lot of interesting storylines. One of them has
• 0:31
  been the incredible success that Ohio State has had on the recruiting trail, especially
• 0:36
  in the defensive back position group. So one of the keys to that success
• 0:41
  has been Tim Walton, the cornerbacks coach. What has made him such a
• 0:46
  great recruiter? When what made Brian Day think that Tim Moulton could potentially do
• 0:50
  something like what he's doing right now? First off, it's his personality and
• 0:55
  his makeup, his character. I can't say enough great things about Tim Walton.
• 1:00
  You know, his background of developing secondary play in the NFL speaks for
• 1:07
  itself and the players that he's worked with. In the testimony, when you
• 1:11
  talk to the players, you know, they speak glowingly of what he's done
• 1:14
  to help them. The next thing was the fact that Tim played here.
• 1:18
  He's a Buckeye and he wanted to help Ohio State, you know, win
• 1:22
  a championship, and that was a big part of it. But then when
• 1:26
  you get around the more, you just realize, you know, he's talented.
• 1:27
  I mean, he's good in a lot of areas. And you know,
• 1:32
  when you're evaluating coaches, you know the first thing is, Okay,
• 1:34
  how are they on the field as a technician, how are they schematically?
• 1:38
  How are they with relating to players? How are they in recruiting? Tim
• 1:42
  does a lot of those things, and so our guys have embraced his mentality.
• 1:48
  I think our secondary is super competitive. I think they want to,
• 1:53
  you know, compete in everything that they're doing. You watch him and go
• 1:56
  through drills. I mean, they're going at it with each other. And
• 1:59
  I think, you know, that really reflects Tim's mentality, and I think
• 2:02
  you can see we have an opportunity to have a really excellent secondary this year,
• 2:06
  and a big part of that is what Tim's doing. And then you're
• 2:07
  seeing the recruiting that he's doing. So I think all those things you know
• 2:13
  I had up to you know, Tim being the best secondary coach in America.
• 2:16
  One of the big additions for Ohio, stating the transfer portal, was
• 2:19
  Quinshawn Judkins, the running back out of Ole Miss. Now this is a
• 2:23
  little bit of an unusual addition because the Buckeyes have a returning starter at running
• 2:28
  back, Travion Henderson is back. So how do you balance how do you
• 2:31
  divide up the carries between Quinn Shawn Judkins, Travon Henderson and oh yeah,
• 2:37
  the other running backs of the team, Dllan Hayden and the two true freshmen.
• 2:40
  Well when at first, you know happened and Quinn Shawn went to the
• 2:45
  portal. The first the first thing was, you know, talking to Trevion
• 2:51
  and you know, what are your thoughts? And he was unbelievable. You
• 2:54
  know, if you think it helps the team, coach, then then let's
• 2:57
  do it. And then you know, talking to Quinn Shawn saying, you
• 3:00
  know, Travion, you know he is here and he's coming back, and
• 3:02
  he said, I'd love to go play with him. I think he you
• 3:05
  know, said that to the media last week, and so I just think
• 3:07
  that both of their approaches are that they you know, they can get each
• 3:10
  other better. But it all started with Travion. And I think Travion's leadership
• 3:15
  so far this year, as he's transitioned into his fourth year, has been
• 3:20
  tremendous. The way that he's gone about his work, the way that he's
• 3:23
  holding guys accountable. He's got a different look in his eye, and I
• 3:27
  think that's important. You know, he's been in these games before, he
• 3:30
  knows. But I'll give quinnchan credit, you know, he he also has
• 3:34
  embraced what we've been in our culture in the next you know, the last
• 3:38
  couple of weeks and we'll see as it grows. But all the reports are
• 3:42
  that he's doing a great job of simulating. But the whole running back room,
• 3:45
  you know and Dallen, you know, James and Sam, that's that's
• 3:47
  a heck of a room and there's a lot of depth there. And when
• 3:51
  I think about next season, you have the your twelve game regular season,
• 3:55
  you have you know, the Big Ten championship game, and then you have
• 3:59
  the twelve team Playoff. I mean, you're talking about possibly maybe sixteen seventeen
• 4:01
  games, and so that's a long run. That's an NFL schedule, and
• 4:05
  so your roster needs to reflect that, and you know, having depth at
• 4:10
  running back will be very, very important. There'll be there'll be a lot
• 4:13
  of carries to go around. One of the new faces in Ohio State's assistant
• 4:16
  coaching staff this year is actually not really a new face. Matt Greary was
• 4:20
  an assistant for the Buckeyes a couple of years ago. He came over when
• 4:24
  Jim Knowles came over. He had worked with Knowles in previous stops, and
• 4:27
  now he's working with Jim Knowles again as the safety's coach. So what made
• 4:30
  him an attractive candidate for the Buckeyes this time? Yeah, I think Matt
• 4:33
  brings a diverse background in terms of his you know, he's been a coordinator,
• 4:38
  he's an excellent teacher. He also has been here before, so the
• 4:41
  guys, you know Lathan and you know, some of the older guys knew
• 4:45
  who Matt was, So it's not just a brand new addition to the staff.
• 4:49
  I think he's going to work really well with Tim back there. He
• 4:51
  knows Jim's system very well, and so that's going to be seamless. He
• 4:58
  knows the system. But in terms of his help on special teams, you
• 5:01
  know, we're going to see how big that is. But I feel like,
• 5:04
  you know, Matt really is a great teacher. He's very intelligent.
• 5:08
  He's been a coordinator before. So you know, we'll see based on how
• 5:13
  that tenth position shakes out, how much responsibility he'll have. There has been
• 5:16
  plenty of narrative around Ohio State success in the transfer portal, around boy,
• 5:21
  they're just buying a team, and oh, they're throwing too much money around.
• 5:25
  And some of that narrative has come from the folks in the Southeastern Conference,
• 5:29
  which, yes, your irony meter should be pegging right about now,
• 5:31
  I would say. So has that been sort of weird to Ryan Day to
• 5:35
  be accused of spending too much money, especially from folks in the SEC.
• 5:40
  Well, I just think recruiting is always going to be competitive. It is,
• 5:45
  and and so that's just you know, kind of how it goes.
• 5:47
  And you know, we're always trying to bring in the best talent we possibly
• 5:51
  can, but also the right culture fit for Ohiose State. And I've said
• 5:56
  this before. You don't just bring anybody in here. But all of these
• 6:00
  guys wanted to be here. I think that's probably the most significant. You
• 6:02
  know, Caleb wanted to be here, Quin Shawn wanted to be here,
• 6:05
  Will wanted to be here. You know, these weren't situations where you know,
• 6:12
  certainly you have to recruit, but we want guys who want to be
• 6:15
  here because in the portal nowadays, that they don't like it, they can
• 6:17
  just leave. So a big part of that is opening up our doors and
• 6:21
  our players, you know, really recruiting our guys, and that's you know,
• 6:26
  really where I think over time, you know, we've built the culture
• 6:30
  of development, We've built the culture where guys enjoy being with each other,
• 6:32
  and that kind of recruits itself over time, and so you know we're counting
• 6:36
  on that to continue to you know, build some momentum in the future.
• 6:40
  But but we know recruiting is very, very competitive, and you know it's
• 6:44
  our job as coaches, certainly as the head coach, to acquire as much
• 6:46
  talent as you can and then you know, go develop it. The Buck
• 6:51
  guys had a remarkable season in terms of keeping players who could have left for
• 6:56
  the NFL draft and keeping them for another year, having them come back to
• 7:00
  sort of finish the mission, as well as adding some guys through the transfer
• 7:02
  portal. So does this year does it feel a little different inside that building
• 7:08
  just behind the scenes right now? I think the administration has been unbelievable.
• 7:13
  I think Jean's been great, you know, and certainly you know, had
• 7:15
  conversations with Ross and and you know, President Carter has been great, you
• 7:19
  know. But and so that that that's been huge to you know, have
• 7:24
  that type of support has always been great. But you know, I just
• 7:28
  think that across college football right now, it's just in a very unique situation
• 7:31
  when you see, you know, some of the coaching changes and then you
• 7:34
  know, we ended up adding three guys from Alabama. It's just there's a
• 7:38
  lot going on right now, and so you know, our guys again,
• 7:44
  I think it all goes back though, to our players coming back. There's
• 7:46
  nothing more important than that. And so we can, you know, talk
• 7:49
  about the recruiting and we can talk about nil, we can talk about all
• 7:51
  that, but ultimately, had a bunch of guys who wanted to come back
• 7:55
  and finish a bunch of business that wasn't finish at the end of last year
• 7:59
  and and maybe you know, the guys across the country recognized that, you
• 8:01
  know, they see our guys, you know, they want to be part
• 8:03
  of our program because of you know, these guys. And I can't give
• 8:09
  them enough credit because to me, I know, we've added some pieces,
• 8:11
  But the guys who decided to come back, to me, that's the real
• 8:13
  story. I think there was a sense towards the end of the season that
• 8:16
  the buck Eyes might get back a good chunk of the players who could have
• 8:22
  left for the NFL, but they ended up getting back virtually everyone. Marvin
• 8:26
  Harrison and Michael Hall were the only two guys who left with plenty of eligibility
• 8:31
  left. So how much bigger was the group coming back than Ryan Day was
• 8:33
  expecting. I don't know. I always felt like, you know, Marv
• 8:37
  was was a top five pick and that was probably going to happen, you
• 8:43
  know, although that wasn't like a done dealer right out of the gate either.
• 8:45
  You know. I think it's hard when you work so hard towards your
• 8:48
  goals and you come up short to just walk away from it. And I
• 8:54
  think that goes to show you not only how competitive our guys are, but
• 8:56
  how much they recognize what being a buck eye is and how much they want
• 9:01
  to be able to come back into this building when they're older and be proud
• 9:03
  of of winning championships and being on the walls and all those types of things.
• 9:07
  And so I think that's really what it came down to in the end.
• 9:13
  Could these some of these guys have gone on to the NFL, Yeah,
• 9:16
  they could have, and they probably would have been drafted fairly high.
• 9:18
  And so when when you have a bunch of guys like that, that shows
• 9:22
  a lot about the character these guys and how much they've embraced being in Columbus
• 9:26
  being buck eyes. Because some of them are from Ohio, like Jack and
• 9:31
  you know some of the guys, but like not all of them. You
• 9:33
  know, they're from different parts of the country. But I think having the
• 9:37
  guys from Ohio, they understand what it means to be a buck eye,
• 9:41
  and they that's their job to make sure they understand the rivalry. But now
• 9:43
  they've lived it, they know what it's like. And that's different when you
• 9:48
  know you're Donovan Jackson coming from Houston or you're you know, JT coming from
• 9:52
  Seattle. You know, now you know after a couple of years of being
• 9:54
  in the rivalry and being at Ohio State and coming up short, you know,
• 9:58
  you want to leave here with something in your pocket, something you're proud
• 10:01
  of. And I think that's what's reverberating for the building right now. Every
• 10:07
  year's football team seems like it has its own kind of personality, for good
• 10:11
  or for ill. What is Ryan Day's view of the personality of this team
• 10:15
  for twenty twenty four. I think it's still being forged. And I think
• 10:20
  it's easy for coaches to put a bunch of slogans on shirts and do those
• 10:24
  types of things. We're just trying to work. We know it's a long
• 10:28
  run to next year, and so you know, we're not getting too worried
• 10:31
  about some of that. Right now. We're trying to do is just just
• 10:35
  just work, Just keep building this thing, keep growing, have a great
• 10:37
  spring, and it's a long journey the next year. And the more veteran
• 10:43
  you are, sometimes the more you recognize that you want to all of a
• 10:46
  sudden fix everything in a month that can't be fixed in a month. This
• 10:50
  is a long road in the next year. And I think our guys know
• 10:52
  that. I think our staff knows that. But but there's there is urgency.
• 10:58
  There's a great look in their eye, and so we'll see. We've
• 11:01
  still got a lot of a lot of runway out here that we've got to
• 11:05
  continue to work through. But but the good news is we got the right
• 11:07
  guys in the seats and that's what's important. Arguably, the top addition for
• 11:13
  the Buckeyes in the transfer portal was safety Caleb Downs. He was a freshman
• 11:16
  All American at Alabama last year and now the buck Eyes have him for potentially
• 11:20
  at least two seasons. So how does adding a player like Caleb Downs help
• 11:26
  take this team to the next level? Yeah, Caleb's he saw what he
• 11:30
  did as a freshman, you know. To say, you know, we're
• 11:33
  all excited to have him part of part of the program is an understatement.
• 11:37
  He brings a lot to the table. You guys have learned that you know,
• 11:39
  won't get into all that right now, but his talents, his talent
• 11:45
  is exceptional. But you know, he's already created unbelievablebleout discipline in his life.
• 11:50
  He's created the skills to play the safety position at a high level.
• 11:54
  But I'll tell you it's fun, you know, because that's secondary. I
• 11:56
  mean, they're competitive now, like they're not going to take a back seat
• 11:58
  to anybody. So everyone sat up a little straighter when he walked in,
• 12:01
  and that was good. But they embraced him. You know, he knows
• 12:05
  those guys through the recruiting process. So it's going to be some some some
• 12:11
  great competition this spring. But you know, he is very, very talented,
• 12:16
  and you know what, do you have one hundred and seven tackles as
• 12:18
  a freshman in the SEC? You know, So, I mean, my
• 12:20
  goodness, it's gonna be fun. The Buck guys have failed to hit any
• 12:24
  of their stated team goals in each of the last three seasons. Those goals,
• 12:28
  as they as they lay them out, are to one beat Michigan,
• 12:31
  two win the Big Ten, and three win the national Championship. So now
• 12:35
  with all of these players coming back, with all these additions to the transfer
• 12:39
  portal, is there a different sense of urgency around the program this year?
• 12:43
  There's always urgency here. You know. If you don't believe that, you
• 12:46
  know, try losing a game, you know, I mean, that's just
• 12:48
  the way it is. So you know, we always have urgency. But
• 12:54
  I think you know, it goes back to the guys that decided to come
• 12:58
  back. He's you know, talking about six or seven guys who are probably
• 13:00
  projecting the first three rounds decided to come back. And then you're seeing you
• 13:03
  know, a bunch of momentum that way. But I think it goes back
• 13:07
  to again the type of culture that's here. And listen, you know,
• 13:11
  you look the last two years, you know, we're a player two away,
• 13:15
  but it didn't happen. And so it's just it hurts, its stings
• 13:18
  all the above, and so we have to figure out a way to chase
• 13:22
  that last you know, few drives of a game to go finish it off
• 13:24
  the way we're supposed to. And you know, when you sit here in
• 13:28
  February, it's such a long way away to get there, but it's motivating
• 13:33
  our guys and there is a great sensurgency in the building. Well, that
• 13:37
  will do it for today's show, and that will do it, I think
• 13:39
  for the Ryan Day interview. I think we have sort of squeezed all the
• 13:41
  juice that we can out of that particular orange. But boy, there was
• 13:45
  a lot to talk about with him, and there's gonna be a lot to
• 13:46
  talk about coming up later this month. As we talk to some of the
• 13:50
  hopefully hopefully talk to some of the new assistant coaches, talk to some of
• 13:54
  the new players, talk to some of the returning players who have come back
• 13:58
  decided to come back for another year. We're hoping to get all those interviews
• 14:01
  coming up this month before spring football kicks off during the first Tuesday in March.
• 14:07
  We will be there for that one. Hopefully we will be there for
• 14:09
  the interviews. We will have a lot to talk about. There's a lot
• 14:11
  to talk about on the recruiting front, there's a lot to talk about potentially
• 14:15
  on the transfer portal front, and you can talk about it all with us
• 14:18
  at buckeyehuddle dot com. That's where we have our fantastic team covering recruiting and
• 14:22
  x's and o's and covering the Buckeyes all there, plus a really vibrant and
• 14:26
  active and energetic and fun community on the huddle board presented by Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse.
• 14:31
  That is all at bucke huddle dot com. That will do it for
• 14:33
  today. Thank you guys all for joining us. Have a great day.
• 14:37
  We will talk to you tomorrow.