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Football
All Down to One
Henderson Decision Will Shape Perception of 2010 Class
By Brandon CastelNational Signing Day is somewhat like Christmas for college football fans, at least fanatical ones.
The day begins with a rush of excitement as grown men bound down their stairs towards their computer like children in search of a stocking.
They log on with nervous anticipation, hoping earnestly that their school will land signatures from the top high school football players in the country.
Each Letter of Intent coming over the fax machine like an unopened gift, some bigger than others.
For Ohio State fans, there were 18 presents to be opened this signing day, fewer than in years past, but it’s the one big present yet to be opened that has Buckeye fans still waiting, and hoping, on Santa.
At 5 p.m. ET, the nation’s No. 1 prospect will announce his college decision, and the outcome will largely shape the way people perceive Ohio State’s class of 2010.
It’s not often that the success of an entire recruiting year is determined by one player, but such is the case with Seantrel Henderson. The 6-foot-7 offensive tackle out of Saint Paul, Minn. has been the most coveted player in his class for some time now, and for Jim Tressel and his staff, Henderson’s commitment is so close they can taste it.
But if he selects USC, the way many are now predicting he will, all the Buckeyes will be left with is a bad taste in their mouths.
After back-to-back top-five classes, the Buckeyes are having a down recruiting year by most standards. Largely because it has been a strange year in the state of Ohio.
The Bucks only offered about half of the top 15 kids in the state and they missed out on some big names like Jordan Hicks, Spencer Ware, Matt James, Andrew Hendrix and Alex Welch.
It doesn’t help that Erick Howard, the first two-time Ohio Mr. Football since Robert Smith, ended up at Akron because of grades. They’re still waiting on safety Latwan Anderson, but if he sticks with West Virginia, they will end up with only a few of the top 10 kids in their own state.
Despite a down year in Ohio, the Buckeyes did fill the majority of their needs in this recruiting class. They got a quarterback in Taylor Graham who is highly thought of by the people in Chicago. They got two big running backs (Rod Smith and Carlos Hyde). They got a stud offensive tackle (Andrew Norwell) and a big 300-pound defensive tackle (Jonathan Hankins) who can clog the holes on defense. They got a kicker (Drew Basil), a big-time linebacker in Jamel Turner and a bunch of “skill guys” who can play receiver or defensive back.
All-in-all, they did pretty well considering the size of the class, save for one area.
The one need they did not fill was offensive line. In fact, they didn’t even bother to bring in a real tight end, something they could have used with Jake Ballard leaving.
I said a few weeks ago that the success of this class would be determined by the decisions made by Henderson, Matt James and Morgan Moses. Regardless of everything else, finishing with one offensive lineman in the class would be a tremendous failure for the staff, especially considering they didn’t bother to offer a couple of kids they probably should have, Andrew Donnal and Skyler Schofner, two offensive linemen who ended up at Iowa and Michigan State.
Norwell is expected to be a stud, but there is no reason Ohio State shouldn’t be able to recruit three solid offensive line prospects every year.
As it stands, they’re not in terrible shape because they did redshirt three guys last year – Corey Linsley, Jack Mewhort and Sam Longo – but they’re putting way too many eggs in only a few baskets. They always seem to throw last-minute offers at these athlete types like Verlon Reed and Dominique Brown, and it baffles me why they don’t use those extra scholarships to load up on underrated offensive linemen like Donnal and Schofner.
It’s not like they have hit so many homeruns in their offensive line recruiting that they can bank on every kid they sign turning into a star. Kyle Mitchum, Ben Person, Steve Rehring, Jon Skinner, Connor Smith and Evan Blankenship come to mind. Even Jim Cordle never developed into the player many expected, although he did start for three years so it’s unfair to pick on him.
The Buckeyes only took one offensive lineman in 2007 (Evan Blankenship) and now again in 2010 if they are unable to land Henderson.
That’s unacceptable for a program like Ohio State.
Let’s look at Texas, who just played for the national championship. The Longhorns only signed two offensive linemen today, but they have taken a total of 17 in the last five years. In 2006 they took four offensive linemen. In ‘07 they also took four. In ‘08 they took three and in ‘09 they took four again. In 10 they took 2. 17 in 5 years.
Compare that to Ohio State, who have taken only 11 offensive linemen over that same five year span. They took two in ’06, one in 07, three in ‘08, four in ’09 and one in 2010 pending the Henderson decision.
They have eight total offensive linemen from the 08-10 classes. Three are juniors. One is a sophomore. Three are redshirt freshmen and one is a true freshman. You can get by with that, but after 2010 they lose Justin Boren, Bryant Browning, Andrew Miller, Connor Smith and Josh Kerr.
That’s five scholarship offensive linemen, so at some point they’ve got to start replacing these kids if they want to compete with schools like Texas, Alabama and USC on a national stage.
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