| James Cotton by John Porentas "I hate cotton!". That's what my mom used to say as she stood there ironing cotton shirts and pants. Cotton, it seems, produces a lot of wrinkles. That might also prove to be true of James Cotton, the JUCO transfer from City College of San Francisco who joined the Buckeyes last January after signing a letter of intent with Ohio State. Cotton has produced a few new wrinkles in the thinking of the OSU defensive staff, and if things go the way James and the staff are hoping, there are going to be a more than a few quarterbacks around the Big Ten who want to avoid Cotton as much as my mom did so many years ago. Cotton was a standout high school football player, and after his junior season was on the "hit list" of lots of college football recruiters. He played stand-up defensive end in his high school's 5-2 defense, and recruiters thought he could be an outstanding DE or OLB at the college level. Cotton also excelled at basketball, averaging a double double (17 pts, 11 rebounds) as a junior, and was also getting recruiting letters as a basketball player. Just for good measure, he also played baseball and hit .563 as a junior outfielder. Cotton entered his senior season with the expectation of another outstanding football, basketball, and baseball season, and the inevitable flood of recruiting pressure. It was all set, until a knee injury in football crashed all those expectations. "After I hurt my knee, it seemed like a lot of schools backed off of me," Cotton told the O-Zone. "I didn't hear from anyone for basketball because I didn't play my senior season, and a lot of schools stopped calling about football." Despite the knee injury, Cotton still got scholarship offers from Kentucky, Indiana, Purdue and all the MAC schools, but Cotton ended up at City College of San Francisco playing for coach George Rush. Rush made a linebacker out of Cotton, and Cotton starred on a team that was rated in the top five nationally in the JUCO ranks. His second year he racked up up over 100 tackles and had 12 sacks from his middle linebacker position. Being a standout on a standout team draws lots of attention, and lots recruiters were interested in James Cotton, among them OSU's Bill Conley. ."Last Spring a lot of coaches came and watched us practice because we were ranked pretty high in the country. He watched me work out and he liked my work ethic and the way I ran, so he offered me a scholarship," said Cotton. "In high school I dealt with a lot of recruiting and I didn't want to deal with that again, so I nailed it down between Florida State and Ohio State." Both FSU and OSU offered Cotton a scholarship, but Cotton chose the Buckeyes for a number of reasons. "The main thing is that is close to home and they have a great program. They win a lot of games, players improve while they are here, and they send a lot players to the pros, and, I felt I had a better opportunity to play here," said Cotton. Cotton enrolled at OSU last January and joined the Buckeyes in winter conditioning drills and was able to participate in Spring ball. The early start should give him a big jump on the rest of the incoming recruiting class. "It gave me a real big edge because I know what level the coaches want me to play at, and it just got me real familiar with the system and learning the defense," said Cotton. Cotton says that one of the big differences he has noticed already between football at the JUCO level and football at Ohio State is in the strength and conditioning programs. "I'd say we didn't have as much equipment as Ohio State," said Cotton. "and we didn't have a strength and conditioning coach at all. Having Dave Kennedy to work with is a real plus. He gives us different workouts for specific things, like strength and speed,. I have really benefited from his speed workout," said Cotton. Cotton played at 240 pounds last year as a middle linebacker, but is now up to 250, and bench presses a whopping 405, a tremendous lift for a 250 pound guy. Cottons says that his weight and strength increase is due to his work with Kennedy, but the most impressive part of is improvement has come in the area of speed. Cotton says his new best time in the 40 is 4.47, and that he consistently runs the 40 in the 4.52 range. Cotton says he has knocked a full 10th of a second of both of those times since working with Dave Kennedy. With the size and speed that Cotton possesses, the OSU coaching staff can add a wrinkle or two to the defense to take advantage of Cotton's unique physical abilities. Like my mom all those years ago, opposing offenses will have fits coping with OSU's Cotton wrinkles, and opposing quarterbacks might find themselves pressed, creased, folded and put away if they are not careful. Besides being a physical specimen, Cotton is a student of the game and is eager to learn. Cotton says he is impressed with the coaching he is getting at OSU, particularly from his position coach, Shawn Simms. "He's a great guy. He's a good coach. He has taught me a lot of technique and he walked me through a lot of things due to the switch (to DE). He's worked with me a lot. I had a lot of questions to ask since I was changing positions, and he had all the answers to all the questions. He's a patient coach. I look for a coach that knows what he is talking about, and he does," said Cotton. With size, strength, and speed to burn, Cotton does not have to limit his game to any one style of play. "My game is whatever is working, then I'll do that. If they catch on, then I switch up. I'm real versatile," he said. Cotton has all the physical tools to be an effective end, but football is more than physical ability. It is a game of attitude as well, and Cotton seems to have a good one. Part of that stems from his experience with injury. "I like the the physical contact and just everyone putting everything on the line. You never know when it could be your last play," said Cotton. For that reason, he goes at every play, in games and in practice, with the intensity of someone who knows that this might be the last time he will do something that he loves to do. The injury also made something else clear to him, namely that he better be prepared to do something beside football, because a sports career can end any time. "First of all I want to get a degree, because there's life after football," said Cotton. Yet Cotton says football still has a large allure for him. "I just want to get some recognition and get credit for being a hard worker and be one of the guys that the coaches can say 'hey, the guy came in here, busted his butt, and made a name for himself," he said. Though public recognition would be nice, James Cotton is secure enough to know that it isn't important to impress everyone, as long as he is comfortable with himself and the people that matter. "It's kind of important, but as long as I know I am playing fine, and the coaches think highly of it, that's fine with me," said Cotton. With OSU highly ranked going into the season, the level of media attention and public attention the Bucks are sure to receive might be a little much for the average incoming freshman, but Cotton feels his JUCO experience will help him through all that. In fact, he may even have a leg up on some of the older Buckeyes as well. "I feel good about it, because out in Junior College we were ranked number one, between number one and five, every year too. I think that brought more of the player out of me to work even harder to gain that goal of being number one," said Cotton. Cotton says that football is not the only thing that he has had to adjust to. He is majoring in sociology and has a 2.35 GPA for his career at OSU thus far. He finds that academic life at OSU is a bit more challenging than it was on the JUCO level. "It's different because we were on semesters, and it's a bit different coming over from semesters to quarters, but I think that the main difference is that at Ohio State the grades are about one letter grade more difficult." After Spring ball, James Cotton was pencilled into the two deep at DE for OSU. With a bit more seasoning and time to learn the system, it would be easy to see Cotton as a starter for the Bucks at DE. The one thing you can count on is that James will go all out for that goal. If he doesn't earn that starting position, it won't be for lack of effort. |