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Joseph Hastings’ Report
Spoke with Arch Manning’s head coach earlier today
For anyone that has followed Arch Manning’s recruitment, you would know that he does not conduct interviews on a regular basis.
So, instead of trying to get in touch with Manning himself, I reached out to Nelson Stewart, his head coach at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans (Louisiana). During our conversation, Stewart shed some insight into Ohio State’s pursuit of the No. 1 overall 2023 prospect.
First of all, Stewart said that an offer from the Buckeyes may be coming soon. He told me that the coaching staff wants to see him in person – potentially for a game this upcoming season– prior to giving him the green light.
Even so, Stewart noted that Corey Dennis, the staff member he’s been speaking with the most, was one of the first coaches to reach out to him about Manning. Stewart says the interest is high and that they’ve been recruiting him for a while now, so the offer would be more of a formality than anything else. He even jokingly said to the staff that they can offer him, but Manning or the school never publicizes it on Twitter as that’s not his cup of tea.
The second major takeaway is that Manning is reciprocating interest in the Buckeyes program. He’s well-aware of Ryan Day’s track record with developing players at his position, the pro-style system they run in Columbus, and wants to see the school in person for himself.
The family is eyeing a trip to Columbus and/or Notre Dame this year if they can fit it into his busy football schedule. They actually had previously eyed a visit in late July, but that never materialized.
Also, not surprisingly, Stewart did say that Quinn Ewers’ reclassification to the 2021 class led to Ohio State picking up their pursuit of Manning. In fact, the day Ewers announced that he would be enrolling at the school this month, Dennis wasted no time and called Stewart at 2:30 p.m. to inform him that Manning could be a real possibility for them.
We expected this to be the case as pitching Manning on waiting two years to sit behind Ewers would have been a difficult task; now, their message will be to just wait a year before taking over the reins.
I’ll have a full article with quotes from my conversation with Stewart tomorrow morning, but I wanted to pass this along to show that Ohio State is indeed actively recruiting Manning and an offer may be coming soon.
Addressing Caleb Burton
I was initially contemplating not addressing this topic, but I wanted to get ahead of it before it made it to The Horseshoe Lounge.
A few fans on social media have noticed that Caleb Burton seemingly removing anything Ohio State-related from his Instagram bio. Also, Burton’s profile pic is no longer a picture of him, rather it’s a standard placeholder picture.
This is somewhat similar to what Jaheim Singletary did prior to decommitting, which put people on edge regarding Burton’s status with the program.
While some have wondered if there’s anything to this, I’m told that is not the case. In fact, it was described to me that Burton “is forever a Buckeye” and there’s no reason to be concerned about what happened on his Instagram.
Also, Burton still has his Ohio State official visit pictures pinned to the top of his Twitter, and his bio there still reads “WR at Ohio State.”
Some are a little on edge given the two recent decommitments and fear of future departures, but I think Burton is still solid with the program.
Staff Report
Saturday Scrimmage Notes
The Buckeyes completed their first scrimmage of the fall practice season and the overall perception is that things went well for Ryan Day's squad.
It was not a full-go as a few key players were held out of competition for various bumps and/or bruises, but the overall health of the team is pretty good, all things considered.
Ohio State is not ready to call the quarterback competition at this point, but we would be completely shocked if it is not CJ Stroud coming off the heels of a strong outing at the scrimmage.
At this point, we feel that Kyle McCord may have taken a small step up on Jack Miller, but it is close and it would not surprise us if Miller were next man up if Ohio State is able to play more than one quarterback against Minnesota, it is really close.
The addition of Quinn Ewers to practice next week will add another player to the battle but it is going to take some time for the reclassified player to have a chance to really get into the mix, especially with two weeks of camp left before "game week" is here.
In more "non-surprising" news, TreVeyon Henderson is the real deal, plain and simple. Now, how will he react when opposing teams are reaching to strip the ball? How will he look in actual blocking situations? That remains to be seen.
But when it comes to what Ohio State has gone through for the first couple of weeks of camp, Henderson may be better than advertised.
Now, safe money is still on Master Teague being the guy to start the season, at least the first guy for series one of game one with Miyan Williams right there as well. But Henderson is the wild card and if he holds up and avoids some of those freshman mistakes that we see, it is going to be impossible to keep him off the field.
The usual suspects at receiver got the conversation at receiver, you can't have guys like Olave/Wilson/Smith-Njigba without them dominating the headlines. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Of course, people feel good about the offense and want to know where the defense is and that is the million-dollar question.
According to multiple sources, the defense had a strong outing in the scrimmage and while they are used to seeing this offense on a daily basis, the defense really had themselves a strong outing and expectations should be high for this unit.
I am not sure if I am asked more about linebacker or the secondary, with both being the majority of my sports conversation when I am out and talk to someone and they find out that I cover Ohio State football.
Let's just start by saying that Teradja Mitchell has locked down his spot within the linebacker corps… he is just a solid performer and while he doesn't have a resume of "superhuman" plays, he is just a complete player that does what is expected of him, doesn't make mistakes and will still create some wow moments.
We like Dallas Gant to lock down his spot but don't tell Cody Simon, who is not going down without a fight. If you put our feet to the fire, we will say Gant will be there for play one against Minnesota, but Simon is going to play.
Craig Young is your bullet.
We didn't get a lot of individual notes on the secondary from the scrimmage. Now, the natural inclination is that means that nobody did well. but we remind you that sometimes you just have to remember who you are talking to and what their focus is.
We will continue to dig here, but just didn't have anything strong enough to report.
Finally, a lot of questions about the offensive line and what that will look like. We had multiple people rave about the depth of the line. We are not that far removed from Ohio State having 6 or 6.5 linemen who could go out there and play if needed, total.
When you start five, that means having a utility guy and a guy who was half-ready was a scary proposition. This team is more than 10-deep now in terms of line and each practice we hear about another player who has had his "a-ha" moment and seems to have emerged from the pack into the mix.
While Donovan Jackson is only a true freshman, you better start to learn who he is. 2021 may not be his year, but 2022 will be as will 2023 and then he will have a decision to make after that year. All of the talk around him may have actually even undersold him; he is going to be that good.
We will make another run at a few people this week and see what else comes out, but this is a good first run at what we heard from a few people in the know from the scrimmage.
Griffin Strom’s Report
Fall Camp Highlights
As of Sunday, Ohio State is nearly two weeks and 10 practices deep into fall camp ahead of its Sept. 2 season opener, and even if we are still awaiting the announcement for a starting quarterback, captains and other important distinctions, there were plenty of developments to sink our teeth into this past week.
Perhaps chief among them was the new-look offensive line that the Buckeyes unveiled in practice this past Tuesday, which included redshirt junior Nicholas Petit-Frere moving from right to left tackle, longtime starting left tackle Thayer Munford sliding to left guard and junior Dawand Jones stepping into a first-team spot at right tackle.
Offensive line coach Greg Studrawa sounded nothing short of bullish on the new lineup up front, although he said that nothing would be set in stone until after Saturday’s scrimmage. Not to mention, Munford missed a couple days of practice following his appearance with the media on Tuesday, with offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson hinting at a minor injury but saying Friday that his absence shouldn’t be cause for much concern.
Aside from Studrawa and the offensive linemen, we also got a chance to speak to the Buckeye linebacker corps on Thursday, when position coach Al Washington revealed that senior Teradja Mitchell has emerged as a leader both on and off the field for the unit.
Washington said the group has matured and that he feels comfortable with his linebackers despite all the personnel turnover, but didn’t reveal much in the way of concrete news as it pertains to a depth chart. The jury is still out on the eligibility of USC transfer Palaie Gaoteote, who remains a non-scholarship player for the Buckeyes until his NCAA issue is resolved.
Redshirt sophomore Steele Chambers said Thursday that some aspects of his move to linebacker have been “insanely frustrating,” but that he believes switching positions was in his best interest when it comes to getting on the field as fast as possible in the Ohio State program.
At the end of the week, a slew of young Buckeyes shed their Black Stripes, as first-year punter Jesse Mirco and fellow freshmen Evan Pryor and J.T. Tuimoloau all became official members of the Buckeye program in the past couple days.
That trio joined true freshman quarterback Kyle McCord and first-year cornerback Denzel Burke as the first five players to lose their Black Stripe since the start of camp on Aug. 4.
Also of note this week was junior wide receiver Garrett Wilson being relegated to a side field alongside injured Buckeyes like Kamryn Babb and Mitchell Melton on Thursday, while the rest of the team participated in team drills. However, Kevin Wilson said Friday that Garrett Wilson’s issue was more of a load management situation, as the Texas native had registered the highest rate of work of any player on the team this summer in terms of distance run and speed to this point.
Wilson’s tight end unit spoke with the media as well on Friday, and sophomore Gee Scott Jr. opened up on his move from wide receiver, telling us that the initial idea actually came from veteran NFL corner Richard Sherman, who has long been a mentor of Scott’s due in part to their Seattle-area connection. Scott said he isn’t expecting to be an “overnight sensation” at tight end, but believes he can change the way tight ends are thought of in the Ohio State program on the heels of Kyle Pitts’ impact at Florida last season.
In the coming week, we have three interview opportunities and one last availability to view practice. On Monday, head coach Ryan Day will address the media, followed by special teams coordinator Parker Fleming and a handful of specialists.
On Tuesday, Larry Johnson and the Buckeye defensive line will meet with the media, and on Thursday it will be running backs coach Tony Alford and several members of his position room.
Wednesday will be our last chance to watch a bit of Buckeye practice this fall, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated with all our observations and any breaking news at BuckeyeGrove.
