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Best of the Midwest notes
We spent the day Sunday in Indianapolis for the Best of the Midwest combine which featured some young guys worth watching in the 2022 recruiting class. The biggest takeaway, however, involved the 2021 class as I had a chance to speak for a while with four-star offensive lineman Jager Burton out of Kentucky.
There is a front page story on Burton if you want to read his comments from our interview, and they are very positive for Ohio State.
My read on this right now is that Ohio State is in the driver's seat for the four-star prospect. Burton expects to make official visits to Ohio State (looking like the spring game weekend), Kentucky, Alabama, Clemson, and Oregon. I don't see Oregon as much of a threat at this time, and while you can never count out Alabama for any kid, I think the Crimson Tide are trailing here as well.
Kentucky and Clemson are looking like the top competition at this point. Being in Lexington, Kentucky is certainly an appealing option for him and the Wildcats have proven they can hold onto guys like this in the past with Landon Young and John Young in recent years. But a good source on the ground in Kentucky told me they don't think Burton is as much of a UK fan as Landon and John Young were and that it wouldn't be quite as tough of a task to pull Burton out of the state.
The interesting one is Clemson. I don't know how much Clemson is pushing right now and Dabo Swinney has historically steered away from early official visits, so with Burton wanting to get them done this spring/summer if possible, so that could be an interesting component in all of this. Burton and his family are very close with incoming Clemson freshman offensive lineman Walker Parks and his family so that is a connection that is pretty strong and could make Clemson a serious factor here.
But right now I don't think there is much question that Ohio State has done the best job of recruiting Burton and he has been hitting it off with Ben Christman and some of the other commits so beyond just the coaching staff, this really has been a group effort.
Burton has a class of 2022 teammate, wide receiver Dane Key, who turned in a solid performance yesterday in Indianapolis and Key told me that he and Burton will likely come up together for an unofficial visit for a spring practice, this would obviously be before Burton comes up for an official for the spring game. So the Buckeyes may get Burton on campus twice in the next two months and are looking good for an early visit from Key as well. Kentucky, Tennessee, and Oregon are the big early offers so far for Key.
Speaking of 2022 wide receivers, local standout Kaden Saunders told me he plans to get to Ohio State in March for a practice. That will obviously be pretty easy to setup being just 20 minutes or so from campus. Ohio State has not yet offered Saunders and also preferred him as a defensive back and was recruiting him as such before Jeff Hafley's departure. A couple of things are going to have to give here at some point for Saunders to end up in Columbus. Obviously Ohio State is going to have to offer, and then someone either Saunders or the Buckeye staff are going to have to cave on a position.
Saunders would prefer receiver and Ohio State likes his speed as a defensive back and of course with their logjam at receiver as well, it may make more sense for them to recruit Saunders on defense. So someone will have to change course on that. West Virginia and Penn State are the schools that I believe sit strongest with Saunders as of right now.
Class of 2022 Centerville (Ohio) QB Chase Harrison was solid again. I thought Chase really showed improvement from freshman to sophomore year. I don't know if he's going to be quite what Ohio State is looking for in that 2022 class, but he's definitely a guy we're keeping on the radar for now because the Buckeyes are certainly aware of him and have had him on campus already. Still a lot of time for Ryan Day, Corey Dennis, and the offensive braintrust to figure things out in 2022. A lot of that work will start with Dennis this spring during the Spring Evaluation Period and then Day will really get involved this summer at the OSU camps in June when he can work with and evaluate the guys they are able to get to camp.
Stellato impresses in Miami
Over the past several months, Ohio State has really turned up the heat on four-star Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) Cardinal Gibbons wide receiver Troy Stellato and Stellato has become one of the more sought-after wide receiver prospects nationally during that time as well.
Troy started his camp season with a strong effort on Sunday at the Miami Rivals Camp, earning an invitation to the Five-Star Challenge in June. Stellato has steadily improved throughout the past year and his confidence has just continued to grow as he finds more success on the field and more attention from college coaches.
I was in Indianapolis at Best of the Midwest on Sunday so I did not see Stellato's performance, but did get in touch with our Florida analyst Rob Cassidy who was on hand and gave Stellato the Five-Star Challenge invite.
"I thought he looked great (on Sunday)," Cassidy told me. "He's getting stronger, but not sacrificing his speed. He's also clearly getting more confident. He did a lot of talking on Sunday, but backed it up, as he was in discussion for MVP honors."
Stellato is holding a lot of big offers at this point, but it is still looking like an Ohio State Clemson battle at the very top and I still like my pick for the Buckeyes right now. Notre Dame is one school that could potentially mix things up and Georgia is another school that has started to push lately. While Georgia did not make Troy's top six back in December, the Dawgs have really picked it up recently and are worth keeping an eye on here.
Ultimately I think the relationships with Brian Hartline and Keenan Bailey (Bailey is a Cardinal Gibbons grad) are going to be tough to beat but Ohio State is going to have to earn this one with Troy really blowing up over the past few months and having tremendous options from coast-to-coast. At the end of the day, if you're Ohio State, you want to have kids that Clemson and Alabama and Georgia also want so the competition heating up here isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Always looking to improve
Ohio State chose not to add to its 2020 recruiting class in January, opting instead to just focus on signing Cameron Martinez and keeping the four-star athlete in the fold. Ohio State did just that, but the Buckeyes may not be finished adding to the roster for this upcoming season.
Expect to see Ohio State do its diligence when it comes to the transfer portal this spring. The Buckeyes put out a few feelers during the winter, guys like running back Lorenzo Lingard and edge rusher Quincy Roche. Ultimately Lingard was pretty set on transferring to Florida and the Buckeyes didn't feel comfortable with the numbers to add Roche.
As we've said before when discussing the portal, the Buckeyes were hesitant to add a January enrollee, but could be much more inclined to add a May/June enrollee as it would allow spring football to play out in March and April and give the staff a much better idea of what it is dealing with from a numbers and needs perspective.
If there is an addition to be made, it's almost certainly going to be on defense and likely in the secondary. The sense I get is that the thought inside the Woody is that this year's defense will make or break the national championship chances. They pretty much know what they have on offense and it's going to be an elite unit if it stays healthy, but there were more significant losses on defense, especially in the secondary. If the Buckeyes can land a plug-and-play guy back there, I think they'll strongly consider it.
There isn't really a particular list of names to watch at this point. This is something that will evolve throughout the spring as we certainly haven't seen the last of the player movement nationally and each team will have its own specific set of circumstances during spring football that could cause more movement and portal entries.
But I will throw one guy out there that I expect to be a hot commodity and may be worth just keeping in the memory bank and that is Nick McCloud who is doing a graduate transfer from N.C. State and is operating under a similar path as Jonah Jackson did last year where spring visits were made and then he joined his future team after graduating at the end of the spring semester.
It is certainly possible that Ohio State will roll with what it has already, but in this new Portal Era of roster management, you can always expect the Buckeyes to do their homework and take a look at certain things when it makes sense.
