Spent my day Wednesday on the road getting two updates that I felt you guys needed to have in George Hill and Andrew Pryts, both guys that haven't done much talking recently.
I didn't want to simply post answers to yes or no questions on the board yesterday evening and I also had a lot to digest on my end and wanted to cross-check a few of my gut feelings with what some people close to the players and schools they are considering were saying. So here we are this morning with a Skull Session EXTRA detailing what I'm hearing on both of these guys.
Hill was my first stop of the day so I'll start with him.
With George I definitely got the sense that maybe he's not as comfortable with the dynamics of the class and what his role would possibly be within the class as he was when he committed. Obviously being the first commit in the class, there isn't much to worry about along those lines but as this thing has filled up and different variables have come into play such as Kareem Walker and Demario McCall, I think George has taken a step back as he tries to understand his role.
Pitt is selling him on defensive back and he has a great relationship with Pat Narduzzi from his days at Michigan State. George sounds intrigued by playing defense and his visit last week seemed to go pretty well. With Michigan State also coming after him hard I think you'll see him visit there at least once during the fall and probably take an official.
Long story short, reading the tea leaves on what his plans are and then spending time with him yesterday and getting a read from that, it does sound like OSU and Hill are drifting apart at this point. Right now I'd expect George to end up somewhere else. We'll see if he sets anything up this fall with Ohio State, he says he will but Terrell Hall is saying he will too and that's highly unlikely, so we'll just have to watch and see what develops on that end. Michigan State, followed by Pitt, seem like the most likely landing spots at this time but a few others such as Nebraska and WVU are trying to creep in.
As for Pryts, the vibe I got from Andrew lines up very closely with what we were saying a few days ago. Penn State has the late momentum, coming from seemingly a distant third place to make this pretty much a two-horse race with Ohio State. Notre Dame appeared to be the biggest competition up until very recently but talking with Andrew, it mostly revolved around OSU and PSU, those are the two schools he seemed to constantly come back to both on and off the record.
Additionally, I've talked with people in our network who cover both PSU and Notre Dame and they too agree that it's a PSU/OSU battle so that seems to be pretty much a consensus at this point.
I once again did not get the sense that PSU was an overwhelming favorite or anything right now. The late visit and momentum is nothing to sneeze at and if you put a gun to my head right now I'd probably pick the Nittany Lions but I didn't walk away from my time around Andrew yesterday feeling it was a done deal.
He told me he has not decided where he is going yet and that he still has to think about it and I believe that. This isn't a kid that manipulates the media, hell he barely talks to the media he really doesn't like the attention, so I think what we got in that story yesterday was about as honest of a take as you're going to get from a kid.
Ohio State has been the constant here with Notre Dame and Penn State playing leapfrog at various points during the process and his relationships with Fickell and Ash are strong. The timing of the Penn State visit, however, and the connection he and his family have to that school are tough for me to ignore so again my gut right now would tell me Penn State.
I didn't want to simply post answers to yes or no questions on the board yesterday evening and I also had a lot to digest on my end and wanted to cross-check a few of my gut feelings with what some people close to the players and schools they are considering were saying. So here we are this morning with a Skull Session EXTRA detailing what I'm hearing on both of these guys.
Hill was my first stop of the day so I'll start with him.
With George I definitely got the sense that maybe he's not as comfortable with the dynamics of the class and what his role would possibly be within the class as he was when he committed. Obviously being the first commit in the class, there isn't much to worry about along those lines but as this thing has filled up and different variables have come into play such as Kareem Walker and Demario McCall, I think George has taken a step back as he tries to understand his role.
Pitt is selling him on defensive back and he has a great relationship with Pat Narduzzi from his days at Michigan State. George sounds intrigued by playing defense and his visit last week seemed to go pretty well. With Michigan State also coming after him hard I think you'll see him visit there at least once during the fall and probably take an official.
Long story short, reading the tea leaves on what his plans are and then spending time with him yesterday and getting a read from that, it does sound like OSU and Hill are drifting apart at this point. Right now I'd expect George to end up somewhere else. We'll see if he sets anything up this fall with Ohio State, he says he will but Terrell Hall is saying he will too and that's highly unlikely, so we'll just have to watch and see what develops on that end. Michigan State, followed by Pitt, seem like the most likely landing spots at this time but a few others such as Nebraska and WVU are trying to creep in.
As for Pryts, the vibe I got from Andrew lines up very closely with what we were saying a few days ago. Penn State has the late momentum, coming from seemingly a distant third place to make this pretty much a two-horse race with Ohio State. Notre Dame appeared to be the biggest competition up until very recently but talking with Andrew, it mostly revolved around OSU and PSU, those are the two schools he seemed to constantly come back to both on and off the record.
Additionally, I've talked with people in our network who cover both PSU and Notre Dame and they too agree that it's a PSU/OSU battle so that seems to be pretty much a consensus at this point.
I once again did not get the sense that PSU was an overwhelming favorite or anything right now. The late visit and momentum is nothing to sneeze at and if you put a gun to my head right now I'd probably pick the Nittany Lions but I didn't walk away from my time around Andrew yesterday feeling it was a done deal.
He told me he has not decided where he is going yet and that he still has to think about it and I believe that. This isn't a kid that manipulates the media, hell he barely talks to the media he really doesn't like the attention, so I think what we got in that story yesterday was about as honest of a take as you're going to get from a kid.
Ohio State has been the constant here with Notre Dame and Penn State playing leapfrog at various points during the process and his relationships with Fickell and Ash are strong. The timing of the Penn State visit, however, and the connection he and his family have to that school are tough for me to ignore so again my gut right now would tell me Penn State.
