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- I put in a prediction this morning for Rivals100 running back Bijan Robinson to Ohio State. As I have said on the board a couple of times recently, I really felt that Ohio State turned this thing on its head last week with a great official visit. Bijan is extremely close with his mom and grandparents and they were all on the visit. I believe there was some concern about distance from home there going into the visit but I think the visit went so well that everyone in the group would be good with Ohio State if that's what Bijan wants to do, regardless of it being further away than the other schools he is looking at.
But I was also very leery about the upcoming Texas visit which took place this weekend and that there was a chance with those back-to-back visits to USC and Texas that the Buckeyes could lose the momentum they had gathered last week. I do not believe that has happened, and with no more visits coming up in the near future, it's not a Kendall Milton situation where three more teams will get a chance here. The hay is basically in the barn at this point and I believe Ohio State is in the driver's seat.
The key here is a quickish decision. If this goes down in July, I feel pretty confident that it's going to be Ohio State. I think Texas would want to drag this out into the fall and at that point there would be some data on which direction the Longhorns are trending on the field and how the Ryan Day era is going. Now that could come into play even if he commits somewhere this summer, but it's a lot easier to tilt the scales in like October if he's uncommitted than it would be if he had been committed somewhere for three months.
I suspect he's going to decide this summer, and again, believe it will be Ohio State if he goes through with a July decision.
- I also put in a prediction for Mookie Cooper to Ohio State this afternoon. I've felt that this was a two-horse race lately between Illinois and Ohio State but I am now ready to put 'em out there on the chopping block and roll with the Buckeyes here. This has been a relentless effort from Brian Hartline here. The staff completely fell in love with Cooper after watching him during the Spring Evaluation Period and he is as much of a priority as any player out there at this point.
If you read the story on the front page, Mookie is moving things up to "probably about a month" from now in terms of a decision. I think a lot would have to change between now and then for Ohio State to not win out. Yes, there will be some pressure to go with Illinois where his former high school coach works now and some of his former teammates play, but he seems very enamored with creating this super receiver corps with Fleming, Scott, and Smith-Njigba and the cool thing about it is that they all can play together and have complementary skill sets. Fleming and Scott are pretty much pure outside guys, Cooper is pretty much a pure slot, and Smith-Njigba is a Swiss Army knife.
I know Mookie was a bit cryptic in some of his comments. I really can't expound upon that at this point but certainly can at a later time. He and I talked about it during the interview, and we both agreed that there was really no way for him to explain what he meant by some of that stuff without basically giving away his thought process that he would prefer to keep private for now.
So just a little patience here but I do feel very good that the Buckeyes are going to get this done.
- Five-star defensive back Kelee Ringo is going to announce his top five on Thursday and then the plan is going to be to take official visits to all of those programs this fall. Kelee told me today that Ohio State will definitely be on that list and gave me the green light to share that publicly. I think right now Ohio State is definitely behind Georgia and probably behind Texas as well.
That said, it's a bit interesting with Texas. A lot of the Texas buzz was surrounding the idea of all of these Arizona kids going there together. But now Ohio State looks to be in better shape with Robinson and Lathan Ransom than they were a few weeks ago and Jack Miller is of course still in Kelee's ear, so does that hurt Texas and help Ohio State jump them? It definitely could.
So I think Georgia is the one that is really going to be tough to beat here but lets see how things play out. Kelee has always really liked Ohio State and just hasn't been up in a while. A new visit with a new perspective with a new defensive staff could change things. Will have a story up on the site with quotes from Kelee tomorrow.
- Sometimes in this business you have to be a little bit self aware and you have to be big enough to know when you don't know something.
Case in point, Rivals100 defensive lineman Vernon Broughton.
I have no idea what Vernon is going to do. None. I thought I did a few weeks ago and I've realized that I very clearly do not. He was a Texas lock according to most heading into this round of official visits. Then there are very legitimate rumors that he told the Arkansas staff the best possible thing he could tell the Arkansas staff on his official visit there. Now we have good reason to believe it could be Texas A&M and Ohio State leading the pack.
These aren't wild internet rumors, Everything I've laid out above has been given to me by very reliable people who have excellent track records on this stuff.
So I have no idea what to believe and no idea where this one really stands. If I could blow up my Texas pick for Vernon and just sit this one out, I would. We will have an update on Vernon coming out here in the next day or so, for whatever the heck that is going to mean with how crazy this one has become.
So stay tuned.
- Jack Miller got right to work this morning doing some 'crootin. Left at 4 AM locally to catch a flight to Atlanta and by the time he was on the bus and making his way to the hotel he was already recruiting Mookie Cooper on the bus. Once he got to the hotel, I'm not sure he left Bijan Robinson's side. They are 7on7 teammates and obviously both from Arizona so they know each other well but Miller was really on it today making sure he connected with the right guys. He'll also be working on Cam Large this weekend as well.
Kyle McCord is in Cooper's ear too. It's just an all out effort to get this kid from coaches to support staff to commits.
