IMG notes
We wrapped up our work day on Friday with our annual stop at IMG Academy. What a place. About a handful of prospects to hit on here, so I will just quickly go down the list with what I gathered from our visit.
Taron Vincent - The 2018 Ohio State defensive tackle commit is a relatively quiet guy but seemed happier than usual to see us. Seems like a kid that is comfortable with his decision, is very happy/relieved to have it over with after nearly pulling the trigger a couple of times earlier in the process, and he has turned his attention to a few of his teammates to get them to join him in Columbus. I've said it a million times, but the relationship with Larry Johnson on this one was just so important for Ohio State.
Houston Griffith - Two team race right now between Ohio State and Notre Dame. Some other schools, primarily in the Midwest, are going to get some pub here for the Rivals100 DB, but those two are at the top right now and Ohio State is absolutely the leader in my opinion. Now, will there be room? Every decision seems to matter here. What does Amari Burney do on June 1st? What does Christian Tutt do here at the end of May? Houston is a prospect that I'm told OSU really likes but he's not in the Cook/Surtain/Campbell tier. I'll talk more about this below, but Ohio State has some decisions to make right now in the secondary.
Verdis Brown - The four-star class of 2018 lineman put out a Top 10 this week that included Ohio State. Ohio State is much closer to No. 1 than No. 10 here so we're at least one more cut away from the point of worrying about Ohio State's inclusion. Verdis tells me he is still talking to Ohio State all of the time and everything looks to still be in a very good place here. This is a battle Ohio State can win if a continued push is made.
Noah Cain - Always enjoy talking to 2019 running back Noah Cain who is just a huge personality. Noah continues to rave about Ohio State and told me he plans to visit again either in June or for the Oklahoma game, whichever one he can workout the easiest with his schedule. Ohio State, Oklahoma, LSU, Georgia, are just some of the schools making a good impression so far and if you'll notice a trend, all schools that have had a lot of recent success with running backs.
There is no question that Noah is absolutely loving Ohio State right now, but this will likely be a marathon. I'll have a story on him this weekend, but he told me he doesn't want to be a guy who commits somewhere and then plays a bunch of games, he wants it to be over when he commits. Because of that, he is planning on being a five official visit guy. Now that can always change, time frames are almost laughable in recruiting, but Ohio State is off to a great start here for someone who could in the mix as the nation's top back in that class.
More on the American Heritage duo
I have continued to work various people here in Florida this week on the two big-time defensive backs at American Hertiage, the nation's No. 2 overall prospect Patrick Surtain Jr. and Rivals100 corner Tyson Campbell. I picked up one interesting bit of information on Surtain specifically on Saturday.
I posted the other day that I felt LSU and Florida State were probably running 1 and 2 for the five-star defensive back. Yesterday a Florida-based source made an interesting case for the Seminoles in Surtain's recruitment.
"Something to watch for there is that I've heard FSU is looking at hiring Pat Sr.," they shared. "It would be as the new 10th coach that the NCAA is allowing and would allow FSU to still get Pat Jr. since his dad would be an 'on the field' coach."
"It would make a lot of sense," they continued. "I spend a lot of time at American Heritage and Pat is a really good coach. I think he's a better coach than Mike Rumph who Miami hired from the high school ranks under similar circumstances. He was a great player in the NFL and has been doing a really good job so far at American Heritage. They would be getting a good coach and (presumably) a great player in Pat Jr."
So just something to keep an eye on there to see if that actually comes to fruition.
As for Campbell, I mentioned this week that Ohio State does not view him as a step down from Surtain. I am told the Buckeyes view the two prospects as essentially equal and that Campbell could even have more upside because of his elite athleticism, he's one of the top high school track athletes in the nation with great size at 6-foot-2. I kind of posed the question to the smae source, wondering if Campbell could end up being the best of the two.
"I could see it, I don't think that's crazy," they said. "I was at a game last season, he was playing safety but I think he can be a corner in college, and he is just so big, fast, and physical. He came up and hit a receiver and the kids helmet went flying."
Burney race heating up
On Friday morning we were able to spend some time with four-star Florida safety/athlete Amari Burney, a player who has been on the Ohio State radar for quite some time. Burney gave us a little bit of scoop with the news that he is basically down to three schools, OSU, Florida, and Virginia Tech.
But, unless something changes, this is looking very much like an Ohio State vs. Florida battle. Burney is very familiar with Ohio State having made multiple trips and clearly his two favorite coaches are Ohio State's Greg Schiano and Florida's Doug Nussmeier so those two programs seem to be clearly winning the comfort and relationships battle.
Ohio State has a lot of things to sort out in the secondary right now, especially at safety with the early commitments of Jaiden Woodbey and Josh Proctor. Forget about Anthony Cook, Pat Surtain Jr., and Tyson Campbell for a minute. They'll chase those guys as long as it takes and those guys have a spot.
But you still have Burney, Isheem Young, Christian Tutt, and Houston Griffith (B.J. Foster is going to Texas in my opinion) as legitimate defensive back options, all of whom will likely be deciding by the end of the summer. And all of these guys are tremendous talents, it is quite a statement about how well OSU is recruiting right now that there may only be room for one of those guys in this class.
Now OSU might get some help here. I think Young is leaning towards Penn State and I think Tutt is leaning elsewhere right now with a visit supposedly coming up at some point in the next few weeks before he decides at the end of the month. And Burney may very well be leaning slightly to Florida, so maybe all of the dominoes just fall a certain way and the decisions get made for Ohio State, but right now the Buckeyes are in the mix for all of those guys and are in the top two for Burney and Griffith.
So because of that unknown factor with the numbers and the race being so tight between UF and OSU on top of it, gun to my head I would say Florida for Burney but I think this will have some intrigue all the way up to that June 1st decision date.
Snead is real
One of the stops I was most looking forward to on this trip was the one at Seffner (Fla.) Armwood High School. There have been rumors of a very good running back roaming the halls of the Florida powerhouse, but there hadn't been any confirmed sightings of this Brian Snead creature in quite some time, leading many to believe that his existence was a myth. Perhaps a figment of Tony Alford and Urban Meyer's imagination to artifically boost the quality of the 2018 recruiting class.
But the Rivals100 running back is in fact a real human being. Snead confirmed a couple of things that we thought heading into the visit. One, that he prefers to let his play do the talking and doesn't like getting caught up in a lot of the hoopla that comes with recruiting. Two, that he is constant communication with Ohio State running backs coach Tony Alford. And three, that he has not made any college visits since the Friday Night Lights trip in July to Ohio State which resulted in his commitment. So that is nine months without a college visit of any kind for Snead.
Because of that, that seems like it would bode well for Ohio State to keep him. He has resisted the urge for nearly a year to visit other programs, with several big-time programs within a day's drive for him. Now he also hasn't visited Ohio State either since July, but that looks like it will be changing this summer, most likely in June.
I came away from our visit with Snead feeling pretty good about Ohio State's chances of keeping the high four-star prospect in the fold. You never know what could happen as the rest of this class fills out, especially if the Buckeyes pull off a big surprise on Zamir White, but Snead came across as someone who felt perfectly content with his status as an Ohio State commit.
Part of the stability of the commitment is just how Brian is wired, but I do think Alford deserves some credit here for seemingly putting a strangehold on this.
Big question answered
Every year on this trip we come across at least one prospect that Ohio State has a better chance with than people think. Last year it was Baron Browning, where we went in to our visit with him not really knowing what to expect, only to leave the school thinking Ohio State was in the driver's seat.
I don't know if this kid is quite at that point, but one of the biggest questions I've wondered aloud about recently is whether or not Ohio State could be a legitimate player for Rivals100 defensive lineman Stephon Wynn out IMG Academy in Florida. I posted not too long ago in a Skull Session, that Wynn is probably the top interior defensive lineman left on the Ohio State board. Wynn and Brant Lawless (who just committed to Tennessee this past week) were two guys that Ohio State was hoping to zero in on after securing Taron Vincent's pledge.
Wynn is about as elusive as Brian Snead. He is one of those kids that you generally have to get in person and while that is now a little easier with him being at IMG instead of Anderson (S.C.), he's a guy that there just isn't a lot of information out there on him right now.
In speaking with Wynn yesterday, Ohio State looks to be a very serious player for the four-star prospect. He is planning a summer trip, likely in June, to see Ohio State, Georgia, and Alabama over the course of about a week and those are the three schools that I think may have the best shot at landing him. Interestingly enough, as elusive as Wynn can be with the media, he is talking to Ohio State, and specifically Larry Johnson, on a daily basis.
Perhaps even more interesting, is that the general consensus has been that Clemson could be the team to beat. I did not get that impression at all with Stephon yesterday. When I'm on the road down here, I pre-interview every kid we talk to and I always ask them which schools he wants to talk about. OSU, UGA, and Bama were the three he seemed to really want to talk about. I pressed a bit on Clemson, he grew up about 20 minutes away from the campus, and he just didn't seem to really want to go down that path.
Admittedly not knowing Stephon like I know some of these other guys, I thought maybe he was sand-bagging and trying to downplay Clemson but I checked in with a source later in the day that knows that situaton pretty well and they seemed to confirm my instincts from the interview. They told me that the feeling they have received from Wynn over the last couple of months is that he will not end up at Clemson, which further opens the door for Ohio State here.
On the physical development front, Stephon is a little bigger framed kid than Taron Vincent and is up to about 285-pounds now but still athletic enough to spend some time playing on the outside. I was very impressed with his athleticism at that size in watching the last 30 minutes or so of practice yesterday.
Stephon is not holding himself to a timetable right now, but he told me that if he has a great visit somewhere this summer that he wouldn't be opposed to committing to that school before the season starts. He also told me that playing next to Taron Vincent on the D-Line at IMG has been a really good experience for him and that it is 'definitely' something that appeals to him as he's looking ahead to the next level. I will be posting a story on Wynn in the very near future with all of his thoughts on OSU and his recruitment in general.
Buckle up, I think this one gets very, very interesting.
We wrapped up our work day on Friday with our annual stop at IMG Academy. What a place. About a handful of prospects to hit on here, so I will just quickly go down the list with what I gathered from our visit.
Taron Vincent - The 2018 Ohio State defensive tackle commit is a relatively quiet guy but seemed happier than usual to see us. Seems like a kid that is comfortable with his decision, is very happy/relieved to have it over with after nearly pulling the trigger a couple of times earlier in the process, and he has turned his attention to a few of his teammates to get them to join him in Columbus. I've said it a million times, but the relationship with Larry Johnson on this one was just so important for Ohio State.
Houston Griffith - Two team race right now between Ohio State and Notre Dame. Some other schools, primarily in the Midwest, are going to get some pub here for the Rivals100 DB, but those two are at the top right now and Ohio State is absolutely the leader in my opinion. Now, will there be room? Every decision seems to matter here. What does Amari Burney do on June 1st? What does Christian Tutt do here at the end of May? Houston is a prospect that I'm told OSU really likes but he's not in the Cook/Surtain/Campbell tier. I'll talk more about this below, but Ohio State has some decisions to make right now in the secondary.
Verdis Brown - The four-star class of 2018 lineman put out a Top 10 this week that included Ohio State. Ohio State is much closer to No. 1 than No. 10 here so we're at least one more cut away from the point of worrying about Ohio State's inclusion. Verdis tells me he is still talking to Ohio State all of the time and everything looks to still be in a very good place here. This is a battle Ohio State can win if a continued push is made.
Noah Cain - Always enjoy talking to 2019 running back Noah Cain who is just a huge personality. Noah continues to rave about Ohio State and told me he plans to visit again either in June or for the Oklahoma game, whichever one he can workout the easiest with his schedule. Ohio State, Oklahoma, LSU, Georgia, are just some of the schools making a good impression so far and if you'll notice a trend, all schools that have had a lot of recent success with running backs.
There is no question that Noah is absolutely loving Ohio State right now, but this will likely be a marathon. I'll have a story on him this weekend, but he told me he doesn't want to be a guy who commits somewhere and then plays a bunch of games, he wants it to be over when he commits. Because of that, he is planning on being a five official visit guy. Now that can always change, time frames are almost laughable in recruiting, but Ohio State is off to a great start here for someone who could in the mix as the nation's top back in that class.
More on the American Heritage duo
I have continued to work various people here in Florida this week on the two big-time defensive backs at American Hertiage, the nation's No. 2 overall prospect Patrick Surtain Jr. and Rivals100 corner Tyson Campbell. I picked up one interesting bit of information on Surtain specifically on Saturday.
I posted the other day that I felt LSU and Florida State were probably running 1 and 2 for the five-star defensive back. Yesterday a Florida-based source made an interesting case for the Seminoles in Surtain's recruitment.
"Something to watch for there is that I've heard FSU is looking at hiring Pat Sr.," they shared. "It would be as the new 10th coach that the NCAA is allowing and would allow FSU to still get Pat Jr. since his dad would be an 'on the field' coach."
"It would make a lot of sense," they continued. "I spend a lot of time at American Heritage and Pat is a really good coach. I think he's a better coach than Mike Rumph who Miami hired from the high school ranks under similar circumstances. He was a great player in the NFL and has been doing a really good job so far at American Heritage. They would be getting a good coach and (presumably) a great player in Pat Jr."
So just something to keep an eye on there to see if that actually comes to fruition.
As for Campbell, I mentioned this week that Ohio State does not view him as a step down from Surtain. I am told the Buckeyes view the two prospects as essentially equal and that Campbell could even have more upside because of his elite athleticism, he's one of the top high school track athletes in the nation with great size at 6-foot-2. I kind of posed the question to the smae source, wondering if Campbell could end up being the best of the two.
"I could see it, I don't think that's crazy," they said. "I was at a game last season, he was playing safety but I think he can be a corner in college, and he is just so big, fast, and physical. He came up and hit a receiver and the kids helmet went flying."
Burney race heating up
On Friday morning we were able to spend some time with four-star Florida safety/athlete Amari Burney, a player who has been on the Ohio State radar for quite some time. Burney gave us a little bit of scoop with the news that he is basically down to three schools, OSU, Florida, and Virginia Tech.
But, unless something changes, this is looking very much like an Ohio State vs. Florida battle. Burney is very familiar with Ohio State having made multiple trips and clearly his two favorite coaches are Ohio State's Greg Schiano and Florida's Doug Nussmeier so those two programs seem to be clearly winning the comfort and relationships battle.
Ohio State has a lot of things to sort out in the secondary right now, especially at safety with the early commitments of Jaiden Woodbey and Josh Proctor. Forget about Anthony Cook, Pat Surtain Jr., and Tyson Campbell for a minute. They'll chase those guys as long as it takes and those guys have a spot.
But you still have Burney, Isheem Young, Christian Tutt, and Houston Griffith (B.J. Foster is going to Texas in my opinion) as legitimate defensive back options, all of whom will likely be deciding by the end of the summer. And all of these guys are tremendous talents, it is quite a statement about how well OSU is recruiting right now that there may only be room for one of those guys in this class.
Now OSU might get some help here. I think Young is leaning towards Penn State and I think Tutt is leaning elsewhere right now with a visit supposedly coming up at some point in the next few weeks before he decides at the end of the month. And Burney may very well be leaning slightly to Florida, so maybe all of the dominoes just fall a certain way and the decisions get made for Ohio State, but right now the Buckeyes are in the mix for all of those guys and are in the top two for Burney and Griffith.
So because of that unknown factor with the numbers and the race being so tight between UF and OSU on top of it, gun to my head I would say Florida for Burney but I think this will have some intrigue all the way up to that June 1st decision date.
Snead is real
One of the stops I was most looking forward to on this trip was the one at Seffner (Fla.) Armwood High School. There have been rumors of a very good running back roaming the halls of the Florida powerhouse, but there hadn't been any confirmed sightings of this Brian Snead creature in quite some time, leading many to believe that his existence was a myth. Perhaps a figment of Tony Alford and Urban Meyer's imagination to artifically boost the quality of the 2018 recruiting class.
But the Rivals100 running back is in fact a real human being. Snead confirmed a couple of things that we thought heading into the visit. One, that he prefers to let his play do the talking and doesn't like getting caught up in a lot of the hoopla that comes with recruiting. Two, that he is constant communication with Ohio State running backs coach Tony Alford. And three, that he has not made any college visits since the Friday Night Lights trip in July to Ohio State which resulted in his commitment. So that is nine months without a college visit of any kind for Snead.
Because of that, that seems like it would bode well for Ohio State to keep him. He has resisted the urge for nearly a year to visit other programs, with several big-time programs within a day's drive for him. Now he also hasn't visited Ohio State either since July, but that looks like it will be changing this summer, most likely in June.
I came away from our visit with Snead feeling pretty good about Ohio State's chances of keeping the high four-star prospect in the fold. You never know what could happen as the rest of this class fills out, especially if the Buckeyes pull off a big surprise on Zamir White, but Snead came across as someone who felt perfectly content with his status as an Ohio State commit.
Part of the stability of the commitment is just how Brian is wired, but I do think Alford deserves some credit here for seemingly putting a strangehold on this.
Big question answered
Every year on this trip we come across at least one prospect that Ohio State has a better chance with than people think. Last year it was Baron Browning, where we went in to our visit with him not really knowing what to expect, only to leave the school thinking Ohio State was in the driver's seat.
I don't know if this kid is quite at that point, but one of the biggest questions I've wondered aloud about recently is whether or not Ohio State could be a legitimate player for Rivals100 defensive lineman Stephon Wynn out IMG Academy in Florida. I posted not too long ago in a Skull Session, that Wynn is probably the top interior defensive lineman left on the Ohio State board. Wynn and Brant Lawless (who just committed to Tennessee this past week) were two guys that Ohio State was hoping to zero in on after securing Taron Vincent's pledge.
Wynn is about as elusive as Brian Snead. He is one of those kids that you generally have to get in person and while that is now a little easier with him being at IMG instead of Anderson (S.C.), he's a guy that there just isn't a lot of information out there on him right now.
In speaking with Wynn yesterday, Ohio State looks to be a very serious player for the four-star prospect. He is planning a summer trip, likely in June, to see Ohio State, Georgia, and Alabama over the course of about a week and those are the three schools that I think may have the best shot at landing him. Interestingly enough, as elusive as Wynn can be with the media, he is talking to Ohio State, and specifically Larry Johnson, on a daily basis.
Perhaps even more interesting, is that the general consensus has been that Clemson could be the team to beat. I did not get that impression at all with Stephon yesterday. When I'm on the road down here, I pre-interview every kid we talk to and I always ask them which schools he wants to talk about. OSU, UGA, and Bama were the three he seemed to really want to talk about. I pressed a bit on Clemson, he grew up about 20 minutes away from the campus, and he just didn't seem to really want to go down that path.
Admittedly not knowing Stephon like I know some of these other guys, I thought maybe he was sand-bagging and trying to downplay Clemson but I checked in with a source later in the day that knows that situaton pretty well and they seemed to confirm my instincts from the interview. They told me that the feeling they have received from Wynn over the last couple of months is that he will not end up at Clemson, which further opens the door for Ohio State here.
On the physical development front, Stephon is a little bigger framed kid than Taron Vincent and is up to about 285-pounds now but still athletic enough to spend some time playing on the outside. I was very impressed with his athleticism at that size in watching the last 30 minutes or so of practice yesterday.
Stephon is not holding himself to a timetable right now, but he told me that if he has a great visit somewhere this summer that he wouldn't be opposed to committing to that school before the season starts. He also told me that playing next to Taron Vincent on the D-Line at IMG has been a really good experience for him and that it is 'definitely' something that appeals to him as he's looking ahead to the next level. I will be posting a story on Wynn in the very near future with all of his thoughts on OSU and his recruitment in general.
Buckle up, I think this one gets very, very interesting.
Last edited:
