Football
Signing Day Notebook
By John PorentasSigning day has come and gone and the Buckeyes have landed 25 players that is being ranked in the top-five nationally by people who for some reason feel compelled to rank recruiting classes.
OSU Head Coach Jim Tressel held a press conference this afternoon to discuss his class. Here's the cliff-notes version.
* The 25-member class is the largest class Tressel has signed at OSU since the 25-member class he signed in 2002.
* Tressel said the OSU coaching staff was worried about the numbers in the class. The way things worked out, they only had one scholarship they could "back date" to last year's class, so the maximum number they could sign this year was 26. Up until just a couple of days ago, they were still in on up to 27 or 28. That meant that somebody was going to have to grayshirt if everybody they were in on came on board. Things worked out when defensive back Justin Green did not sign despite having verbally committed to OSU. That left room for wide receiver Marlon Brown, however, Brown announced today that he will attend Georgia. As it turned out, it was a colorless class without a Brown or a Green. (rim shot please)
* OSU had just 30 players in for official visits. The NCAA allows 56, but OSU had in just 30, of which 25 signed. That is an extremely high closing ratio in any business.
* A highlight video featuring five to 10 plays of each player was shown at the press conference. The OSU video director said the highlight video required right around 100 hours of work by video assistant Adam Molyet for the 20 to 25 minute presentation.
* Tressel mentioned that there has been some debate at staff meetings over which side of the ball some players would play on. He implied the debates were serious and heated. I asked both coordinators, Jim Bollman and Jim Heacock, who those players were, but both declined to name them because, according to Bollman "some of them don't know they were being debated," implying it would not be a good thing if that info got out. Heacock was pretty much on the same sheet of music. Both coaches agreed that there were a number of players who are versatile enough to play on either side of the ball.
* Signee Dominic Clarke showed Tressel a video of a 300 yard race in which he beat current Buckeye wide receiver Lamaar Thomas while Thomas was still in high school.
* Tressel said that as things stand at the moment, the Buckeyes have room for 17 players in their next class.
* Offensive lineman Jack Mewhort is a big young man.
* There are no signees in the class with any academic issues relative to enrollment.
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