ohio state buckeyes football
february 2003 archive

02-28-03 (11:15am) not much going on in the buckeye nation today. being friday i am going to go off topic a little bit more today and just wrap up some loose ends in the site administration side of things.

first off, some eye candy. like i mentioned earlier, these anti-war protestors are really annoying me. these people don't know the facts that those in charge do. let the elected people do their job and let the enlisted people execute their plans i say. anyways, i am thinking about starting up my own little pro-war rally to show my support for the military men and women out there (especially the military hotties) and for our president. the first thing you need to do a good rally is some catchy signs. i just came up with these off the top of my head, but i think these three signs are a good start for my little rally. unfortunately, i am not that skilled with photoshop at this point in time and i think i messed up my font sizes somewhat. i hope the message is still clear though. anyways, here are the three signs i have mocked up in photoshop.

   

like i said, i messed up with the fonts right now, but i will fix them up before i go out and show my support. i think i made the white space a little too small and some of the text a little too large. oh well.

for those who are disgusted by those signs, what can i say. it is friday and like 99% of the readers of this site are american men that love the buckeyes. i have to cater to the crowd afterall. besides, like i said it is friday afterall. chill out a little bit before you have a heart attack and die from stressing out over stupid crap like what some fool says on his website.

in site business, i would like to thank the readers out there who have patronized my sponsor (above) selling the osu email stationery. i know many people don't like having ads on their page, but this company has been really cool with this site and they sell a pretty cool product as well. they don't want an annoying pop up advertisement like some people out there and they actually enjoy the site and college football in general. for $5.95 you can trick out all your email to have a sharp looking officially licensed osu theme. check out that site if you are interested. if you would like to see what it looks like, drop me a line sometime and ask for me to reply and i will get back with you using the product.

in other site news, i still have a few recruiting profiles to bust out while i kill for time before spring ball. i will be using them up here probably next week or two at the latest. after that i am going to launch into an extended preview of spring ball, followed by spring ball coverage, and then a post spring ball analysis before i start to kill time waiting for fall camp to open up. that is generally what i anticipate this site being about for the next several months. even if the buckeyes were to make the NCAA tournament (say perhaps by winning the confernece tournament), i still won't be covering hoops or any other osu sports for that matter. not that i am not interested or anything, i just don't feel i have the time to cover them the way i would like to.

another thing that will become a more prominent feature on this site in this dead period is the video work. i need to light a fire underneath vladimir gonzalez and get him back to posting some of his fantastic video captures, but first i need to get some video work of my own done here before jumping on good ole vlad. i am way behind, but i plan on getting some work in the production studio this weekend. the crazy bearded guy just upgraded his studio computer and i haven't had the opportunity to play with it since the upgrade. i should get a few hours in the studio this weekend.

anyways, that is all i have in me for today. speaking of in me, it is time for me to get a couple of sandwiches in my belly. if i see anything out there or think of anything funny i will be back online later this afternoon. if not, enjoy the weekend.
02-28-03 (9:35am) i was up especially early this morning and ready for an update. unfortunately i couldn't find any articles on football out there (big suprise huh) and i decided to wait to update until a little later when my head was a little more clear.

well my head is still a little foggy right now, and it looks like the dispatch was a little slow this morning as well. they are later than usual with their link but they do have one up this morning on shaun lane. now for some random thoughts.

i am making good progress on the recruiting center. for those that aren't familiar with it, it is a resource for college football recruiting. i have lists of the osu verbal commitments, the prospects mentioning osu or mentioned by osu fans, the top players in ohio, and the top players in the nation. i plan on adding more top player lists for all the different states eventually. why go through all this effort? good question. i am hoping to get a few people out there to check out some high school football in their region and maybe take a still camera or camcorder with them so the rest of us buckeye fans can get a look at the prospects without having to whip out the credit card and sign up for a premium site.

i am including some basic photography tips, directions to the high school games, and i will have links to the high school schedules out there so we will know when there are good games in a particular area. i also have a place where we can all post our highlight film and stills on the net for free. i am also willing to help out anyone with computer issues if it gets me some film on football talent to watch. that is the entire purpose of that page and hopefully it will pay off in the form of eye candy here this coming fall.

i still haven't heard much about the washington game being a night game or not. i tend to think it will be a night game, but nothing is official yet.

i have also heard that the spring game isn't going to be televised on espn (or the deuce) like i originally heard. now i am hearing that they are going to show highlights of it during the NFL draft coverage. good idea to spruce up the draft coverage which is a little boring, but i don't see them getting many viewers in the state of ohio still with our spring game being televised (typically it is on ONN statewide, though i haven't seen anything official on that yet).

on a non football topic, i am sick and tired of seeing all these people protest against the war because they don't like war. to me, the people in the know think we need war and that is all i need to know. i am actually thinking about going out and protesting in favor of war as a joke and to show my support. i have a couple of sign ideas and maybe i will do a mock up of them in photoshop today and post them around lunchtime. coming from my mind they are especially low brow humor and i don't know if they would be allowed to be shown on television, but i could show them here for sure. we'll see if i have time for them later.

back to football, today is the last day of february and that means tomorrow is march. while the buckeyes won't be in the tournament this year, it should provide a little entertainment if nothing else. after march, we get spring football and scantily clad ladies so life should pick up again for most of us then.

back to football, we have an interesting situation on the offensive line this year. we have 5 starters coming back, two true sophomores who are pushing them for time, and two more freshman taking off the redshirt in approximately 35 days for spring ball. the redshirts are tj downing and doug datish.

the last time i saw both downing and datish was in fall camp. they were new to the system and it showed some. still though when the freshmen would go at it with other players at a similar level on the depth chart, they looked good. i thought datish was a pretty decent run blocker while downing looked like a more complete lineman at that stage.

i don't know how many opportunities they will get this fall to show their skills on the field, but this spring will be huge for both of these redshirt freshmen. if they run practice like they did last year i will get a good look at the linemen again this april (they ran the o-line drills right in front of the stands at the practice field).

well that update kind of sucked. sorry about that. i guess i am not at the top of my game today. i will try and step up around lunch time with another update. enjoy the friday as it drags by.
02-27-03 (2:30pm) it is official (well as official as it can be until february 4th 2004 anyway), hubbard's shaun lane is now a verbal commitment to the buckeyes. with his father being a buckeye hero, this wasn't much of a suprise. with michigan coach lloyd carr applying pressure for the oral commitment, a more heterosexual verbal commitment to coach tressel just made sense. more later.
02-27-03 (1:30pm) one link for now that i missed this morning. the warren tribune chronicle has a piece on shaun lane. he is holding a press conference at 1:30pm and is expected to announce that he is a buckeye at that time.

i do have another recruiting profile to add to the mix today. today i am profiling another top sophomore (junior to be) from mansfield senior high school in brett donaldson. i do have some clips of brett in the free recruiting video archive if you want to download some blocking clips. i don't believe i have posted any tackles from him yet. anyways, here is the donaldson preview. enjoy.

Brett Donaldson

Brett Donaldson out of Mansfield Senior High School. Brett was one of the most intense football players in the sophomore class that I saw last season.

Position: Linebacker - Tight End - Safety

Height: 6'0"

Weight: 185 pounds

40 Time: 4.7 seconds

High School: Mansfield Senior

Notes:

Brett Donaldson was one of the most intense football players in his class that I saw last season. I only had the opportunity to see Donaldson play once last season, but of all the players I saw, Brett was the only one to never take off a play. He went full blast every snap. He had a great football mentality.

The game I saw Brett play was against Sandusky in week two of the season. He played both ways for virtually every snap of the game.

On offense he played tight end and while he didn't get the ball thrown to him, he was totally dominant as a blocker. Even when Mansfield would run away from Donaldson's side of the field, Brett would block like a mad man and try to pancake his defender. Nobody is going to question his toughness.

On defense, Brett played linebacker and he played it pretty good. He didn't have a bunch of tackles that I recall, but he didn't do anything to disappoint when the ball came his way either. I could be mistake, but I think he did have approximately 100 tackles as a freshman. That in the league of A.J. Hawk production wise.

Right now it is difficult to predict a position for Brett in college. He isn't big enough size or weight wise to play tight end now and he isn't big enough to play linebacker yet either. As for safety, he has that type of size right now, but he will need to work on his speed some to play big time college ball. Typically players like that are called tweeners. Fortunately for Brett, he has two full years of high school ahead of him, and I see him growing and putting on some more weight and becoming a linebacker or maybe even a tight end. His older brother Mike was an offensive lineman that got some interest by us OSU fans if you recall. I don't see Brett bulking up that big, but growth into a linebacker or tight end seems quite reasonable to me.

Brett should be one of the top 20 players in the state of Ohio on all the early junior class lists next year. Publicity shouldn't be a problem for Donladson playing on the same team as Jamario O'Neal should draw some scouts and extra attention from us fans.

I am excited to see Brett Donaldson and Mansfield again this coming season. Mansfield travels to Sandusky this year and hosts Massillon. Both games should be enertaining for sure. With talent like Donaldson, David Phillips, and Jamario O'Neal, Mansfield should be able to make the playoffs again this year and they could do some damage with their speed. Maybe I will get a chance to see them deep in the playoffs this year.
02-27-03 (9:05am; 8:30am eastern standard bucknuts time) not much going on this morning. i do have one link to pass along on the newest member of the buckeye family shaun lane from 1460 the fan. his press conference isn't until 1:30pm today so it isn't official yet today (or for that matter until february 4th).

i watched a little of the st. ignatius tapes i got in the mail last night. lots and lots of good highlights of tony gonzalez, brian hoyer, mike massey, and jim ramella to post. it will probably be a little while before i get donw watching all the tapes and then capture, edit, compress and upload the film to the net, but it is coming.

later this afternoon i will have another recruiting profile to post for sure. in fact it is already written, i just need to hook it up with a pictue off of my server and post the link. today i am going to profile a classmate of jamario o'neal at mansfield. today i am going to cover sophomore linebacker - safety - tight end brett donaldson. i actually have some footage of him in the free video archive if you want a preview of his game (i think they are all blocking clips though so you had better be a true die hard to want to download film of someone blocking). brett totally dominates one kid blocking as a tight end in one of the clips.

anyways, that is all i have for now, but i will have more around lunchtime and the press conference announcement. enjoy.
02-26-03 (6pm) i have one link to pass along and then some great site news as well. in linkage, the o-zone has a free recruiting update from bill kurelic. the update is all about shaun lane which is the theme for the day and probably tomorrow as well.

in good site news, i had something cool show up on my doorstep today via regular old us mail. i just opened up the package and inside were two video tapes of high school football containing a highlight reel of a top player in the state of ohio and three complete games of cleveland st. ignatius. i haven't had the opportunity to watch them much yet other than popping them in the vcr and fast forwarding through some of it to check the quality, but it seems it to be coaches footage shot from the press box without any commercials or anything like that. in my mind these are the same tapes that coach tressel has in his office, but i am not sure about that honestly. i will probably start to watch them tonight after i get a chance to sit down with the crazy bearded guy. after i get done watching the film, i will find a way to share it online with everyone else of course.

ignatius historically has loads of talent on the roster and this past year was like any other year. i imagine there are tons of highlights of osu defensive back - wide receiver recruit tony gonzalez as well as great clips from top juniors brian hoyer (qb) and mike massey (de). i am real excited to see clips of ignatius tight end jim ramella as well. i only saw ignatius once last season and ramella wasn't playing much at that early point in the season. from what i hear he is the next big thing in ohio tight ends, now i will get a chance to see for myself.

not only do i have new footage of ignatius, but it is against some top flight competition with other top prospects as well. i have the complete games of iggy versus st. eds, warren harding, and cincy elder now to go along with the footage i shot at massillon. in other words, not only did i receive new footage on gonzalez, hoyer, massey, and ramella, but i got more footage on other top prospects that ignatius played as well.

needless to say i am a little pumped right now. i am not going to be on the computer anymore tonight as i watch some film and start to make a list of highlights i would like to post.

speaking of my video work, i am way behind in my video projects. now that the master recruiting list is up and running, the video work is going to be the main focus of this site as i stall for time before spring camp starts up april 3rd.

i still haven't completed my compilation video of all my film from last year (still doing voice overs). i still need to recompress film from the canton mckinley - warren harding game and the dayton chaminade game i attended. i still need to find more highlights of jamario o'neal to post. i still need to remove the highlight clips of michigan scum like prescott burgess and shawn crable from the video archive. i still have highlights of guys like mario manningham, curtis smith, and freddie lennix to capture, edit, compress, and upload. needless to say, i have my work cut out for me for the next month or two in the production studio. the night time updates will probably be much less frequent as i try to clear my plate some. the site may struggle some with daily content, but it should be worth it in the long run and i certainly enjoy the video work.

anyways, i will be back online thursday morning with another update and probably another recruiting profile to post in the afternoon. enjoy, i know i will tonight that's for sure.
02-26-03 (2pm) not much going on in the buckeye nation that i haven't already discussed today. i do have some more on shaun lane. his press conference isn't until thursday afternoon, but it sounds like it is a done deal. he hasn't announced it publicly yet though so he isn't an official verbal until approximately 1:37pm thursday. he isn't a buckeye officially until february 4th, 2004 when he faxes a signed letter of intent to coach tressel.

i found a website for the hubbard football team with a picture or two of shaun lane if you are interested, check out that link.

some fans have found it suprising that a guy like shaun lane would get an offer before some of the more publicized talents in ohio. two comments here. one, just because a player isn't hyped up by any of the 'experts' does not mean the player isn't one of the better talents in the state. two, just because we don't know about an offer to a highly publicized player doesn't mean he doesn't have one. the coaches may have in fact made the scholarship offer and they just aren't allowed to comment on it. that is where the 'experts' earn their money. someone has to track down these recruits and get their side of the story.

anyways, i imagine we will have the official word about shaun lane's non-binding commitment by 1:45pm at the latest thursday afternoon. as for me, i am offline for now. i am going to try and get back on tonight and post another recruiting profile, but i can't make any promises there either.

i do know that i will be firmly planted in front of the television at 10:30pm tonight to watch another new episode of chappelle's show on comedy central. for those who haven't had the opportunity to see dave yet, i would highly recommend checking out his television show. due to censorship he isn't as funny on his show as he is in his stand up act, but it is still worth checking out.
02-26-03 (9:05am) i updated the recruiting center to reflect the verbal of shaun lane and i did a little research on shaun as well. here is what i found.

shaun lane: (hubbard, 5'10", 170, 4.5) the son of former buckeye standout garcia lane certainly stood out as a junior for hubbard in 2002. he ran wild for over 2000 yards on the season and over 13 yards per carry. while he was an offensive standout in high school, he projects as a cornerback in college. he could also possibly play wide receiver or return man as well. some other physical stats i found on shaun. he bench presses 275 pounds and squats 500 pounds. in track, he runs the 100 meters in the 10.85 to 10.9 second range.
02-26-03 (8:25am) the buckeyes have their first verbal for the class of 2004. hubbard cb shaun lane (5'10" 170 4.5) has decided to become a buckeye. lane is a two way star at hubbard playing rb and db, but he projects as a cb in college with his size. as a junior, lane had a breakout season rushing for over 2000 yards. I haven't seen lane play, so i am not going to comment much here. i will see if i can schedule him into my high school football schedule next year for sure though.

i even have a link this morning. while i couldn't find anything written up on the shaun lane commit, i did find a piece in the akron beacon journal on the buckeyes and the white house.

as for me, i need to get busy today, but i will keep an eye out for mroe buckeye news. i will be updating the recruiting center as well today. enjoy.
02-25-03 (12:40pm) not much going on in the buckeye nation today. i do have another link that i missed this morning to pass along. the usa today has a piece with ten questions for college football. lots of buckeye information in that article.

the only other thing i have for now is an update to my class of 2004 recruiting center. this is still a work in progress, but i am making decent progress. there are approximately 250 names on the list right now broken down into the top players in the nation, the top players in ohio, and the top players being mentioned as possible buckeye recruits. i plan on adding many more lists to this page (like the top players in various states) when i have more time. i also have some real brief instructions on how you can help out the buckeye nation by seeing some high school games in your area and posting either stills or film on the net free for all to see and enjoy. hopefully we will have lots of fans helping document the top high school talent in the nation. if we get enough people to take their camcorders or still cameras with them we could even eliminate the need some have to pay for premium information. so if anyone out there would like to see some top notch high school talent in your area and perhaps help other buckeye fans see some talent too, check out the page now for a preview of what is to come. when i have this done i plan on having a list of links to high school schedules and directions to the games and everything. if nothing else it will make it easy for people to see some talent in their area. hopefully we will get some pictures and film to look at. we will see.

anyways, that is all i have for right now. i am going to try and post another recruiting profile here before the end of the day. enjoy.
02-25-03 (9:25am) first off i have a bunch of links on the buckeyes visiting the white house. here they are rapid fire style. websites with coverage of the visit include the dayton daily news, the akron beacon journal, the canton repository, the cleveland plain dealer, 1460 the fan, and the white house.

now for some random thoughts. osu had a big weekend for juniors this past saturday. several top players from ohio were involved and one of them walked away with a scholarship offer for the first time. xenia offensive lineman ben person (6'4" 290) now has a scholarship offer from coach tressel and is looking to make his decision around the beginning of fall camp in august. of course nothing is official until he faxes back a signed letter of intent to coach tressel on the fourth of february next year, but it sounds like he wants to get this out of the way before the start of his senior season. hopefully he decides to become a buckeye because we sure could use a few top offensive linemen in this class with seniors like adrien clarke, shane olivea, alex stepanovich, bryce bishop, and ivan douglas all leaving the team after next season

speaking of junior day news, i have been slowly piecing together a list of prospects that were in attendance and adding them to the ever improving 2004 recruiting center. so far i have read reports of the following juniors coming to campus this past saturday. this list consists of sophomore and buckeye commit jamario o'neal (db - wr mansfield senior), ben person (ol xenia), michael bell (wr shaker heights), chad hoobler (te-de carrollton), steve rehring (ol west chester lakota west), chase clowser (ol lagrange keystone), brandon underwood (cb hamilton), ted ginn jr. (db-wr cleveland glenville), marcus freeman (lb huber heights wayne), trumaine smith (wr warrensville heights), branden armstrong (ol clayton northmont), chauncey incarnato (ol dover), gary russell (rb columbus walnut ridge), brandon braxton (ol youngstown ursuline), jimmy calhoun (rb middletown), and brian hoyer (qb st. ignatius). to be clear about this, these are guys i have heard that were there. i was not there so i can't be sure about any of these guys. the only out of state player visiting that i heard was jalen parmele (rb midland dow MI). sometime later today i am going to add all these prospects to the recruiting center that aren't already there.
02-24-03 (1pm) first off i have some good news for the site. as you all know i have been seeking volunteers to go out to high school games and film and photograph them for us buckeye fans to see. so far that project is in its infancy but all is going well. i am developing a page devoted to that project currently and you can see it in the left hand column. it is called vg recruiting center. actually there isn't anything exciting about that. so far it has been a bunch of research and typing and it hasn't yielded anything as of yet. i do have reason to be excited today on the recruiting front though.

i just finished up negotiations with a professional photography studio, fuchs and kasperek, to allow me to use some of their stellar photography on my website. for those unfamiliar with fuchs and kasperek, they do some of the best studio photography work in the cleveland area. they also enjoy going to high school sporting events and taking pictures there. i am completely jealous of their photographic abilities. not that my pictures are awful or anything, but they certainly aren't professional strength either. so far the only photo i am using from fuchs and kasperek is a fantastic shot of st. ignatius quarterback brian hoyer. check out that link to get an idea of their photographic skills. their original photo is of much higher quality than the smaller and compressed version i use on the site. if you would like to purchase some of their photography, they sell high quality prints of their work online. a large picture of tony gonzalez or some other cleveland area recruits would look great on the wall and would be perfect to take to the annual autograph session. their prints are quite reasonably priced too. i would highly recommend checking them out and would like to send them a big thanks for allowing me to use their photography.

not much going on in the buckeye nation this time of year. that doesn't mean i get to take the day off and leave us all jonesing for our daily buckeye fix. in an effort to step up and fill the information void, it is time for another recruiting profile. today i am profiling cleveland glenville star sophomore linebacker freddie lennix. i don't believe i have posted any film on freddie yet in the video archive. i will add him to the never ending to do list for the site and try to get it posted here during this dead period before spring camp starts up. anyways, here is a quick profile of freddie lennix. enjoy.

Freddie Lennix

Freddie Lennix out of Cleveland Glenville High School. Freddie was one of the most explosive defensive football players in the sophomore class that I saw last season.

Position: Linebacker - Safety

Height: 5'11"

Weight: 190 pounds

40 Time: 4.5 seconds

High School: Cleveland Glenville

Notes:

Freddie Lennix was one of the most explosive defensive football players in the sophomore class I saw last season. He played linebacker for Cleveland Glenville when I saw him though he could be a safety when he gets to college depending on his growth over the next two years.

Freddie should be one of the top ten players on all the early junior lists for the state of Ohio next season and he could make some top 100 junior lists with the amount of recruiting publicity that stems from playing for Cleveland Glenville.

One of the most difficult things when evaluating talent from Cleveland Glenville is the level of competition. Their conference is not very good at all and many of their games aren't competitive as a result. To compensate for this, Head Coach Ted Ginn take his players around to a bunch of football camps and lets his players display their talents there. Freddie is already backing up his lofty ranking by being named the fourth best athlete at the national invitation junior combine held in conjunction with the Army All Star game. What a sophomore like Freddie was doing at that junior combine baffles me, but it is nice to see him do so well compared to the older prospects for sure.

The game I saw him play against last year was Cleveland Lincoln West. Lincoln West to put it politely is not a very good team at all so it wasn't easy to get a good read on his game honestly. Still though, Freddie was dominating as a linebacker with his great tackling ability and speed from the linebacker position. I would like to see him do it against better competition before judging him, but I didn't see anything in Freddie's game to worry about either. He was a solid tackler and seemed to have a high football I.Q. as well.

Right now, Freddie is too small to play linebacker in major college football, but then again he is just finishing up his sophomore season. He has plenty of time to grow into a linebacker still. If he doesn't get any bigger, he may have enough speed to get a look as a strong safety in college. He will probably need to work on the technique since he would be new to the position, but teaching defensive back technique doesn't seem to be an issue with guys like Dareus Hiley, Donte Whitner, and Ted Ginn Jr. coming out of the Glenville program before him.

I am very excited to see Freddie Lennix and the rest of the Tarblooder talent again this coming season. I believe they are playing at Massillon Perry this year, so I won't even have to drive far at all.
02-24-03 (10am) just some linkage to keep us regular today. the dayton daily news has a two pack of articles today with one on the buckeyes going to the white house and one on jeb bush paying up on his bet with governor taft. 1460 the fan has an article on buckeye and mansfield senior star sophomore jamario o'neal. final link for the morning comes from the youngstown vindicator on the reynolds brothers and their national championships. all in all a decent amount of ink on the buckeyes today for this dead period.

anyways, that is all i have for now, but i will have another recruiting profile posted around lunchtime today. enjoy.
newest buckeye mansfield senior star sophomore receiver - cornerback jamario oneal. 02-23-03 (3:15pm) i was thinking about taking a day off on the site today. i didn't get online until 2:45pm today. well, long story short i couldn't stay away from the computer and i got on and found some great news on one of the top sophomores (juniors to be) in the state of ohio. mansfield senior star jamario o'neal was the only sophomore invited to junior day this weekend and verbally committed to coach jim tressel. that last link is my profile on jamario o'neal. here is a link on that from the mansfield newspaper.

this is huge news for buckeye fans in this no news portion of the year. i have only seen jamario play once last season, but i was sold after about the first 5 minutes. jamario has game breaking speed, can cut on a dime and even tackles like a man. so many of these top athletes that play both ways play it like they are deon sanders on defense. they would rather give up an extra five or ten yards and run the guy out of bounds instead of making the tackle. that is not the type of player jamario o'neal is.

i have some free video on jamario o'neal in the video archive, but i think i only have one clip and the CBG didn't know how to zoom when he shot the clip so the quality is poor. i have some more highlights of o'neal and that will become my top video priority for the next couple of days.

in other linkage, the canton repository has a piece on some buckeyes being at a charity autograph session. 1460 the fan has a status report on the buckeyes and the NFL combine. final link for this late afternoon is from the cleveland plain dealer. the beginning of the article is about matt wilhelm and near the end of the article it has a blurb on ted ginn jr.

anyways, that is all i have for now. i will probably get back online later tonight. enjoy.
02-22-03 (1pm) i did some actual research on the big33 selection process instead of just giving my baseless opinion and i have some more info to pass along. it seems that there is no desire to field a team of the best 33 in ohio by the coaches association. instead they want a certain number of players from each region without regard to the fact that some regions do not produce top talent at all. it seems PA isn't so caught up in the politics of selecting a team and is more focused on fielding their best team possible. it is a shame our ohio high school coaches care more about their organization and being fair to all the regions than beating PA. oh well.

the buckeyes are looking good against purdue. nothing special since it is only the half, but we are up three. normally i don't cover hoops at all, but there are tons of top juniors at the game for football recruiting. you would think that they would realize the interest in osu football and at least make mention of it during the half, but don't hold your breath. we will probably get a non-topless women's sports update instead.

i have been working more on the master recruiting list. check out that link if you want to see my progress so far. it is far from done, but it is slowly getting there.
02-22-03 (9:50am) first off a few links and then on to some random thoughts. the dayton daily news has a piece on the buckeyes going to the white house and a piece on the problems ray griffin is having. the canton repository has a piece on mike doss at the combine by todd porter. probably the best article of the morning. last link i have for now is from 1460 the fan on andy groom, KP and mike doss and some other non-buckeye information.

it is a big weekend for football recruiting this weekend. osu is hosting several top juniors this weekend. some of the players speculated to be attending include qb brian hoyer, ol brandon braxton, ol chase clowser, ol steve rehring, lb marcus freeman, and db ted ginn. that is a bunch of top shelf ohio talent coming in for a look at the trophy and the rings.

i heard a rumor last night about why so many of the top ohio talents are missing from the big33 roster. first off prescott burgess, brady quinn, and mike phillips all turned down the big33 game, quite understandable considering none of these guys chose to become buckeyes (though it doesn't seem like phillips had a choice in his defense). as for some of the rest of the top talent in ohio being MIA, according to the rumor i heard, it seems that the ohio high school football coaches association is using its position of selecting the roster for events like the big33 to persuade more coaches in the state to join their ranks and as a result they are punishing some of the top players in the state and giving ohio football a bad name by not fielding the best team possible. i have heard that you can not make the big33 team unless your coach is a member of the coaches association and the player must also agree to play in the ohio north south game (which i believe is also ran by the coaches association). apparently irizarry turning down the ohio north south game made him ineligible for the big33. i have no problems with the coaches wanting a strong organization behind them, but to sacrifice the quality of the ohio roster against PA is too much (if these unsubstantiated rumors are in fact true). anyways, i have linked the webpage for the coaches association if you want to contact them and find out what the deal is with this rumor feel free.

while snooping around on the coaches association webpage, i struck gold. this link goes to an adobe .pdf file written by mark dantonio on the ohio state three deep zone. i found the article to be highly informative and it gave me a better understanding of what dantonio is trying to accomplish with the defense. i highly suggest everyone out there download this file and read it. perhaps this piece by coach dantonio will give you a small taste of why it is difficult for any true freshman to make an impact right away in college. honestly playing corner is probably one of the easier positions for a true freshman to make an impact (think chris gamble and his man coverage) and this article didn't make it look easy at all. don't forget that we play many many different defenses each and every game too.

if i was a high school football player, i would definitely take a long look at the article by coach dantonio. that should give you a small taste of the complexity of the college scheme compared to high school. i would love to find an article like this by an NFL coach to show the college guys what it is like when you actually do the football thing for a living. who knows, maybe one of the next dozen bengals coaches that is handcuffed by the incompetence that is mike brown and fired will write up a piece on how the NFL game is supposed to be played.

speaking of mike brown, is there a bigger joke in pro sports ownership? he is disgracing the paul brown legend every single day he insists on running that franchise. i know marge shott has to be on that short list along with gordon gund too. what is the deal with ohio sports owners being a laughinstock like this. was art modell contaigous and did he infect the rest of the state as a parting gift or something? i just find it mind boggling that a sports mad state like ohio can only count on the buckeyes to shine any given year. oh well.

anyways, that is all i have for now. i still have a few more recruiting profiles to post and i will probably post one here this weekend. enjoy.
02-21-03 (6:05pm) just checking in one last time tonight. i do have a link with the official ohio roster for the big33 game. lots of big name ohio talents missing. sure we all knew that donte whitner wouldn't be able to play since he is in college already, but who would have thought that guys like louis irizarry, prescott burgess, brady quinn, ernie wheelright, and mike phillips wouldn't make the team. honestly this team is still talented, but it is far from the best 33 players in ohio. there are a few buys who aren't even close to top 100 on that team. i don't know who selects the player but they may be the most 'expert' of all the recruiting experts. that roster is a joke.

the chat went well today. we only had maybe 15 people stop by at the most. with little football news, the conversation definitely drifted some. some of the more obscure topics included were various ea sports strategies, an odd discussion about nude football, and some discussion of beer and college football season. sure we talked some football too, but honestly the conversation was all over the place today. it was still enjoyable though and i will be scheduling another chat next week.

i know the recruiting page sucks right now, but check it out in another couple of weeks and you won't recognize it. it is a work in progress and i plan on making it a high priority for me the next couple of weeks.

anyways, have a happy guinness toast off tonight and enjoy the weekend.
02-21-03 (2:05pm) first off some walk ons that i missed the last couple of days. defensive end steve fender from toledo st francis de sales and linebacker anthony herring of huber heights wayne are planning to be walk on to the buckeyes. i haven't seen fender play so i really can't add much about him. i have seen herring play though. he was the smaller linebacker lined up next to marcus freeman for wayne. herring was productive in high school, but ohio state isn't high school either. the life of a walk on isn't easy, but nothing good ever is honestly. welcome aboard to steve and anthony and good luck in school.

i also have some info on the buckeyes trip to DC and the white house. nothing is set in stone since the president is a busy man and all but these are the plans as of right now. the buckeyes will be making a one day trip to DC on monday the 24th. they are supposed to visit the vietnam wall and the lincoln memorial before lunchtime (ballpark 10:00 - 11:30am). if you are in the area and not still snowed in, try to get out and support our buckeyes. i know the DC alumni chapter is meeting at the steps of the lincoln memorial at 10am to greet the team if you are interested.

on a side note here, big thanks to the taxman and dr. bill on the message board for that information. another big thanks to those readers who keep me informed via email. i don't have as much time to search for buckeye information as i would like to, but with guys like you out there, i hardly need to. you make my life much easier and i definitely appreciate all the help.

in the site news department, i am going to host a site chat today. in fact, i am hosting one right now at this link. as a reminder, the chat software is somewhat suspect. it seems like we can fit in only maybe 15 chatters at once and after that you will get bounced to chat room 2 or chat room 3 or so on. i am only in chat room 1 so if you aren't there, don't expect to see me. obviously you can chat with anyone else in there that you want to, but i won't be able to see any of your questions. on a side note here, the chat room is open 24 hours a day. if you ever need to chat with another person and lack common instant messenger programs, you can use my chat room. you can even make your own private chat rooms if you are worried about strangers stopping by. anyways, i am in the chat room at the time i posted this update and i will be for approximately an hour. i will have to leave the chat at 3:30pm at the latest no matter what, though i may need to leave earlier. stop by if you have any questions on the 2003 team or the recruiting class of 2004.

anyways, last note for now is a really crappy link. i am working on a recruiting page for the class of 2004 and it is hardly done, but there is some good information there though and i thought i would share it with the readers. if anyone has any good links or information to add to the recruiting page, feel free to post it on my message board (no registration or email address required) and i will post it on that page for everyone else.

anyways, that is all i have for the front page right now. i am in the chat room now and will be for a little while if you are interested. if not, enjoy the weekend.
02-21-03 (9am; 8:30am $ucknuts fictional time) i actually have some links this morning. the akron beacon journal, the canton repository, and the cleveland plain dealer all have articles on kenny peterson at the NFL combine. the last link i have for now is from 1460 the fan on ray griffin getting in trouble.

weak update this morning, but i should be better this afternoon. i am going to host another chat for the site later today in the afternoon and i will have a real crappy recruiting page making its debut later this afternoon as well. the page will be crappy now, but it will become the focus of this site for the next two months probably, so i don't plan on it being crappy for long. anyways, enjoy the friday and check back a lttle after lunchtime and i will have some more here for sure.
02-20-03 (1:50pm) not much going on with the buckeyes lately. i did hear a rumor that the osu spring game is going to be televised on either espn or espn2 this year. that will be nice for the out of towners for sure. it is only a rumor as far as i can tell, but a good one to start out with.

in other action the NCAA has changed the halo rule on punt returns again. it is now a 15 yard penalty and there is no longer a two yard radius. i think they still need to give the return man a clear shot at catching the ball if i remember though so it sounds like it will be a judgement call by the officials instead of a hard and fast rule of two yards. just what we need another vague rule.

with chris gamble as our punt returner and his obvious dislike of the fair catch, it will be interesting to see how he goes about it this year. we can't afford to have a guy like gamble taking a cheap shot, but honestly we can't afford to give up the good field position by not having chris gamble back there. we may see some open auditions for the punt returner job in spring practice this year to save gamble for offense and defense. the one guy i would watch out for is santonio holmes. he was getting a bunch of work in as punt return man in fall ball and looked fairly decent at it i thought. the other guy i would look to maybe get an audition as punt returner in spring ball is leandre boone. he also got a bunch of snaps and didn't look bad either. come fall ball you may see true freshmen tony gonzalez and dareus hiley get a look at return man as well. both have the shiftiness and speed to be a weapon back there.

in site news, i updated a bunch of my photography late last night. i posted new pictures for several of the recruiting profiles. when i originally posted the recruiting profiles i was having a bandwidth crunch on the front page for recruiting. since that is over i thought i would bust out some of the better pictures i had from this past season. they are all linked near the top of the left hand column if you are interested.

on a side note here, i only profile guys i have seen play high school football in person. that is why some of the top talents are missing from that list if you were wondering. i do have more profiles to do for the sophomore (junior to be) class still, but i am basically done with the junior (senior to be) class.

in further site news, i will be hosting a chat sometime friday afternoon. i am not sure of the time as of right now, but i do know that i will have time for it for sure. what we will chat about i have no clue with recruiting being over and me not covering basketball. i guess it will have to be a look at the 2003 season and the next crop of high school talent. i must warn though that the chat room isn't the most reliable software and after approximately 15 people get in the chat room everyone else is bounced into a room where i am not. you can feel free to chat amongst yourselves, but don't believe any imposters in the other chat rooms. i am only in chat room one. now you know.

in the last bit of site news, i have put a buch of thought into recruiting next season. i think i am going to do it like this. anyone who is interested in volunteering to film or photograph high school games is more than welcome to and i will help out anyone who is willing to share that film and pictures with the masses. obviously i have no interest in helping out premium sites that don't give me free premium information or pay me for my work.

i was going to do this under the table and through email, but it is looking like it will be too big a project for me to handle that way. i am going to slowly start building the recruiting page tonight, i may even post a couple of quick lists and links before the end of the day time permitting. at first it will just be a bunch of lists of top players in the nation and then top players in certain states. obviously i have not seen the vast majority of these players play football so it will be a combination of various other lists i find on the net and names submitted by readers. i am also going to try and link other sites lists, databases, and whatnot there. i am not making any judgement of players that i have not seen. i am not one of those fraudulent 'recruiting experts', i am just a recruiting fan.

ideally i will have other fans of college and high school football taping some high school action on their own this year and i will be prominently featuring those links there in addition to a how to guide for all things video. i have already had a couple of dozen people email me about this recruiting project and i am excited about the possibility here. if enough of us college football fans with camcorders hit just a couple of high school games each, we could theoretically get film on all the top prospects that have an interest in ohio state and liberate ourselves from the evil grips of the experts and their premium schemes.

if this is the first you have heard about my little recruiting project, let me provide some quick details. basically i can show anyone out there with a camcorder and a somewhat modern computer how to shoot film at a high school game, import that film into your computer, edit that film, compress that film, and share it online with others without spending a dime (outside of camera, computer, film, gasoline, football tickets, and internet access of course). i plan on coordinating the effort by providing a list of top talents and a list of their games. what do i get out of this? good question. ideally i get to see all kinds of film on top prospects for free that i wouldn't be able to see otherwise. i do not get use rights for your film or your photographs. the way i am setting this up everyone will have their own account to load their intellectual property into. i will obviously link to any accounts that osu football fans will be interested, but it will still be your property. if i wanted to use your intellectual property i would need to obtain a license from you for that.

anyways, that is all i have in me for now. i am going to slowly start creating the recruiting page for this site this afternoon and i hope to post a version of it in its infancy today.

enjoy the day as it happens.
02-20-03 (10:45am) sorry about missing the morning update today. i had to take care of a few pressing items in the email when i woke up. anyways, i do have some links to pass along. 1460 the fan has a piece on marco cooper and prison. no truth to the rumor that he is going to be guest starring on oz on hbo. last link for now is from the dayton daily news with a little bit on andy groom and the NFL combine.

i need to take care of something here now, but i will definitely be back online here for lunchtime. enjoy.
02-20-03 (1:15am) i promised another recruiting profile this afternoon and i am a man of my word. it is much later in the day than i expected to be posting it, but it is up and ready for all to enjoy. tonight's subject is glenville sophomore (junior to be) curtis smith. i do have some film on curtis smith, but i haven't had the opportunity to compress it yet and i haven't posted it in the free recruiting video archive. hopefully when my back feels a little better (moving all that snow just shredded my back), i will be able to get in the CBG's studio and do some more video work. i need to crash now but i will be back online with more nonsense to help us pass the time until spring ball starts up. enjoy the profile of curtis smith.

Curtis Smith

Curtis Smith out of Cleveland Glenville High School. Curtis was the most physically developed athlete in the sophomore class that I saw last season.

Position: Running Back - Defensive End - Linebacker

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 230 pounds

40 Time: 4.8 seconds

High School: Cleveland Glenville

Notes:

Curtis Smith was one of the most physically impressive sophomores that I saw last season. I only had the opportunity to see Curtis play once last season, but it was enough to get an idea of the type of player he could become in the next two years. The game I saw him play was against Cleveland Lincoln West. To be kind about it, I will just say that Lincoln West isn't very good. That is the hardest part of evaluating talent from Glenville typically. The conference they are in is not top flight competition and no team in conference hardly is able to put up a challenge. Fortunately for the players at Glenville, Coach Ted Ginn takes them to a bunch of camps around the country so they get the exposure that they deserve.

Curtis Smith lined up as a tailback on offense and with his size, i had an Eddie George flashback. Now that isn't saying he is anywhere near the runner that Eddie is. Curtis simply does not have that type of speed as of right now. What reminded me of Eddie was his physical size and his running style. Curtis ran a little high. That isn't the way you are supposed to run with the ball, but it is effective for Eddie. If Curtis is going to play on offense he will need to work on the speed some. That shouldn't be a problem at Glenville as Coach Ted Ginn seems to produce speedy athletes year after year. Tailback is a possibility for Curtis, but I honestly think his future is on the defensive side of the ball.

On defense I saw Curtis line up as a linebacker and a defensive end. I thought he looked better as a defensive end, so I will just deal with him as an end. Curtis was explosive coming off of the line of scrimmage rushing the passer from the end position and he was man enough to stand up his blocker and clog up the run. Admittedly, Lincoln West didn't have the talent to get a good read on Curtis Smith's abilities at end, but he didn't disappoint either. He was completely dominant at end and I imagine that is where his future is. If Curtis continues to develop, n two years he could be a recruit on par with Will Smith. Like I said earlier, he will need to work on his speed to get to that level, but the potential and the program are there and he has two more years of high school to work on it.

Curtis Smith should be one of the top 10 players in the state of Ohio on all the early junior class lists next year and he could make many top 100 national junior lists as well with the recognition that Glenville gets nationally. At this early point in the process, Smith's class seems to be heavy on the offensive side of the ball. I expect a guy like Curtis Smith to help balance that out.

I am very excited to see Curtis Smith again this coming season. I believe they are coming to my part of the state to play Massillon Perry this year and I think they also have a scrimmage in the area before the season as well. With Ted Ginn Jr. on the roster there is little doubt in my mind that I will find a way to see Glenville in action again this year. Who knows, maybe I will get a chance to see them make a run in the playoffs this season.
02-19-03 (2:30pm) sorry about missing the lunchtime update. i am a little busy today, but i am here now so here we go.

i actually have some more links today. i gotta admit they are a stretch to be on an osu football website, but they are remotely related so here they are. first link is from mtv.com on metallica playing at the horseshoe this summer. tickets go on sale saturday if you are interested. i was at a pink floyd concert in the horseshoe and it is a good place to see a show. for those who haven't seen metallica ever, i highly recommend it. they do a good job with their tunes live and the crowd is intense to say the least. the next link is from a new york paper about derek jeter and george steinbrenner. how in the hell is that osu related you ask? good question. jeter is quoted about talking with steinbrenner and then saying that george got side tracked in the middle of the conversation talking about the buckeyes winning the national championship. nice to see we aren't the only ones who can't seem to forget about the night of january third. all the osu related text is in the pop up text box when you put your mouse on the link if you don't feel like reading about the yankees. the third and final article today is from the same paper on mo vaughn. this one has a couple of bits about mo spending his winter in columbus working out at ohio state on his explosive power. again, all the good text is in the mouse over if you don't want to read the whole article. i know all three of those links were a stretch for this site, but it is the slow period, my standards for link quality tend to decline during this period.

in football news, i have heard a rumor that columbus mifflin linebacker george anderson will be walking on at ohio state this year. since the coaches can't comment on a potential walk on like him, i imagine it will be a rumor until he actually joins the team in august. i have no clue what type of player anderson is since i haven't seen mifflin play football. either way though, welcome to the family george. glad to see you are going to live out your buckeye dream.

last note for now though before i forget, don't miss the dave chappelle show on comedy central at 10:30pm. dave is an ohio resident and probably the funniest guy on television today. check him out if you could, i don't think you will be disappointed. anyways, that is all i have today. i am busy now, but i will try to get back online later tonight with another recruiting profile when i have more time.
02-19-03 (8:40am) i have some shocking news today. there is an actual link on the ohio state buckeyes football team. believe it or not it actually is a good piece on osu too. what a novel idea for the newspapers, covering the most popular team in the state year round. who would have thunk it. anyways, here is a piece from superfan doug harris in the dayton daily news mostly on recruiting.

that is all i have for now. i will be back online here around lunchtime with some random thoughts. enjoy.
02-18-03 (4:20pm) another slow day for the buckeye nation. i have a few more profiles of sophomores (juniors to be) written and ready to post, but i don't have any of their pictures on me so i am going to wait on those until i have them completely ready. i hate to redo the same page more than once without having anything substantive to add to it other than a picture.

speaking of the recruiting profiles, i am only going to profile players i have actually seen play football in person. i don't want to become a fraud and start commenting on players that i haven't seen. i will probably do something less than a profile for the other top players in ohio and around the nation, but there won't be anything original there. it will be a summarization of what it out there on the net. i will probably call it a recruiting preview, as in what i have heard about a player and expect to see if i get a chance to see him play (assuming he is in ohio) this year.

still speaking of the recruiting profiles, i have been posting them all in the left hand column. while i love having already seen the majority of the top talent in the senior (to be) and junior (to be) classes and having the profiles up for fans to feed their knowledge, i don't like the bloat that is becoming the left hand column. i am probably going to come up with a special recruiting page that will have links to all my recruiting lists, player profiles, player previews, and other relevant recruiting links all in one place. i am nowhere near doing that yet, but i hope to have it done before spring ball kicks off. hopefully i can get a few other fans with camcorders to start up their own video archive of high school talent and link that there too. i have had several people get in touch with me about the possibility and i am making good progress on getting them out a list of top players in their region.

last bit of site news before i get into some random thoughts is on the free video archive. i am nearly out of space there so i need to clear some of the old videos out to make room to post some new film. the first two candidates on the chopping block are prescott burgess and shawn crable (duh). if any michigan fans lurking on the site wanted to have them, this is your only warning. i am also going to remove any video i have on other seniors that aren't going to be attending ohio state. that means mike phillips and tremayne warfield are gone too. if these guys are friends of yours, family, or high school teammates and you want to save them, get them while you can because they should be gone forever after this weekend. final note on this topic. many of these older videos will need to be removed once high school football starts up next year (assuming of course me and the cbg are able to go again next year). i will still keep up some of the better highlights of players we are recruiting, but i will need to make room for the fresh content too. basically, i would recommend saving them to your hard drive if you want to keep them for future reference purposes. i am capped at 15 minutes of video that i am allowed to post and that isn't much honestly.

now for some random thoughts. the last time i covered the redshirts from last year i did the receivers and the quarterbacks. sounds like it is time for some more offensive players to me. today i am doing tight ends (not that they will probably end up as tight ends though).

rj coleman was a national top 5 tight end and the top prospect in the state of west virginia coming out of high school. i had the opportunity to get a real good look at rj coleman up close at one of the fall practices this year and his size is formidable. it isn't often my 6'4" 240 pound ass gets dwarfed like that, but rj made me look like one of the seven dwarfs.

that was fall camp. now with a year in the program under his belt, rj is even bigger and up to 290 pounds all without a serious loss of speed. impressive work in the weight room and the training table rj. he is officially being moved to the offensive line and he seems to be happy with the move. i am not sure if he ends up at guard or tackle honestly. with his height, he is an ideal tackle. with his speed he is an ideal guard. nice dilemma to have honestly. with rj taking off the redshirt and becoming an offensive lineman, things don't look so thin on the offensive line anymore.

the only other redshirt that could be considered a tight end is stan white jr. stan is probably more of an h-back (combo tight end fullback) than a pure tight end honestly and i personally think he might be a likely switch back to linebacker this year. i don't see stan as a tight end due to his lack of ideal size and i do see him going back to linebacker because i don't see him in the top 4 at tight end this year. stan white does have the ability to make the 2 deep at linebacker this year though (along with robert reynolds, aj hawk, bobby carpenter, mike d'andrea, and freddie pagac).

the last time i saw stan was in fall camp and he looked like a solid linebacker prospect. he was fairly mobile for a youngster and he tackled well. probably the one thing i would criticize stan for was being a little upright a few times before making the tackle. very important thing to correct and an easy to understand problem for a guy who was the man in high school making the transition to college ball. the other thing stan needed to work on was getting a better understanding of his responsibilities defensively (very understandable again for virtually any freshman linebacker not named aj hawk).

i know i said i was going to cover tight ends today and i ended up talking about an offensive lineman and a h-back - linebacker, but that is how recruiting goes. oh well. i guess we didn't have a tight end recruit last year in hindsight.

anyways, to wrap this up, i expect rj coleman to get a long look in spring ball and he has the potential to suprise in fall camp. it will be an uphill battle for him, but he could contribute and make the two deep. stan white i expect to get shifted back to linebacker or maybe even fullback (though i would call him more of an h-back). like rj, stan will have to adjust this spring and then be ready to make a push for playing time this fall.

anyways, that is all i have for now on football. i would like to remind people that the show kingpin is having its finale tonight. for those who haven't seen it yet, sorry about your luck because it is a pretty good show. i imagine they will rerun the six episodes again here on nbc or bravo sometime soon. the show if from one of the creators or directors of the sopranos. funny comment here, howard stern likes to refer to it as the sombreros. last bit of television programming i would like to recommend is the chappelle show on comedy central wednesday night at 10:30. dave actually lives in ohio now and we should all support him. i try to plug his show whenever i think of it since i have blatantly stolen so much of his material for the site.

the first two episodes of dave's show were ok, but nothing to brag about. the last two episodes were gold though. the bit it's a wonderful breast (or was it chest) and the black reparations bit were fantastic and some of the best comedy on television in a long time. i would highly recommend both these shows for tonight and tomorrow. by the way, if you enjoy dave chappelle and would like to hear more, check out his hbo comedy special 'killing em softly' for sure. probably one of the funniest hours of comedy ever crafted. he also has a 25 minute san fran show out there that is really good too. both of them are widely available for free on any of the file-sharing services and worth the free download. not that that is legal, recommended, or endorsed by the vg in any way shape or form of course. you haven't laughed until you have heard his bit on cartoon skunk pepe le pew the stalker - rapist. classic comedy from a twisted mind.

enjoy.
02-18-03 (10:25am) another day without any links. oh well. i guess i will just do some random thoughts today. first off a clarification about my recruiting profiles. i have posted 40 times for several players who don't have one posted elsewhere. where did i get them you ask? good question. these are just an estimate of his speed by me from what i saw in one or two games. hardly accurate, but probably not that far off either. i do something similar with the height and weight. i will see listed heights and weights in the program and on the internet, but i try to adjust it using my own 6'4" 240 pound body as a measuring stick. some players don't measure up (like marcus freeman for example who definitely was not 6'4" like the 'experts' had him listed as in the middle of last football season).

another clarification on the recruiting profiles. i did not compare brian hoyer's speed to bernie kosar's (lack of) speed. in fact i specifically said that 'brian hoyer is not going to beat you with his feet as a quarterback, but he has more mobility than microphone stand bernie kosar for sure'. by the way, the microphone stand mobility of bernie kosar isn't my material. that is completely lifted from drew carey's stand up act.

another comparison i won't make between brian hoyer and bernie kosar is the throwing motion. bernie had some of the worst throwing fundamentals i have ever seen. i have actually joked around with friends that he is personally responsible for there being no big time qb prospects in ohio for a long period of time since they grew up watching (and unfortunately imitating) him. that is not a problem brian hoyer has. brian has the nice delivery you would expect from a baseball pitcher.

i have also had a bunch of questions about which of the three qb's (anthony turner, darryl clark, and brian hoyer) in ohio i like the best. honestly right now, i am not completely sold on any of them after their junior season. not saying that they don't have the ability to be buckeyes, i just need to see more from their senior season. also this is looking like the year of the quarterback nationally and i can see the buckeyes taking todd boeckman and an out of state qb if the right one wants to be a buckeye. i am not convinced that the buckeyes will take any of the three big in state qb's. all three are lacking something that national caliber qb's like brian brohm or john david booty aren't. brian hoyer needs to become more consistent (and coach tressel only mentions consistency what every 9th word), darryl clark needs to grow a couple of inches, and anthony turner needs to add some arm strength to stack up to the other two. of the three in ohio, brian hoyer probably has the lowest hurdle to clear, but he also has the least experience playing qb too. who gets a scholarship offer out of these three guys will be an interesting subplot to recruiting next season.

anyways, that is all i have in me for right now. i am going to try to do another update later this afternoon if i can move the body still. i dug out the driveway yesterday by hand and right now the body is a little tight. being tall and working with stuff on the ground is not a good idea. i probably wouldn't be walking today if i didn't figure out a good move early on. instead of shoveling and then throwing the snow to the side, i used my lead leg as a pivot point and turned the heavy snow packed shovel into a lever. that lightened the load considerably and allowed me to mow through the snow at a much greater clip. glad to see those physics classes at osu pay off finally.
02-17-03 (11:25am) a little early for the lunch time update, but far from premature my friend. no articles out there worth linking today as has been the recent trend and as the forecast is projecting for the next month or so. that does limit what i can do for an update, but that doesn't mean i take the day off and leave my fellow buckeye addicts jonesing for information.

since there aren't any articles out there to discuss and link, it is time for me to step up and fill the void with another recruiting profile. today i am covering st ignatius quarterback brian hoyer.

i do have some film on brian hoyer available in the free video archive that you may be interested in checking out. there are no video clips in the archive under the name of brian hoyer, but they are in there all the same. try downloading some clips of tony gonzalez or mike massey catching the ball and you will see brian hoyer throwing the ball to them.

anyways, enough of plugging the recruiting film and on to some profiling of brian hoyer. enjoy.

Brian Hoyer

Brian Hoyer out of Cleveland St. Ignatius High School. Brian was one of the top three quarterbacks in the junior class that I saw last season.

Position: Quarterback

Height: 6'5"

Weight: 195 pounds

40 Time: 4.75 seconds

High School: Cleveland St. Ignatius

Notes:

Brian Hoyer was one of the top quarterbacks in his class that I saw last season. I only saw St. Ignatius play once last season, and that wasn't his best performance against Massillon. From what I heard though, Brian Hoyer came on strong the rest of the season and has made himself a big name as a prospect.

Brian Hoyer was a first year starting QB last season and typically first year starters struggle regardless of level. When I saw Brian against Massillon, he looked a little inconsistent but the physical tools were there, he just needed to put it all together. From what I have heard from people in the Ignatius family, Brian did just that and has emerged as a big time QB prospect.

Brian will be one of the top three senior quarterbacks in the state of Ohio and he has national top 100 potential with a big senior season. While Anthony Turner (Dayton C-J) and Darryl Clark (Youngstown Ursuline) have received more publicity at this point in the process due to having more experience leading the varsity, Brian Hoyer may have more upside as a player.

Brian has more than enough arm strength to succeed in college for sure. I didn't see him complete many long passes against Massillon, but he did put a ton of zip on the ball while distributing it to Tony Gonzalez, Mike Massey, and Dan Kralik. A quarterback's arm strength is best judged on how hard does he throw it, not how far does he throw it. Arm strength will not be a question for Brian Hoyer.

Brian Hoyer is not going to beat you with his feet as a quarterback, but he has more mobility than microphone stand Bernie Kosar for sure. Hoyer doesn't look to run the ball when the pocket collapses. He keeps his head up and his eyes looking downfield like you would expect out of any St. Ignatius quarterback that learned the trade under coach Chuck Kyle. Brian is a very typical St. Ignatius Quarterback. He has all the physical tools and all the coaching you could ever want. Hopefully he plays more like former Ignatius star Dave Ragone in college instead of another Ignatius QB like Joe Pickens.

What type of recruit Brian Hoyer is probably depends largely on his performance this summer. I liken him as a prospect to Brady Quinn at this same point in time. Brady Quinn was not all world until the end of his junior season and the summer camp circuit. Like Quinn, Brian Hoyer is coming onto the recruiting scene late in the process, but with big camp performances and a solid senior season, he could develop into the top QB prospect in the state of Ohio. Right now the two schools mentioned most are Ohio State and Michigan. I know for a fact that Coach Jim Tressel has enough interest in Brian to have taken a trip to the Cleveland area to see him and the coaches. Hopefully that trip pays off on February 4, 2004 when Brian Hoyer faxes a signed letter of intent to Coach Tressel.
02-16-03 (1:35pm) another late update, but it has been a good weekend (other than seeing the buckeyes get whipped by michigan in hoops of course) and that is all that counts. i do have another link for today and then another recruiting profile to share. in linkage, 1460 the fan has a piece on donte whitner and ashton youboty. absolutely nothing original or worth reading there. it is basically quotes from the signing day press conference rehashed so tim may can justify his job. read this only if you are hard up for information like me.

now for another recruiting profile. today i am covering youngstown ursuline offensive lineman brandon braxton. i don't have any videos of braxton in the video archive, but you can probably find him in some fo the delbert ferguson runs. he is number 76 in those clips and he only played against akron manchester and not the clips against new wilmington PA. if i recall, the clips at the beginning of the video archive for delbert are those against new wilmington that wouldn't potentially include any brandon braxton.

Brandon Braxton

Brandon Braxton out of Youngstown High School. Brandon was the top offensive lineman in the junior class that i saw last season.

Position: Offensive Line

Height: 6'6"

Weight: 305 pounds

40 Time: 5.2 seconds

High School: Youngstown Ursuline

Notes:

Brandon Braxton was the top offensive lineman in his class that I saw last season. I saw Ursuline play twice last season, but I only had the opportunity to see Brandon play once last season due to him missing the first game for reasons which I am unaware of.

The game I saw him play live was in the playoffs against an undersized and overachieving Akron Manchester team. Braxton played both ways that game and he was a mismatch on both sides of the ball against a smaller Manchester team. This mismatch made it awfully difficult to judge what type of player Brandon Braxton is. He dominated in the trenches for sure, but that dominance was based on physical skills more than technique I would imagine. Not saying that he lacks technique, I just didn't get a good chance to see him match up against another big guy.

Brandon should be one of the top two or three senior offensive linemen in the state of Ohio from what I hear and he has national top 100 potential with a big senior season. With his type of size, Brandon projects as an offensive tackle. He definitely has the long arms and the mammoth size required to protect the passer on the edge of the pocket. To get a good idea of his size, that little guy standing next to big number 76 in the bottom picture is OSU tight end Louis Irizarry.

Brandon is a more experienced run blocker right now than a pass blocker, just like most high school linemen. With Ursuline changing coaches and style of offense, Brandon is getting more experience as a pass protector and he should benefit from it down the road.

Brandon also plays defensive tackle at Ursuline. He is a good run stuffer and was able to collapse the pocket quite easily the one time I saw him play. I would like to see him do it against bigger, more physical competition before saying he could play defensive tackle in college, but he does seem to have that ability. His speed may be what limits him here and keeps him on the offensive line.

Brandon Braxton is the top offensive line prospect I saw last season and I plan on seeing him again this coming season. With his teammate Delbert Ferguson transferring to Warren Harding, the Irish games won't be the same, but Ursuline always has a big time talent at tailback and while Delbert will be missed, they won't have much of a problem replacing him, especially with a big guy like Brandon Braxton leading the charge.
02-15-03 (1:45pm) sorry about the late update today but late nights lead to late updates and that is what we have today. i do have one link to pass along from the morning journal on matt wilhelm getting his high school jersey retired.

i also have a correction to make from yesterday. it turns out the software behind the buckeye sports bulletin message board is better than i thought. if you just click on 'topic view' on the right hand side of the page, you will get a much more user friendly message board than the default view. big thanks to a reader of the site for passing along that tip. i found the default view of the bsb message board annoying, this way will make it much easier on my eyes. maybe i will start posting there again.

in site news, i am approximately 2 weeks behind in answering the site email. sorry about that. i hope to bang that out this weekend. i also hope to get a good chunk of the master recruiting list done this weekend. i have maybe 400 names and their vitals on the list as of right now and i am currently looking at a backlog of maybe another 200 names i would estimate. the list is much bigger than i ever imagined, but it should be a good tool for those interested in seeing some high school football in their region.

in other site news, i still haven't finished up any of my video projects i am in the middle of. i am doing a compilation of all my high school football highlights in one video, but i have some more voice overs to add and then i need to compress the 20 gigabyte file down to CD length, make a good copy of it on VHS, and finally a master copy in DV format. hopefully when we get done with upgrading the CBG's computer, i will be able to get into the studio a little this weekend and maybe knock that project off. once i get done with that, i plan on recompressing the ryan brinson, javon ringer, and anthony turner highlights that a few readers have had problems with the codec. after that i will compress some video on new players i haven't yet posted any highlights of like mario manningham and curtis smith.

i honestly don't know if i will have anything good to post today or not. i am supposed to go with the cbg up to best buy today to get parts to update his studio computer and i will probably be helping him out with that the rest of the afternoon. anyways, i will resume a more normal update schedule on sunday if i don't get back online today. enjoy.
02-14-03 (1:30pm) a little late for the lunchtime update, but better late than premature if you know what i mean. anyways, i have a bit of bad news for the site today and then another underclassmen recruiting profile to get you through the day.

first off the bad news. i will not be able to host a chat as i had planned to today. it is looking like i am going to be a little busy today to dedicate a block of time to chat. sorry about that. i will try to make time for one next week for sure.

now for another pre-written recruiting profile. today i am previewing another sophomore (junior to be), javon ringer of dayton chaminade-julienne. i do have some video on ringer in the free video archive, but i believe that i compressed the film with that other coded so a very small minority of the readers will not be able to watch his film until i get a chance to recompress the film. anyways, here is the profile of javon ringer. it will be permanently archived in the left hand column along with all my other underclassmen profiles. enjoy.

Javon Ringer

Javon Ringer out of Dayton Chaminade-Julienne High School. Javon was one of the top tailbacks in the sophomore class that i saw last season.

Position: Running Back

Height: 5'9"

Weight: 180 pounds

40 Time: 4.5 seconds

High School: Dayton Chaminade-Julienne

Notes:

Javon Ringer was one of the top tailbacks in his class that I saw last season. I only had the opportunity to see Ringer play once last season in person, but I did get the chance to catch him on the tube later in the year too.

The game I saw him play live was against a team from Canada and Dayton C-J ran up the score in a hurry. Ringer only played maybe a quarter and a half that game so it wasn't easy to get a good read on his complete game honestly.

Throw in the fact that the prime seats i snagged early ended up being in the student section and my compressing the video with a codec that apparently not all people have installed on their computer and you get a poor entry into the free recruiting video archive. There are some clips in there though if you are interested and have a relatively modern computer - media player. Javon Ringer certainly was impressive that game, but unfortunately my film simply doesn't do him justice.

Against the Canadian school, Javon ringer couldn't be stopped let alone contained. Ringer ran by everyone in the secondary and was suprisingly effective between the tackles. Being a smaller back (at least as a sophomore) there are going to be questions about your toughness and the ability to run between the tackles and more importantly break tackles. I honestly still didn't see enough of Javon to get a good read on his ability to break tackles due to the level of competition I saw him play against, but I am not overly concerned here either. Javon Ringer was a strong blocker and typically that is a sign of a strong runner.

I did get to see Javon catch a few balls out of the backfield in that quarter and a half. He had good hands and was highly effective as a runner in the open field. He typically made the first tackler miss and was then able to turn on the jets and get upfield for big yardage. With his skills as a receiver, I imagine he will be a highly effective third down back in college even if he doesn't get any bigger.

Another thing you have to like about Javon Ringer is the type of person he is. He comes from a strong family and religious background and academics aren't going to be a problem either.

In the state championship game Ringer played extremely well. Big time players make big plays in big games and that is exactly what Ringer did on the biggest stage in Ohio high school football. For the season, Javon put up huge numbers considering he had to split time with Pernell Williams for most of the season. During his sophomore campaign he ran for over 2,000 yards, averaged over 10 yards a carry and punched it the end zone approximately 30 times. Definitely not average numbers for a sophomore. Definitely not your average sophomore tailback. I expect even bigger things as a junior. With Pernell Williams no longer in the mix at Dayton C-J, Javon should get the overwhelming majority of carries this season.

Javon should be one of the top 5 players in the state of Ohio on all the early junior class lists next year and he could make many top 100 national junior lists as well.

I am very excited to see Javon Ringer again this coming season. Opening weekend against Clayton Northmont is looking like a winner to me, but being so far away I don't know if I will be able to make it or not. With Ringer teaming up with quarterback Anthony Turner again in 2003, they should be able to lead Coach Place's Eagles back to Stark County again to defend their title.
02-14-03 (10:45am) since it is friday i am going to mix it up a little bit. i have been posting a bunch of recruiting profiles and slowly looking at last seasons redshirt frehmen. i will get back to that later, maybe even tonight around dinner time. for now though i am going to go a different direction and start a tour - review of the buckeyes on the internet.

i actually started writing this last night, but i didn't finish it to the point to be able to post it. i will still be posting later this afternoon something i make up on the fly and i will be hosting a chat for the site later this afternoon. now on to the first installment of my tour of the buckeye web.

the biggest destinations on the web for buckeye information are the big free and pay sites out there. i will probably review them last in this series. i am going to start out by covering more fan oriented sites. today i am going to review all the major message boards out there for osu fans. just as a disclaimer, i have posted on all these boards mainly under the name of BIATCHabutuka. i occasionally use a secret second or third identity, but i prefer not to post that information here nor will i ever let anyone know via email or whatnot.

there are 3 main entities with free message boards for the fans to interact with each other. the ozone has the longest standing message board and it is completely free so i am going to start there. the o-zone message board is an acquired taste. obviously you get tons of osu football posts, but on the same board you will have non-topless women's sports discussed with the same passion (but obviously not the same interest). probably one of my favorite parts of the o-zone message board is the comedy that goes down every day. it seems that every day there is a topic du jour that is beaten into the ground that inspires the jokers out there to come up with gold. in the recent past we have had countless jokes involving 'the jacket', 'the speech', juan, pantones, and my personal favorite the shizzolator. typically the comedy starts in the late afternoon when people are just itching to break up the boredom that is being stuck in front of a computer at work all day.

being a completely free message board you would expect there to be tons of trash talking and random smack from other fans, but you actually get none of that. the smack gets posted and it is promplty deleted by the best collection of moderators out there in the buckeye nation. most of the moderators stay rather anonymous for the most part too. they don't flaunt their moderator status to brow beat people into agreeing with their opinions and the company line like some sites.

some of my favorite posters on the o-zone are zeke, rationally exuberant mark, jethro, tom green, ken pryor, cltbuckeye, cst, hucklebuckeye, the two guys from syracuse, big woody, and countless others that i can't think of right now. obviously i spend too much time there to not highly recommend this message board.

both the buckeye sports bulletin and bucknuts have free message boards as well. unfortunately they also have pay message boards for their subscribers and that splits off a bunch of quality posters from the masses. they also have rules against the posting of premium information on their boards. i guess these pay sites not only report facts but actually own them. even though summarization of premium material is completely legal under intellectual property law, it is not allowed. on a side topic, i find it humorous when the moderators delete those posts saying such material is illegal. it may be against board policies, but it is most likely not illegal unless it is a direct cut and paste of the premium information.

i like the software behind the bucknuts boards best of all the main message boards. it is more topic oriented than the other message boards and it is easier to find a topic you are interested in than the others. you don't have to sift though as much garbage to find the good stuff as you do on some sites. the board also reorders the posts so that the most recently commented on topic is at the top of the board. that way you don't have to go searching for the hot topics. i also like how the staff of the site will interact with the freeloaders. alleged recruiting expert duane long used to post on the free message board often back in the day.

that is all i have good to say about the bucknuts message boards. despite not breaking their rules at all, i was banned from posting or reading their message boards for reasons i can only speculate about since they never informed me in any way why i was in fact banned. oh well.

there is another secret message board associated with bucknuts, but it is by invitation only and you can't find it on a search engine. the quality of that board is good because of the secretive nature of the board and the fact that only good posters are invited to participate, but it really isn't intended for the public. i wouldn't bother asking them for the link either, they treat it like area 51. they deny it even exists, but it does. if the link gets out, they kill the board and move it to some other obscure part of the internet. i have been there on occasion and i imagine i will find my way there again. as of right now though, i don't have the current link location for the secret message board. i didn't frequent it much and it has been moved since i last found it. oh well.

bucknuts was (and i can only assume still is) different than the other message boards in that they have different boards for different topics. they have a general buckeye board which i never really cared for honestly and a board dedicated to recruiting. the recruiting board was one of my favorite buckeye destinations on the web. their in house 'expert' duane long would regularly answer questions and there were several other non-experts like myself, kern10, dplaw, wraygun, hobanqb04 and several other posters who knew high school football (and unlike the non john mcallister 'experts' have actually seen a game or two). towards the end of my involvement with the bucknuts message boards duane was allegedly having computer issues and was unable to post on the free board, yet these same problems didn't prevent him from posting on the premium board. it sounded fishy to me at best and i called them out on it. that is probably why i am banned from their site i guess. oh well, it is their loss i figure.

anyways, i have been banned for over a month now so i am not familiar with their boards anymore. i can only assume that their staff isn't retarded when it comes to computers and has fixed duane's computer to allow him to post on the free board by now. if not, it has been at least 2 if not 3 months since he posted and they just need to make an announcement that they don't care about the freeloaders and just focus on their subscribers and move on. business is business afterall; i just never appreciated being told excuses that didn't hold up to cross examination.

the only other things i could criticize the bucknuts message boards on would be the level of ass kissing going on and the way most moderators handle things. as for the ass kissing, you have to proclaim love for duane and all of his opinions or the board will jump on you. it has a jim jones cult type of atmosphere going on. his word is taken as gospel for some reason despite things like kenyon buford, tony tolbert, justin valentine, adam grassele, and ernie wheelright (is he a junior or a senior duane). also he is never called out for calling players like tyler everett soft either. if duane was such an expert on ohio high school football he should have known that everett battled injuries his senior season and played through them. he didn't know and called him soft for playing with the pain. as for the moderators, they defended the duane's computer problems excuse and the company line like it was their child or something. you couldn't disagree with the mods at all without them taking it personal and getting childish about it for the most part. it is rather obvious that most of the mods there are still in high school or college and have some serious growing up to do.

having not been allowed on their boards in the past month, i can't honestly recommend the message board or warn you to stay away from it. if duane is still having computer issues and the mods are still drunk on power, i would probably recommend staying away. if duane is back and contributing to the free board like promised and the mods have chilled out since they don't have to (unfairly) deal with the crap from that, then i would recommend it.

buckeye sports bulletin also has a free message board in addition to the pay message board. i personally hate the software behind the board. it will display something like 20 posts at best. anything after that you needed to follow a link to the next page to get more info. as a result of this frustration, i don't really participate there much, i just read the posts and move on.

the content on the free bsb message board is still quite good. most of the premium subscribers still interact on the free message board it seems and there isn't quite the harsh split between paying customers and those unwilling to pay. one thing i can criticize the bsb boards on is the total lack of participation by the staff of the site. you will never see bill kurelic or any of the writers for the bsb post on the free board unless they are posting a link to premium content or putting out a fire. they don't claim to post on the free board either like bucknuts though so it is hard to fault them for trying to make a buck or two honestly. they are completely upfront about their business and they aren't trying to be the fan site that happens to make a profit [disclaimer time, my site is a fan site that is actually does cover its expenses just from the one ad on the top of the page].

if you can get past the software behind the message board, i would recommend the bsb free board. you have some quality posters over there and some quality information and discussions.

anyways, that is all i have for this topic today. i am going to continue this series next time with a look at all the fan sites and some of the good stuff you can find out there if you search for it.

i am still going to do a chat later today and i will probably post another look at the redshirts or another underclassman recruiting profile later this afternoon. enjoy.
02-14-03 (8:05am) just two links to start out the morning. the akron beacon journal has a piece on mike kudla and his medical situation. nothing new there honestly. the second link is more of a commercial than anything else. this one in the canton repository is about an autograph show in north canton with some current players whose proceeds benefit the james cancer research center. just make sure this is on the level with the NCAA is all i worry about here.

anyways, that is all i have for now. i am going to try and get another update up around lunchtime and then do a chat for the site for an hour this afternoon. enjoy friday as it happens.
02-13-03 (2:40pm) sorry about missing the lunch time update today. with football being dead for the time being, this site has to take a back seat to real life things for the time being. oh well. i do have another recruiting profile to post today though.

before i get to that though, i have a site announcement. i forgot to hold a chat yesterday with the readers. probably had something to do with me being busy and all. anyways, i am going to be in the chat room friday afternoon to make up for it. i am planning on doing that right after i get done with a lunchtime update and i will spend approximately an hour in the chat room. i will post the actual times of the chat here on the front page when i know for sure. last note about the chat room. i don't have to be there for it to work. it is open 24 hours a day for anyone to stop by and chat. typically there is nobody there, so if you want to chat, grab a buddy off of the message board and bring him along. if you don't want to chat with any strangers that show up, you can make your chat private if you want. just thought you might like to know.

below is my quick profile of warren harding sophomore (junior to be) wide receiver and return man mario manningham. before you go looking for my free recruiting videos to check out manningham, don't bother. despite hitting two warren harding games, i believe i only have two catches by manningham on film. against mckinley, he didn't get the ball much and against elder he was dominant, but the weather was not the type of weather i like to bust out the digital camcorder in. oh well. i do have some film on manningham catching the ball against mckinley i can post, but i compressed it using a higher quality video codec that some readers don't seem to have installed on their computer. i am going to recompress these clips again and do it the old school way before i post it again. anyways, here is the profile of mario manningham.

Mario Manningham

Mario Manningham out of Warren Harding High School. Mario is easily the top wideout in the sophomore class that i saw last season.

Position: Wide Receiver - Return Man

Height: 5'11"

Weight: 165 pounds

40 Time: 4.45 seconds

High School: Warren Harding

Notes:

Mario Manningham was the top wide receiver in his class that I saw last season and one of the three or four most electric players in that class as well. I had the opportunity to see Manningham play twice last season. The first game was against Canton McKinley and the second game was in the state championship game against Elder.

Against McKinley, senior Prescott Burgess was injured and held out that game, so I focused my attention on Mario and McKinley sophomore Ryan Brinson mainly. Manningham played a bunch, but he hadn't yet emerged as the big play go to guy completely. Manningham did play though and he did catch a ball or two. It was hard to get a good read on his game from that performance though with the limited touches. He showed some good speed, but he didn't do anything spectacular honestly, not that he had the chance to.

In the state championship game against Elder, I saw the future of Ohio high school football wide receivers. Manningham was a man amongst boys towards the end of that game. Even on a snowy field, Manningham stood out as the best athlete on the field. His speed was something Elder couldn't match up with, his hands are sticky like Lester Haynes' hands, and he had the leaping ability of a Terry Glenn. He nearly brought Warren Harding back from the dead after a quarter of the stadium had already called it a game and left frigid Fawcett Stadium. Unfortunately for me, the weather was so bad that i got only maybe 10 minutes of film total from that game and maybe only 45 seconds of it was useable. Oh well. I may not have the film to show, but the image of Manningham taking it to Elder in the fourth quarter will be burned into my memory for years to come.

Mario will be one of the top 5 players in the state of Ohio on all the early junior class lists next year and he should make all top 100 national junior lists as well. It isn't like the 'experts' aren't aware of Warren Harding or anything (especially with Delbert Ferguson leading the ground game for the Raiders next season). Publicity won't be a problem for Manningham that's for sure.

As good a receiver Manningham is, he is probably a better return man on special teams. Mario has the explosive speed and the quality coaching that leads to good field vision. If Manningham finds a lane, he is gone and very few high school kids will have the speed to run him down. He has the type of skills as a return man to play immediately in college in a couple of years regardless of depth at receiver.

I am very excited to see Mario Manningham again this coming season. October 18th at Massillon is looking like a great opportunity for me to see Manningham again, especially with the way Massillon lost twice last season to Harding and all. With the loss of Tremayne Warfield, Manningham will be the unquestioned man at receiver and he should get some decent matchups with guys like Delbert Ferguson and Richard Davis carrying the ball and keeping the defenses honest in the Thom McDaniels offense.
02-13-03 (8:50am) just one link this morning that i could find. marla ridenour of the akron beacon journal has a piece on donte whitner and ashton youboty getting a head start on the rest of the recruiting class.

anyways, that is all i have this morning. i already know i will be out and about for lunch today, so i am going to try and sneak in an update before i go. maybe i will bust off another recruiting profile or continue my series of looking at the redshirts. who knows.
02-12-03 (5:15pm) another slow day for the buckeye nation. i did what i could at lunchtime today to pick up the slack somewhat, but honestly that updated sucked like lloyd carr on an in home recruiting visit. sorry about that poor update. as i find myself jonesing for a buckeye football fix today i figured that probably some readers out there were too. as a result i decided to post yet another recruiting profile today. another sophomore (junior to be) today and another personal favorite of mine jamario o'neal from mansfield senior.

unfortunately the mansfield game i saw last year was my first with the digital camcorder and i sucked operating it. i also picked some awful seats and had a mother neglect her infant son in the seat in front of me and i spent as much time that game trying to stop him from touching the lens on my camera as i did watching football. as a result of those frustrations i think i only had one useable clip of jamario o'neal. it is a great touchdown run on a reverse, but i was letting the crazy bearded guy use the camera during that run while i was getting some still shots for the website. the cbg didn't know how to zoom so it didn't come out good either. oh well. anyways, here is the profile of jamario o'neal (it is also linked permanently in the left hand column with my other recruiting profiles). enjoy.

Jamario O'Neal

Jamario O'Neal, one of the top sophomores in the state of Ohio out of Mansfield Senior High School.

Position: Defensive Back - Wide Receiver

Height: 6'0"

Weight: 175 pounds

40 Time: 4.45 seconds

High School: Mansfield Senior

Notes:

Jamario O'Neal was one of the top athletes I saw in the sophomore class last season. When I saw Jamario play, it was early in the season and he was playing corner on defense and wide receiver on offense. He did get a couple of touches that game running the ball on reverses and that is also a realistic possibility for him in college. He could be a Michael Wiley type of tailback that could also play in the secondary or out wide offensively. Midway through the season, O'Neal was shifted to safety from his corner position so teams couln't avoid him as easily on defense. Anyone who is talented enough for opposing coaches to game plan around as a sophomore is one to watch in the future.

This move to safety could hurt his development as a cornerback as far as his coverage skills are concerned, but it should help his development in zone coverages and as a tackler. Anyone who knows defensive coordinator Mark Dantonio knows that making tackles is more important to him than anything else in the secondary.

Jamario is widely considered to be one of the top two or three players in his class already. He is so good in fact that coach Jim Tressel visited Mansfield Senior to talk to their coaching staff about Jamario O'Neal after his sophomore season. O'Neal should be on every early top 100 list for the juniors for next season and he is talented enough to continue the streak of top national corners started by Donte Whitner, and (hopefully) continued by Ted Ginn.

Jamario compares favorably to a guy like a Dareus Hiley. He can do it all on the football field and there is no questioning his athleticism. He isn't the type of guy who is an athlete first and just trying to find a position on the football field either. Jamario is a football player who happens to have the skills to play several positions effectively in high school. It is just a matter of figuring out what is best for his future and his team.

I only saw Jamario O'Neal play once last season and unfortunately it was my first high school game with the camcorder (that wasn't rained out). I wish i was as good with the camcorder then as i am now. I missed a bunch of great highlights due to poor seat choice and poor camera technique. I won't make that mistake again this season that is for sure.

As a football player, Jamario has a nice combination of height, speed and toughness. He will need to fill out the body to play in college, but he does have two more years of high school to work on that. One of the most impressive things i saw in his game was his ability to be in the right place at the right time. Speed is nice in football, it allows you to cover up your mistakes, but it is no substitute for being in the right spot defensively or reading the blocks or the coverage on offense. Jamario was effective at manning up his receiver and was still aware of the ball and was able to shed his man and help out on the tackle. Buckeye fans best remember this skill from Antoine Winfield. Not saying that O'Neal is a tackler like Winfield at this point, but he does have that ability to make the receiver miss the block and the toughness to bring down the ball carrier. On offense, O'Neal has God given ability to make people miss tackles and he has been coached extensively on how to follow the blocks. Many young athletes try to make countless cutbacks and do it all on their own, the great ones follow their blocks and then cutback only when they have to cut back. That is Jamario's style of running and it is plain and simple fun to watch.

Of all the sophomores I saw play last year Jamario O'Neal, Mario Manningham (Warren Harding), and Ryan Brinson (Canton McKinley) were easily the most fun to watch with their style of game. I imagine I will mainly be trying to get film on next year's crop of seniors in 2003, but I will try to schedule these guys into the mix again as well.
02-12-03 (12:50pm) just checking in for the lunchtime update. not much news out there but i did forget to post an item yesterday that broke so i will lead with that and then see where that takes me.

the only real news out there is injury news. defensive linemen simon fraser and darrion scott both will miss spring ball after having minor surgery. they both should be full go for fall camp though so there isn't much of a concern at this point as far as on the field issues go.

this will seriously limit the effectiveness of the defensive line since scott and fraser are two of the top four talents in the trenches. a postive for the fans out of this is that the backup defenders will get extra reps in practice and the spring game. that means we will get our first good look at guys like quinn pitcock, joel penton, jay richardson, and tim schaefer (unless of course the coaches decide to move them to the offensive line in the spring).

probably the biggest benefit to the fans though is that the defense won't be totally dominating as it was last spring. man was that spring game a snoozer or what. who would have thought that we would be national champions after watching that game.

the biggest problem i see this creating is for the offensive line. the o-line may catch a break in spring camp not having to face them, but it sure isn't going to help them prepare for the fall camp. that is the only thing that concerns me. the more competition the better.

speaking of the spring game, it is being held on april 26th in the shoe at 1:30pm. i know me and the cbg will be there for sure. i can't wait to see how things work out that game. lots of redshirts getting their first action, and we will see donte whitner and ashton youboty get their first action in the shoe. the columbus dispatch said there should be around 80,000 people for the game. i don't buy it. if the weather is good i would expect nothing less than standing room only.

in answering some common email questions for the site recently i present the following paragraph. i did do my first preview of a current sophomore (junior next year in football) yesterday. that doesn't mean i am done with my junior (senior next year in football) profiles. i actually have profiles written up for brian hoyer and brandon braxton. after those two though, i am not sure if i will have any more players osu is pursuing that i have seen play football to be honest. i could do a profile on some other high school stars that may be of an interest to some fans. guys like billy relford of massillon or anthony hoke of warren harding.

i am debating whether or not to do a profile of players i haven't seen play. i would like to pass along information on a guy like fred davis and some other top talents, but i honestly have nothing to add to the conversation until i get to see then in action. maybe i will cover guys like that when i am really struggling for stuff to post.

as for which other top sophs i plan on covering, they are mostly those in the free video archive. actually i have a couple of other sophs that i have film on that i haven't posted yet. easily the two biggest names are warren harding's mario manningham (though i think i only have one or two simple catches by him; the snow in the championship game prevented me from getting much good film) and cleveland glenville's curtis smith. smith is a beast of a player already. he is approaching eddie george size and is still growing. he plays tailback and defensive end for glenville though his future is probably on defense.

anyways, i will have write ups on smith, manningham, ryan brinson, jamario o'neal, javon ringer, brett donaldson, freddie lennix, and probably a few other players i can't think of off the top of my head. i will be sprinkling them in to the daily updates over the next dead month or so if you are interested. i will continue to post links to them in the left hand column.

in other site news, i am still working on entering all the data into the recruiting list. i just wanted to say thanks to all the readers out there for keeping me up to date with names from their region and links to lists of players. the list is going to be massive when i am finished and i am sure 99% of the players on the list will never even be on the osu radar screen, but it should serve as a nice reference tool for fans interested in seeing some local high school games in your area featuring top talent. if you are anything like me, you can't get enough football, but high school football isn't that interesting if it isn't your old team, your son's team, or it has a top college prospect or two on the field to entertain us. hopefully this list will help readers find games of an interest in your area. that is the purpose with which i am making the list. if anyone out there actually gets film from the games and posts it on the net, that is just gravy, delicious thick and lumpy gravy.

speaking of gravy, i am about to rip into a turkey sandwich. hopefully this thanksgiving i remember to make me a turkey sandwich like the one monica made ross on friends. you know the one with the extra piece of gravy soaked bread in the middle, the moist maker. i honestly like my turkey on toast with a little ranch dressing, colby cheese, and the turkey as dry as can be, but the moist maker sandwich sounded really good to me. anyways, that is all i have for now. i am going to try and get back online later today and post something else. enjoy.
02-12-03 (10:10am) sorry about missing the morning update. with the lack of news in this period of the year, it is hard to convince the body that i should get up that much earlier in the morning than i have to honestly. anyways, for links i have just one. 1460 the fan has a piece on an ohio high school coaches hall of fame, the spring game, rumors about the washington game being a night game this year, and even some on stanlye mcclover.

that's all i have for now, but i will have a more complete update around lunchtime today. enjoy.
02-11-03 (4:30pm) i bet you thought i wasn't coming back online today with no buckeye information out there and all that. that's true, but that doesn't lessen us die hards need for a quick fix of buckeye information now does it. in an effort to keep us buckeye junkies sane, i decided to whip out the first of my sophomore previews from last season. ryan brinson will be one of the top juniors in the state of ohio next season and he has a barry sandersesque quality about the way he runs the football. yea that's right, barry sanders as in the best tailback in the recent era of NFL football. those aren't my words either. i was showing some film of brinson to a buddy of mine (the irish patent attorney) and that was the first thing out of his mouth after watching just one clip of brinson. i actually have a bunch of ryan brinson highlights available for a free download in the vg recruiting videos section of this site if you want to watch for yourself. one warning here though first. i compressed the tape from this game using a different video codec and some older computers and media players can not play the clip. i do plan on recompressing the brinson footage (as well as the footage of anthony turner and javon ringer that i compressed using the same codec) but it isn't exactly high on my priority list either. anyways, here is the ryan brinson preview i wrote up. enjoy.

Ryan Brinson

The top sophomore tailback I saw in the state of Ohio last season, Ryan Brinson from Canton McKinley High School.

Position: Running Back

Height: 5'10"

Weight: 170 pounds

40 Time: 4.5 seconds

High School: Canton McKinley

Notes:

Ryan Brinson was the top sophomore tailback I saw in state last season, even better than Dayton C-J's Javon Ringer (who i thought was awesome still). Some feel that Brinson may not grow into a college sized tailback and that could be true. I am not very psychic afterall. Personally though, I would hate to see a guy that looks Barry Sandersish get converted to a safety or corner just because of his size.

Ryan will be one of the top 5 players in the upcoming junior class in Ohio and he should be on nearly all the early top 100 lists as well. Most players of his ability that go to such a traditional power like Canton McKinley aren't starved for national recognition.

I only saw Ryan Brinson play once last season and I was sold from the first couple of carries. His ability to make people miss in the open field is mind boggling, but that isn't what he is best at. He has the innate ability to make tacklers miss in the hole. That is what coaches call having good vision and that is what is going to make him a superstar someday. By the way, the team i saw him against wasn't a bunch of chumps either, it was Warren Harding (though Prescott Burgess was still nursing a shoulder injury that Delbert Ferguson gave him earlier in the season).

Some people may criticize Brinson for his size, and they have a point. Then again, he was only a sophomore in high school last season and he probably has some more growth in him. Last I heard Ryan was approximately 5'10" and 170 pounds, so like I said the size is a legitimate concern here at this early stage. One thing that isn't a concern though is his toughness. I have several video clips of Ryan Brinson dragging 2 or 3 Warren Harding tacklers for a couple of extra yards. Also, Brinson isn't affraid to take the hit like some smaller backs. He honestly gives as much of a hit as he gets most of the time.

Another thing that shouldn't be a concern with Ryan Brinson is the academics. I saw an interview with him once and was impressed with his speaking ability. I don't know what types of grades he is bringing home and I doubt that he has even taken an ACT or SAT yet either. Regardless, Ryan is a bright young man who has a good future ahead of him with or without football.

As for what college Ryan is looking at, it is way too early to guess here. With the Canton Mckinley connection going on at Ohio State, you would think the Buckeyes would be a big leader early on in the process, but you never know. Antonio Hall was a big offensive line prospect out of the same school that chose Kentucky of all places for their music program. Hopefully the Buckeye coaching staff is all over Mckinley these next two years scouting out Brinson. In my opinion, he is the best football player in Stark County next year regardless of age.

Anyways, if anyone out there wants to see a tailback with some serious moves, make sure you check out the Bulldogs this year at least once. You won't be disappointed by Brinson no matter how the rest of the team is playing.
02-11-03 (1:05pm) not much out there as far as buckeye information is concerned. the o-zone posted part three of their look at this year's recruiting class late last night. very good read.

now to move on to some random thoughts. yesterday i did a brief look at the resdhirt freshmen qb's. today i am going to continue that thought with a look at the redshirt receivers santonio holmes and roy hall.

with michael jenkins and chris gamble returning at receiver as well as guys like drew carter, bam childress, and john hollins waiting in the wings there probably aren't going to be a lot of opportunities for a new guy to break into the mix. if santonio holmes or roy hall did get some significant PT this year, it is really saying something about their abilities.

the last time i saw either holmes or hall play football was in fall camp. hall was a bigger receiver while holmes had more the classic receiver build. both showed they belonged on the field, but i honestly thought santonio holmes looked much better at the time.

santonio is a slender receiver to say it nicely. he has very good speed and showed some good hands in practice. he also showed a ton of ability as a return man. he still was a little raw when it came to getting under the ball on the return, but i think that will come in time.

as a receiver i would expect holmes to be effective on deep patterns, comeback routes, and quick in and out cut routes. with his speed and ability to change direction he should get a decent cushion from most cornerbacks and be able to use that cushion effectively on the comebacks and the quick cut type of routes. once holmes and his qb establish the ability to connect on those patterns, that should tighten up the cushion and allow holmes to use the speed to get deep.

roy hall is a completely different style of receiver. he is big and physical with good speed and good hands. roy hall isn't the type of receiver you will be jamming at the line of scrimmage that is for sure. i didn't see too much from hall in fall camp honestly to comment much. he didn't look bad or anything, he just didn't get the ball much in the half dozen or so practices i was at so it is hard to judge him really.

there was even some talk about roy hall being used as a tight end, but i don't buy that. hall played tight end on the scout team in preparation for miami. he was the closest thing we had to a kellen winslow type of tight end with his combination of size and speed. i think that was done just to get ready for winslow and nothing more. i will believe roy hall at tight end when i see it.

as a receiver, i see roy hall being most effective in working the middle of the field either on slant routes or curls into the soft sports in the middle of a zone defense. hall could also be brutally effective as a redzone receiver with his size and athleticism.

anyways, that is all i have for now. i am still working on my master list of recruits for next season. i have over 300 names already and i still need to add approximately 150 names or so to add before i clear my plate. i am sure i will have plenty more names to add once it gets closer to the 2003 season, but this will serve as a nice preliminary list for some of us fans to see if there is anyone in your part of the country worth maybe checking out. i will be back online either late afternoon or around dinner time with some more thoughts on buckeye football. enjoy.
02-11-03 (8:40am) just three links for right now. the dayton daily news has a piece on football conditioning getting ready to start up again. the akron beacon journal has a piece on kirk barton. last link for the morning is from 1460 the fan on mike kudla.

anyways, that is all i have for now, but i should be back online here around lunchtime at the latest. enjoy.
02-10-03 (10:10pm) sorry about the minimal updates today, somedays it just isn't meant to be and today was one of those days. hopefully i can make up for it right about now. before i start into my led zeppelin imitation and start to ramble on, i just checked out vladimir's website and there was another update just tonight. just thought you might like to know.

now for some random thoughts. tonight i am going to start to look at the more important new players for the 2003 season, the redshirt freshmen from last season. lots has been written about the 2003 recruiting class lately even though statistically speaking most of them aren't going to play this season. on the other hand the players coming off a redshirt will all be in the mix this spring and looking to earn some playing time in the fall. tonight i am going to start a series of looks at those players taking off the redshirt this season.

the two most talked about redshirts are the quarterbacks troy smith and justin zwick so i might as well start with them. with craig krenzel and scott mcmullen both back for their senior season, i don't expect either smith or zwick to get many non-garbage time snaps in game situations honestly. what will be more important to these two will be how they progress in spring and fall camp in preparation for 2004. i am sure coach tressel will try to get at least one of the two redshirts a few game snaps here and there just so they can get the feet wet, but honestly PT is going to be limited for either redshirt freshman qb.

when i last saw justin zwick and troy smith play it was fall camp. troy smith was a bit erratic, but he was spectacular at times as well from what i saw. justin zwick did have an injury problem in fall camp and didn't get the opportunity to impress much after that. still though, he wasn't injured the entire camp and i saw him practice at least twice that i can recall before the injury slowed him down. zwick looked like he had potential, but nothing really stood out that made me think he was the future and the future was now.

not that i have anything against troy smith, but i honestly am rooting on justin zwick. i am biased to those stark county kids afterall. despite this bias though, i thought troy smith was the better quarterback when i saw them both play and they were both healthy.

troy smith isn't the michael vick type that everyone compares every athletic quarterback to nowadays. sure he can move and create things with his feet, but he isn't blazing fast like vick and he doesn't have vick's arm either. fortunately for troy smith, michael vick is a freak of nature at the quarterback position and you don't need to be that to be a winner in college (just ask craig krenzel, ken dorsey, tee martin, or jay barker; hell bernie kosar had the mobility of a mic stand and threw the football like a girl with that three quarter - side arm delivery, but he was still highly effective in college and the NFL). troy smith does add an extra element to the offense that no other qb on the roster does. he has the ability to threaten the defense as a runner. not that krenzel wasn't a threat running the ball (isn't that right cryami), he just didn't have the ability to break one off like a troy smith does.

troy will need to work on making the reads and learning not to force the ball into too tight of a window. he has a great arm and can make the difficult throw some of the time but i think that hurt him in fall camp last season. he almost seemed too confident in the arm (kind of like steve bellisari was honestly) and thought that he could make all the throws. that led to a bunch of spectacular throws and some horrible mistakes. if coach tressel and coach daniels can harness the talents of troy smith and get him to start thinking more like a quarterback instead of an athlete, he has all the skills to dominate the big10.

justin zwick already thinks like a quarterback. that is the advantage you get from having an older brother being a college quarterback and playing quarterback all four seasons in high school (unlike a guy like troy smith who played some receiver as well). sure justin still has a bunch to learn, but he is ahead of the curve for most typical redshirt qb's in terms of quarterbacking.

as an athlete, justin zwick is above average in nearly all quarterback traits. he had good height, decent thickness, a good arm, good footwork (though he will throw off the back foot from time to time stll), he is fairly accurate already throwing the ball, and most importantly he makes good reads most of the time. all justin needs to do to win the job in 2004 is keep on improving everyday.

i must say that the last time i had the opportunity to see either zwick or smith play actual football was in fall camp. ideally they both improved quite a bit since then. since i saw them last, i heard rave reviews from matt wilhelm and warren harding coach thom mcdaniels about troy smith and i have heard that justin zwick was coming on strong on the scout team.

probably the toughest thing for either redshirt qb this year will be staying mentally focused. everyone knows craig krenzel is running the offense next season. it is also nearly a forgone conclusion that scott mcmullen will be the number two qb. neither redshirt freshman can afford to take it easy in practice. if they don't compete for the starting job every single snap and every single meeting, they probably don't have what it takes to play quarterback in college. that is another thing about troy smith that i was impressed with this year. despite being a redshirt and having no chance of playing in the game, he was always standing by coach tressel trying to get his learn on at all times and focused on the game as if he was going to be subbing in any play.

the spring game will be a good display for troy smith and justin zwick. it will be the first opportunity for most buckeye fans to see either of them play qb in a buckeye uniform. i would expect craig krenzel and scott mcmullen will be the starters for the spring game and troy smith and justin zwick will be split up as their backups. this should give us a good opportunity to see who has made the most progress towards earning the right to succeed craig krenzel in 2004.

anyways, that is all i have for now. as i sit back and read over what i just wrote, i am not particularly happy with it, but it will have to do for tonight. i had a bad day today and it is all i have in me. more in the morning hopefully.
02-10-03 (11:45am) sorry about this, but the lunchtime suprise isn't going to happen today. there are issues with sony imagestation it seems today and i can't work it. as a consolation prize, vladimir gonzalez has updated his video capture archive since i last posted a link here. check it out if you are jonesing for buckeye football. disclaimer time, vlad may be having the same problems with his imagestation account that i am having so the link may or may not be working when you try it out.

me, i need to go out today and i won't be back anytime soon it doesn't appear. i will try to get back online later tonight and post something good. sorry again.
02-10-03 (10:10am) sorry about missing the morning update today. i thought about posting this update and just listing my time as 6am like some certain sites would do (like the site $ucknuts, who posted news links at 11am theoretically yesterday that weren't posted until well after lunchtime yesterday still for some odd reason). anyways, there just weren't any links out there this morning so i didn't post any. i do have two links from the o-zone now to pass along. here is part one and part two of the o-zone's look at the recruiting class. part two is particularly good in that it is chock full of quotes from actual recruiting expert (as opposed to actual recruiting fraud) john mcallister. john mcallister is a friend of the site and a damn good evaluator of talent. if anyone out there can name for me a recruiting expert who makes his living scouting out the state and selling that information to colleges i would like to hear about him. to me this makes john the only true expert in an industry filled with wannabees and fruads, but what the hell do i know. all i know is i was glad the o-zone was able to get a couple of quotes from john on the recruiting class that they were allowed to use. it is always nice to see a real expert's opinion (especially when he agrees with me on guys like dareus hiley, tony gonzalez, and prescott burgess).

anyways, that is all i have for now. i have a couple of things planned for later in the day including at least one of them in time for lunchtime, but more on that when the stomach starts to rumble.
02-09-03 (5:15pm) not much action in the buckeye nation today. that doesn't mean i take the day off though and let all the fellow buckeye addicts jonesing for information. i got some links and another site announcement to pass along.

first off some linkage to keep us regular. here is a look at the top juniors in the state of louisiana. here is an early look at some of the top juniors in the state of florida. this is a list of some of the top junior talent in the dallas fort worth area. this final link is a list of the sophomore talent in the dallas fort worth area.

all this means i have a bunch more names to add to my recruiting spreadsheet / webpage. once i get done with all the gathering and entering of data, i plan on emailing this out to those who contacted me about possibly seeing some high school football in your region. i was hoping to do that today, but with all these new names, that will probably be next week more realistically. i will be posting this massive list as part of this site when i get it closer to a finished project.

for those unfamiliar with this little project of mine, here is the cliffs notes version. i am hoping to teach other people how to go film high school football (or take pictures or just see games and comment on prospects). i have had quite a few people express interest in the project, and i have a suprise or two up my sleave i am waiting to reveal that may help the project grow significantly beyond the buckeye nation.

i have plenty of lists of top national prospects in the junior and sophomore classes already. i also am doing well with the individual states like ohio, florida, texas, and louisiana. of course i would be interested in any links to top junior (or sophomore) lists for all the states or the entire nation, realistically though a few states are more important than the others as far as buckeye recruiting is concerned. i really need a list for illinois, pennsylvania, california and new jersey. historically speaking, the buckeyes have recruited these four states in particular often and any links to their lists would be much appreciated. probably the best way to pass along a link to me is honestly on my message board. i check it out typically at least once a day (unlike my email). anyways, if anyone out there has any pertinent recruiting lists to pass along or would like to see what you can do to see some high school football action in your area, post a message on the message board or send me an email and i will get in contact with you when i have something tangible to distribute.

anyways, that is all i have for now. enjoy what's left of the weekend.
02-09-03 (10:25am) just two articles for right now and then a thought on last night. the first article is from 1460 the fan on the recruiting class. nothing new here, but nothing new was expected either honestly. it is the dead period for osu football news. the second link today is must read material from friend of the site todd porter and the canton repository on all things buckeye. todd does it today random thoughts style with a little on this and a little on that; add it all up and you get an informative lengthy article. there are almost too many osu football topics for me to cover in a sentence, but here we go. the canton rep piece has a good page or two on donte whitner, some info on the db situation at ohio state, some info on the recruiting class in general, a little bit on curt lukens, and even some info on spring practice. that's the way we like it around here todd. whip the whole thing out all at once and don't worry about saving any for tomorrow. good job.

in the random thoughts portion of today's update, i played some brutal poker last night. me and the cbg started playing over at our friend's place around 9:30pm last night and we left there a little after 4am. fortunately for the cbg he was the big winner by far. he took home approximately 7 times what he took out of the bank. i did fairly well myself nearly doubling what i bought into the game with.

best moment of the poker game came when i was dealing in between (or sheets some call it). that is where everyone antes in and then you deal two cards face up to the first person. he can bet any amount up to the pot that the next card i deal will be in between the two other cards showing. if you are right, you win your bet and take it from the pot. if you are wrong, you contribute your donation to the pot. if by chance it is a tie and you match one of the cards i originally dealt, you double your bet. the game typically starts out low stakes and gets to be big money fast.

anyways, i just kept screwing this one guy over with an ace and a two (the best possible hand in sheets, only another ace or deuce is a [double your bet] loser; everything else is a winner). three times one hand our buddy got that and of course he bet as much as he thought he could only to see another ace or duece come up (statistically possible since the game lasts a long time and you need to reshuffle often before the pot is empty and the game is over). i was nearly in tears from laughing at his bad luck. it was even worse when his girlfried got a king three a few times and a queen three only to match each and every time there and have to double the bet.

anyways, since i didn't get to sleep until nearly 5am this morning and it is just a little after 10am right now, i am thinking about taking a sunday nap. perhaps i can count my winnings again to get me to sleep instead of counting sheep. enjoy.
02-08-03 (11:20am) just one more link for the morning. 1460 the fan has a piece by tim may on coach tressel at the touchdown club banquet last night. nothing much in the article but it is still worth the free click. nc state qb phillip rivers was there and he seemed confused as to what the name of our stadium was. he called it buckeye stadium, the horseshoe or whatever. considering he is about 7 months away from being introduced to the turf by darrion scott, will smith, tim anderson, and simon fraser you think he would show the field a little respect. it is ohio stadium phil. it also goes by the nickname the horseshoe or simply the shoe. enjoy the taste of the turf on september 13th as you choke on it.
02-08-03 (10:30am) i just got done putting the page back to its old format. i did do a slight redesign which shouldn't be noticeable to 98.5% of the viewers. this redesign will help the page load faster for the vast majority of the readers. for the 1.5% of the audience, the page simply will not load the left hand column, the fade in text boxes, and the header of the page. i packaged all that repetitive text off into different files so you don't have to load them every time you visit the page. if you are now having troubles with the page, you need to turn on your javascript. if you don't know how, send me an email and i will walk you through it.
02-08-03 (8:15am) just one link for now. this is from the dayton daily news on coach tressel being happy with the recruits we got. from reading the article, you can tell coach tressel puts about as much faith in the rankings from the recruiting experts as i do.

anyways, that is all i have for links for right now. i am going to do some work on restoring this page to its old self now that the rush for recruiting information is over. i also plan on doing a small piece on how to download my recruiting videos (and the video captures of vladimir gonzalez since they are on the same server). i have received an email or two from people having problems with the process. instead of answering the same questions over and over again i figured it would be easier to just make up an instructions page. more when i have it.
02-07-03 (high noon) first off i have a little suprise for the fans. vladimir gonzalez has uploaded more of his video captures from the fiesta bowl to his imagestation account. today he has a fresh capture chris gamble catching the bomb against a slower miami defensive back. of course he still has his old captures from the purdue game, the illini game, and the last two michigan games. check them out if you are deficient in the FDA daily recommended amount of eye candy.

right now i am going to take a look at the recruiting class as a whole and how it fits in with the team we have returning. after today, i will probably be done with recruiting and start focusing on next year's recruits and previewing spring ball. last note before i get started here, i still haven't finished entering in all the names for the recruiting list for next year yet. when i do get it done i will email it out to those who contacted me about seeing some high school recruits in action for themselves. i hope to have this done this weekend, but i am not sure if i will get it all done or not. that list will eventually appear on this site when i get it to a more finished state. what i will be emailing out is a preliminary rough list of prospects and not worthy of publishing yet. now for some thoughts on this recruiting class.

this years recruiting class is heavy on defensive back types and heavy on defensive line types. great for those positions, but what about the rest of the team? good question.

as for the defensive back types, i don't see all of them staying in the secondary. dareus hiley will probably be a reciever from day one and a return man. i imagine he will get a brief look at db also, but his future is with the ball in his hands (on an unrelated note, lloyd carr's future is with balls in his hands too, but i don't think i need to elaborate his future as a testicular masseuse much). like hiley, tony gonzalez could play offense too, but i don't see it happening. he is a corner most likely and maybe a safety. guys like whitner and youboty are defensive backs the whole way from what i have seen and read. curt lukens on the other hand is looking like he could move to linebacker like cie grant and brandon mitchell before him. lukens is a tough kid and has the mentality to play linebacker for sure. ira guilford is very interesting here. he could contend for a safety spot from day one in fall camp and he may even get a look at tailback just in case of an emergency. with his ability to run and hit, i would expect him to start on special teams like mike doss did and then develop from there.

these secondary type players fit in well with the team we have now. we lose both safeties and have questions at corner still. these questions aren't answered yet, but i think the depth we have brought in turns this essay worthy question into a multiple choice question. we know it will be answered by one of the guys, and we hope like hell the answer isn't none of the above.

the defensive line recruits are great in this class. david patterson, sian cotton, and brandon maupin all have the size to play right away. with the way the buckeyes rotate defensive linemen, the opportunity is there for them to make a move on the depth chart, but honestly i don't expect more than one and maybe two at the max (and that is only if we move several d-line types ahead of them to the o-line as has been speculated). of the three, david patterson is the more developed player and the most likely to play right away.

on offense, the unquestioned star of the class is louis irizarry. i don't see him redshirting and i see him probably being the second tight end behind ben hartsock. ryan hamby is getting better but irizarry adds a dimension to the offense that hamby can not despite being that dame type of tight end. i look for irizarry to be used often in the passing game in this type of scenario. the bucks are play action passing, the tight end is going to rub his man (and not in the lloyd carr sense of the word either) and let him through - pass him off to the tackle, blocking back, or for the qb to read. sometimes the tight end even takes a dive to the turf here to hide from the deneders. the tight end then releases from the line of scrimmage and is wide open in the flat area. i heard that coach tressel liked to use this play at y-town. personally this is one of my favorite play calls and it fits right into the run oriented offense. the linebackers are typically pulled in by reading the play action and the rub block by the tight end. by the time the linebacker or safety reads the pass, it is usually too late to do anything about it.

as for the rest of the recruiting class (devon jordan, reggie smith, and kirk barton), i don't see them contributing this year unless they are a demon on special teams. to recap it, i expect at most 6 of these guys to contribute this year (ira guilford, louis irizarry, david patterson, donte whitner, and maybe 2 or 3 more on special teams). the rest of the team will be most likely redshirted in my opinion to learn the system and adapt to college life and college ball.

sometime this weekend or early next week i am going to do a look at the freshman that were redshirted last year and how they may fit into the mix this season. for now though that is all i have. enjoy the weekend if i don't make it back online today.
02-07-03 (8:55am) i got a bunch of links for the morning and then a suprise for the lunchtime update. for now though, all i have is some links, so here they are, bullet style. ayways, that is all i have for now. later today i will have some more complete thoughts on the recruiting class as a whole and a suprise from vladimir gonzalez for buckeye fans. enjoy.
02-06-03 (3pm) sorry about missing the lunch time update. something came up and i wasn't near a computer. no truth to the rumor that the something that came up was in my pants either. anyways, i have some more links and then a comment or two for the late afternoon.

in the missing links category, i did miss a couple of articles this hurried morning. the akron beacon journal has a piece on shawn crable as did the massillon indie. unless you are some sort of sadist looking to further punish yourself to make up for the good feelings from the national championship, you may want to skip over those as well.

in the actual news category, the florida papers are at it again with guys committing to the buckeyes that for some reason these experts weren't aware of. today the mystery recruit that the experts were unaware of is louis holmes from dillard high. you can read the article if you want, but honestly there is only a short blurb about holmes in the piece and if you rest your cursor on the link (and you aren't using a piece of crap passed off as a browser), all the relevant text will pop up in a little textbox.

you know, you think an expert would at least know who the hell we had scholarship offers out to, but then again, it isn't like there is some sort of certification test you need to pass to become a recruiting expert. maybe that has something to do with the lack of credibility in that profession. who knows.

this actually gives me a thought. maybe i will make up a certified recruiting expert examination and post it online for a joke. i can probably figure out how to grade it online and have a printable certificate or expertness form display if you get a passing score. sadly though, one of the staples of the recruiting expert exam, do you own and are you trained on the operation of a number 2 pencil, isn't relevant in an online test. oh well.

i got to find something to do to help kill the time before spring ball. i know i have the NFL draft coming up and i plan on previewing the hell out of spring ball, but i doubt that is enough to work it every day like i have been for the past 6 months or so. i would like to keep up the pace of my updates, but realistically, i imagine my updates will slow down somewhat now with the lack of news. it isn't like i can create fictional commitments or make up transfer rumors or anything to entertain us and still keep that minimal credibility that i have.

last link before some comments is from the good people at the buckeye sports bulletin. the bsb did probably the best wrap up of all for the recruiting coverage out there. lots of nice pictures too. i know they are a pay site, but from what i can gather they do put out the most content for your money and i have yet to see them make critical mistakes and pass it off as premium information. if you live in the columbus area, check out you local big bear and pick up your free print copy of the buckeye sports bulletin. when i lived in columbus it was the only grocery store i would shop at just for that reason.

now for some random commentary. it is obvious that coach tressel is really trying to put down roots at dillard down in florida. we have chris gamlbe and thomas mathews on the roster now, it looks like evans desir is going to walk on to the team and louis holmes is going to be a late scholarship addition to this recruiting class. we had quinton thomas, but he came up short academically, of course we also chased stanley mcclover out of dillard this year only to come up short.

anyways, it looks like the recruiting 'experts' in ohio should make sure to get themselves a copy of the dillard roster for next season because the buckeye coaching staff seems to be trying to pick up a player or two from this florida power every year. personally, i like this strategy. out of state recruiting is hard enough without having the long time contacts. these frequent flier trips to the same top schools year after year will do nothing but create a familiarity with the high school coaches and breed osu awareness with the student body (of course national championships do that too).

in site news, yesterday was by far the busiest day in the history of this site. yesterday i had twice as many visitors as i did the entire year of 2000. in other site news, today we had our 100,000th visitor in 2003 already. considering that last year the site just fell short of 250,000 visitors that is at a smoking clip this year.

anyways, i just wanted to say thanks to everyone who stops by and visits and let you know that you are appreciated. i know the numbers are starting to get staggering, but don't worry about this site changing much. it will still be a football only site (well football and some dirty jokes and stuff like that) and it will always be a free site. this past season i really tried hard to make the site a higher quality destination on the web with the videos and the player photos and such and it looks like it has helped.

last bit of site news for now, i was proud that the site didn't crash out once yesterday. i came really close three times yesterday, but i did a few tricks and kept the page running. since the football action is entering a slow period i imagine the traffic will die back down to a more normal level. as a result, the pictures that i had to take down from the site are going back up probably this weekend, including the red textured background. i know the site had a generic look to it the past two weeks, but at least she didn't crash out on us again. thanks for everyone's patience with the look of the site.

as for my thoughts on the recruiting class, i plan on working on a more detailed analysis of the class tonight and posting it friday. for now though just some quick thoughts.

personally, i was crushed by the loss of shawn crable. i made no secret of him being one of my favorite players in ohio high school football last year and my desire to have him on campus. things didn't work out for whatever reason though and i am done with him. the loss hurts me more than jim tressel i am sure.

focusing on what we do have, you have to like this class despite the small numbers. getting guys like donte whitner, dareus hiley, and tony gonzalez is huge. all three can run like the wind and all three have learned under a top flight high school coach.

i expect whitner to make an impact in spring ball honestly. he could play either corner opposite chris gamble or fill the void at either open safety slot. it may even be easier for him to break in at safety. whitner played the position his entire senior season and tackling and hitting are his strongest points other than his blazing speed. i really think the secondary is going to be fun to watch in spring ball this year with the questions involving where dustin fox plays, how does whitner fit in to the mix, and who is going to succeed the incomperable mike doss and donnie nickey.

another group of players you have to be excited about is the defensive line. with osu's rotation of lineman i would expect to see one or maybe two of these newcomers play. david patterson and sian cotton are probably the most likely candidates for early playing time with the departure of my man KP and david thompson.

anyways, thanks again to all the readers out there for supporting the vg and reading this crap i write daily. i need to get offline for a little while, but i may be back online before the end of the day. if not i will try to get back online later tonight. maybe i can message vladimir gonzalez and get him busy with posting more buckeye highlights for us to enjoy.
02-06-03 (8:15am) as expected there are a bunch of links this morning. taking the lazy untalented webmaster way out, i am doing these bullet style today.
anyways, that is all i have for now. i will have another update here around lunchtime i imagine, maybe sooner if i find something else worth posting.
02-05-03 (10pm) two more links to pass along, an item i forgot earlier, and then a highly speculative rumor for tonight.

in linkage, the cincy enquirer has a good piece on the recruitment of brandon maupin. the other link i have is an official write up of the recruiting class from the official ohio state website. that is a very nice summary of the incoming recruits that i would suggest anyone out there itching for a little more recruiting coverage to read. in fact, that article also has an audio file of the jim tressel press conference if you would like to listen to that.

one item i forgot to mention earlier was the status of linebacker pat o'neil. pat has had numerous surgeries recently it seems and may not be able to continue with football next season. coach tressel didn't seem sure of his status and i am sure a warrior like pat (whose brothers were great players at bowling green) will give it the college try next year. good luck to pat from the vg.

in rumor action, i have an interesting one, but before i get to that i need to do a serious disclaimer. i have no knowledge if this rumor is true or not. in fact i believe it is most likely false since there was no credible evidence presented to support this rumor. also, since the party accused here has not been proven of doing such a dirty deed, i am not going to repeat the name of the company used to commit this dirty deed either. finally, this rumor does not originate from me or this site in any way shape or form. i am merely repeating a sanitized version of a rumor i was reading about that was posted on a different websites anonymous message board from a poster who i am not familiar with enough to judge the credibility of said poster at all. for all i know this is a smear campaign and i make no judgment on the merits of the rumor.

wow, that was a big disclaimer. you would think i would have a juicy rumor, and well you are right. this one is about as juicy as they come. it could lead to recruiting violations in football for the university of michigan if this unsubstantiated rumor were to be in fact true and proven true by the NCAA (and we all know how the NCAA takes it easy on michigan from the ed martin affair).

after all that build up, here is the rumor. the rumor said that basically a certain michigan football player had a job washing trucks for a certain NW ohio construction firm for which he was paid well. the anonymous message board poster claimed that this player, despite being paid for his work, never in fact actually performed any work. the arrangement was believed to be set up by the owner of the construction company in order to funnel funds to the player in order to secure his commitment to the wolverine football program.

if, real big if, that were true and the owner of the construction firm was considered a booster of the michigan program under NCAA rules, that would be a slam dunk recruiting violation. in fact the NCAA would still find a violation if the player was found to have been paid an unreasonably high amount for work he actually did. for example, if the normal person doing this 'job' received 10 dollars an hour and potential recruit was paid 15 dollars an hour that would still be a violation. it would also be a recruiting violation if for example a recruit was to work 20 hours but be paid for 40 hours. it doesn't matter how you cheat, it is the cheating that's important.

do i think this is true? doesn't matter what i think honestly. i do find it hard to believe that a business man like this wouldn't have the skills to hide the transaction better. doing this as an employer generates time cards and tax forms. it would be quite easy to check out the time cards and verify that a recruit was in fact there for those hours. it would also be quite easy to compare a recruit's wage for such work compared to other workers in the same job.

the sheer stupidity of the scam makes me doubt the rumor honestly. that doesn't mean i wouldn't investigate it however if i were the NCAA. it could be nothing more than sour grapes from a disgruntled buckeye fan. it could also be the tip of the iceberg to a much larger ed martinesque scandal though. i would think the NCAA should at least do a preliminary investigation of the paper documents from this business, but then again i am not the NCAA.

the more i think about it though, these no show - no work jobs are depicted in the organized crime controlled construction companies on the sopranos. i remember philly and ralphie having no work jobs and my favorite sopranos character christopher molitsanti showing up to bust their balls about how hard it is get ready for the job he didn't have to show up to while philly and ralphie complain about how hard this no work job is while sitting under an umbrella and having drinks. it was a funny scene. maybe this business owner isn't that bright afterall (especially if he supports UM) and this is just another case of life imitating art. only he isn't doing it to skim money from a construction project like they do on the sopranos, he would be using that skimmed money to help out a program in serious need of help.

like i said, this isn't my rumor and it probably is just a disgruntled fan with a vivid imagination. still though, perhaps the NCAA should investigate if nothing more than to remove any possible taint from the michigan program already tainted by money laundering and paying players over one half a million dollars for their attending michigan.

enjoy.
02-05-03 (6:20pm) just a couple of more quick notes from national signing day. first off brandon maupin has finally faxed back his signed letter of intent. it was reported earlier by all of the media as a mistake, but that doesn't matter anymore. we got the signed LOI and maupin is a buckeye.

in other news, coach tressel denied signing any junior college lineman today. of course he didn't mention evans desir by name due to NCAA regulations but it was obvious that was who the caller was talking about. that means either that he simply hasn't signed yet today, or it could mean something wacky. it could mean he was part of a package deal with mcclover that is now off and was reported by the florida newspaper prematurely. it could mean that desir is a big fan of travis tolbert and wanted some buckeye attention. who knows. maybe desir is a gray shirt or maybe he is even a preferred walk on and as a result there was no LOI to sign. what we do know is that he isn't a buckeye as of right now. anything else is speculative crap and i will need a credit card number before getting into that (kidding of course).

anyways, that is all i have for now, if i hear more i will of course post it hear. enjoy.
02-05-03 (5:05pm) i have been listening to the press conference and it has been rather light on jim tressel quotes, but pleasantly packed with an interview with donte whitner and ashton youboty.

whitner is going to be number 9, the same number he wore in high school. whitner decided to enroll early at osu about midway through his senior season. donte still visited a bunch of schools but didn't seriously consider any of them except notre dame and that was too far from home. at the beginning of the glenville basketball season, donte started to reconsider his decision to enroll early when he saw the basketball team was struggling without him playing the point. at that point, coach ted ginn stepped in and sat down with donte. coach ginn stressed to donte that he needed to make the decision that was best for him and his future and not worry about basketball.

donte continued to talk about how he had 73 scholarship offers this year and that he may decide to run track at ohio state in the off season. he is glad he enrolled early and is getting the red tape part of college over with now instead of having to do it all while he is trying to win a starting job. that is the one reason donte enrolled early. he is here to start and isn't shy about it. he knows there is competition, but he also knows that the best player will play. now it is just up to donte to prove he is the best man in spring ball and fall camp. he also mentioned that his high school teammate dareus hiley will be coming to columbus probably in late june to start adapting to the environment and get in shape for the football season.

ashton youboty echoed the same topics as did whitner. he too met maurice clarett before the season last year and realized the opportunity to play if you get to campus early and go through spring ball and conditioning with the team. as for his recruitment, youboty said it was down to penn state and ohio state for months. youboty said his decision came down to the campus atmosphere and the city life of columbus and the type of people he was surrounded by at ohio state compared to the situation at penn state.

i also just got done talking to the cbg who heard the shawn crable press conference live on massillon 990am. needless to say the cbg wasn't too happy about the outcome but he did relay a couple of facts from the press conference. crable said he liked the academic situation better at michigan and that basically it was time for him to be his own man and go a different path than his teammates at massillon. the best part of the press conference was shawn crable talking about the time he dunked on devon jordan in the 7th grade. jordan took the mic after that and said shawn had the facts wrong. crable dunked on some small dude and definitely not devon jordan he said. let the rivalry begin.

anyways, tressel should be coming back on the air here soon so i am going to go and listen. enjoy. crable liked the academics at michigan better and wanted to be his own man and different than zwick and jordan.
02-05-03 (4:05pm) mike bush is a louisville cardinal and jim tressel is live on 1460 starting at 4pm. check it out. the chat went good again today other than the imposter that used the screen name vanilla-goril1a (with a number 1) and broke the news of bush to osu. it was pretty funny though. i straightened out those in the chat room though and booted the imposter from the room. unlike some sites though, i wasn't a dick about it. i booted him for a whopping two minutes and not a lifetime ban or anything like that. anyways, i am going to log on to 1460 and listen to tressel. enjoy.
02-05-03 (2:20pm) the buckeyes will not be signing shawn crable, turk mcbride, stanley mcclover, or devin stearns. michael bush isn't expected to sign at his 3:15pm press conference either. who does that leave as possibilities? good question. it is possible the buckeyes could take a kicker in this class. david dyches has a gray shirt offer and i haven't heard what his deal is yet. adam graessle also has the gray shirt offer but had decided to take a scholarship from pitt instead. i don't know if he has autographed the LOI yet today, but maybe the buckeyes can now offer him a scholarship. another player who committed elsewhere who now may get a look is columbus tailback justin valentine. valentine has verbally committed to minnesota. he has said though that he would be interested in the buckeyes if they were to offer. if valentine hasn't signed yet, it is possible he could get a LOI still today. otherwise though it looks like the buckeyes are done with recruiting.

jim tressel is going to be on 1460 the fan from 4 - 6pm. as a result the vg will of course be listening to the fan during that time. i was going to host another chat at 4 today, but who is going to want to chat instead of listening to tressel. as a result i am getting in the chat room now if anyone wants to drop by feel free. i will be in ther until 3pm if you are interested. the link is in the top of the left hand column. as a warning here, the chat software seems to have issues with traffic. i am in chat room one only. if you are placed into chat room two or three or whatever, i won't be there and won't know you are there.

if that crappy chat isn't interesting to you, yet you still wanted to ask me a question or two, check out the message board and drop me a line on one of the blank threads i started for each of the new buckeyes. i will get to them later today.
02-05-03 (1:05pm) sad to say but shawn crable is a done deal to michigan. he has in fact faxed back his signed letter of intent to michigan already and the press conference will confirm this. i found this out via email from canton repository writer todd porter and here is his article on it. thanks for the scoop todd, hopefully next time you have a scoop it will be a postive one for the buckeye nation, perhaps something postive for the buckeyes with ryan brinson in a couple of years. thanks again todd, and i hope you don't regret the decision to go to michigan shawn.
02-05-03 (12:40pm) ok, i am back on the computer a little earlier than i thought i would be, curt lukens and dareus hiley have autographed their letters of intent and sent them back to coach tressel. still no word on reggie smith.

i am still holding out hope for shawn crable and michael bush but i am starting to deal with the loss already. the crable loss hurts me much more than bush or mcclover do. i have been a big fan of crable for some time now. i will still be a shawn crable fan and i still think he can become a great football player in college and the NFL. i will still root for shawn 364 days out of the year if this is true, but damn it, that one day a year he will be part of the enemy for the rest of your life. say it ain't so shawn. either way shawn decides, i can't wait to see spielman's face when crable makes his announcement. that is going to be a classic moment in massillon lore.

i trimmed the page earlier today and i wanted to rerun the commitments we have here so here it is reran in all its glory.
  • tony gonzalez: one of the top receivers and cornerbacks in the state of ohio and our first commit this year. standout player for standout program at st ignatius. he is probably a better defensive back in college than he is a receiver but he could end up playing either position.
    • [click here for some free film on this prospect]
  • devon jordan: one of the top pure receivers in the stat of ohio this year. his numbers were down at massillon this year without justin zwick getting him the ball but he still has the same talent that snagged 100 balls as a junior.
    • [click here for some free film on this prospect]
  • dareus hiley: an incredible athlete from cleveland glenville that played quarterback and wide receiver as a senior. some experts list him as a defensive back, but then again some experts list fictional players as top national recruits too. i see hiley as a wide out from day on eon campus and he may even get a look as a kick or punt returner this year.
    • [click here for some free film on this prospect]
  • donte whitner: rated the number one corner in all of high school football despite playing safety as a senior. serious athlete who has already enrolled in school and is working out with the team. will participate in spring ball this season. maurice clarett was quoted as saying that some of the things whitner is doing in conditioning is already borderline freakish.
    • [click here for some free film on this prospect]
  • louis irizarry: the top tight end prospect in the state of ohio and one of the top 5 tight ends in the nation. irizarry is a fluid runner with deceptive speed for a man his size. he has great hands as a receiver and was suprisingly adequate as a lead blocker the two games i saw him play this year.
    • [click here for some free film on this prospect]
  • sian cotton: moves incredibly well for a defensive lineman. the game i saw him play this year he lined up as a fullback on offense and looked dominant there. he could get a look as a short yardage fullback. sadly i have no film on sian due to the weather.
  • curt lukens: looks like a donnie nickey type of recruit right now though he may grow into a linebacker with some additional size. did it all for north canton hoover. sadly i have no film on lukens since he was held out the one time i saw hoover play this year due to a concussion.
  • david patterson: i haven't seen this warrensville heights product play football yet, but i am excited to see him in fall camp. he is said to be explosive off the line of scrimmage and a finely developed pass rusher already. could play either defensive end or tackle in college.
  • brandon maupin: i haven't seen maupin play yet either. brandon is said to be a raw prospect with a ton of upside potential. he is looking like a defensive end or an offensive lineman in college.
  • kirk barton: like the rest of this list, i haven't seen kirk play yet. he played tight end in high school, but massillon perry uses their tight end as an extra offensive lineman more than anything. barton is a tall kid with good size who isn't fat and can run. sounds like a great prospect to me.
  • reggie smith: the pride of east cleveland shaw high school is coming to ohio state as a linebacker prospect. he played a bunch of defensive end in high school so he will have some learning to do, but the skills are all there for him to make the transition to the big time.
  • marcel frost: after decommitting from iowa, frost verballed to coach tressel just last week. we are looking at him as a defensive end, though he can play tight end as well.
  • ashton youboty: a top corner prospect from klein texas that is already enrolled in school. he will be participating in spring practice like donte whitner. has decent size and speed for a corner, i will have a close eye on youboty in spring camp.
  • ira guilford: just verballed to coach tressel last week over notre dame. guilford is the top defensive back and running back in the state of new jersey. he will get his first look as a safety but he may see action both ways like chris gamble. many have compared guilford to a faster version of mike doss. sounds scary to me.
  • evans desir: the positive suprise of the day for buckeye fans. desir is a former teammate of chris gamble and will be playing for the buckeyes starting this spring. he is looking like a defensive tackle at 6'3" and 285 but he could play offensive line too. the buckeyes get desir out of a california community college and he will have three years to play two at ohio state.
02-05-03 (11:25am) just so you know i am going to be away from the computer for a little while and i won't have another update until i hear about shawn crable. i just wanted to let the readers know so they don't keep coming back expecting news on the commits when i am not even at the computer. now you know.
02-05-03 (11:05am) things are not looking good right now, but it isn't time to head to the roof just yet. i know we lost mcbride and mcclover this morning. i know all the experts are agreeing that we are going to lose crable and bush to louisville and michigan (and with the experts agreeing that means there is statistically a 45% chance of it actually being true). i am still holding out hopes on both prospects but i am starting to come to grips with the hyped impending doom. i just keep thinking national champions over and over again.

the jim tressel call in show is at 4pm on the fan and his press conference is on at 5pm. still no word if ONN is in fact going to cover either of these or if they are going to stick with their stupid weather every 10 minutes instead.

more when i have it.
02-05-03 (10:45am) ok i have news from the press conferences and none of it is good news.

new jersey standout defensive end turk mcbride has decided to commit to the tennecheats volunteers over the buckeyes. apparently the fact that tennecheats will have your academic advisors do the class work appealed to mcbride more so than a realistic opportunity at actually graduating from college. good luck turk, you may need it if the football thing doesn't play out.

florida standout defensive end stanley mcclover has decided to play his college football for the auburn tigers instead of defending national champions. i gotta say this one shocked me. i figured getting desir this morning sealed the deal. oh well, good luck at auburn stan.

in other news, jim tressel is going to be on 1460 the fan at 4pm for his call on show and then again at 5 for an interview (i may have those backwards so you better just listen to the fan from 4 - 6 to be sure) to talk about this recruiting class. rumor is that it will be broadcast across the state on ONN at 5pm (though i have heard it could be at 4 as well; who knows). i can't confirm this but i know i will be watching just in case.

here is a link from evans desir's college with a real brief bit on mr desir. scroll down the page to number 51 for the limited info on desir. it isn't certain if desir is going on scholarship this year, gray shirting, or walking on at this point in time.

to update the autographs that coach tressel has collected today, the buckeyes have received signed letters of intent from david patterson, devon jordan, and louis irizarry since the last update.

anyways, that is all i have for right now. the next press conference is at 1:30pm in the library at massillon. hopefully shawn crable has good news for buckeye fans, his family, and his future. stay tuned for more coverage when i hear about it. things aren't looking good for the bucks with crable is the hot rumor, but we will wait and see what shawn has to say for himself before commenting here.
02-05-03 (9:40am) lots of letters of intent returned already. so far the buckeyes have collected autographs from donte whitner, ashton youbory, brandon maupin, sian cotton, kirk barton, tony gonzalez, marcel frost, and ira guilford. no suprises there honestly.

there was one suprise already today though. osu has a commitment from dillard high product and junior college transfer evans desir. who? good question. with all the experts patting themselves on the back for their knowledge, this guy is coming from out of left field (actually west hills community college near fresno). desir is approximately 6'3" and 285 and will line up as a defensive tackle. check out the article on him and scroll down the page for his information.

since today is typically a heavy day for the internet, the vg would like to pass along a link that may make your day a little more pleasant. this is the pop-up stopper. install this free program and it will kill virtually all pop up advertisements before they get a chance to annoy you, say for example that pop up from bucknuts and grassy.com.

anyways, we have press conferences at 10am with turk mcbride and stanley mcclover. either defensive end would be a huge get for ohio state, getting them both would be massive. i will be back online next with updates on mcbride and mcclover. stay tuned.
02-05-03 (8:20am) the big day is finally here. i got a bunch of links but first a big thanks is due to a favorite site of mine. i would like to take this opportunity to thank mr ed (no, not the talking tv horse) and the good people at the ozone. i emailed them last night and asked them if they would like to have some free video to share with their audience of the commitments that i have shot. they agreed and were gracious enough to pass on the link on their front page. i specifically asked them to NOT link my front page if you were wondering why it is set up like that. it wasn't a promotional move or anything like that, i just wanted to make sure that as many buckeye fans as possible could see the videos of the players that i had. nothing more and nothing less. thanks again mr ed.

free videos? it must be your first time here. that's ok, help yourself to some by following this link to my video archive. you do need to sign up for a free sony imagestation account but the price is right.

now for some links. the dayton daily news has a piece on the state of recruiting. the massillon indie has a great piece on superstar in waiting shawn crable. speaking of shawn crable, the canton rep has a piece on crable as well. the canton rep also has articles on the buckeyes recruiting the mecca of high school football that is stark county and a piece on justin zwick and his recruiting. no truth to the rumor that he is a lock to go to michigan as some people were saying a little over a year ago. in further linkage to keep us regular, 1460 the fan takes a look back at the 1998 recruiting class while the cleveland plain dealer has a piece on the state of buckeye recruiting.

that is all i have for right now. i am going to sniff around the net and see what i can find. lots more later.
02-04-03 (11:25pm) the university of michigan has been active in recruiting the past few days. first off they got a player from kentucky in brandent englemon then just today they get superstar linebacker lamarr woodley and his high school teammate running back jerome jackson. they can't have many scholarships left honestly and that is why i am reporting this news on this site.

i know woodley is an inside linebacker and crable is an outside linebacker so that isn't going to stop crable from going to michigan. my only question here is do they have any scholarships left for crable by the time of his press conference. i believe michigan is still holding a scholarship for cromartie and he isn't announcing until sportscenter tomorrow night too. hopefully this is good news for crable, but i don't know.

i have also heard a rumor that the rivals.com michigan site is going to break news on crable right around midnight. we will see if that rumor has legs or not soon.

my gut feeling is that crable is a buckeye, but then again my gut is highly biased and it isn't like i am psychic or anything. hopefully everything works out with crable tomorrow.

it is going to be a big day of press conferences with turk mcbride and stanley mcclover both announcing in the 10am hour, shawn crable at 1:30pm and then michael bush at 3:15pm. we are still waiting on kicker - punter david dyches, cali wide out devin stearns, and there could be a suprise out there still waiting to shock the buckeye nation.

anyways, that is all i have for right now. i am going to go back to the howard stern show and keep my eye on the shawn crable situation. hopefully that michigan site has nothing tonight and crable is a buckeye tomorrow afternoon, but i gotta admit i am getting nervous here. more in the morning or as soon as i get it.
02-04-03 (8:10pm) man i feel like a kid on christmas eve. i can't wait to see who the buckeyes get tomorrow morning.

one player the buckeyes will evidently not be getting is florida two way lineman james lee. i don't have a newspaper article or anything to back it up, but i got an email from a reader saying this was reported by one of the southern recruiting 'experts'. i talk to this guy often so i tend to believe him here.

man do i find these experts annoying as can be lately. in that spirit i have one link for the evening. this is a piece from an atlanta newspaper on fictional recruits being passed off to the experts and having them rate them as prime prospects. things like this make me glad i only comment on guys who i have actually seen play or disclaim that i am just repeating rumors.

in bad site news, apparently the chat didn't go as well as i thought today. i have received a few emails from people asking why i wasn't in the chat and a few more saying there were only 2 or 3 people in the chat and i was never there. another guy couldn't get new messages in the chat unless he refreshed the page. one guy couldn't get in at all. weird stuff.

from what i can piece together from the emails and the chat, there is some limit to how many people can chat at once. i don't recall there being more than a dozen maybe 15 chatters in the room at once so that may be the limit. after that the software seems to create chat room 2, chat room 3, and so on. one reader spent an hour or so in chat room 4 with a couple of other fans and wasn't too happy about it.

since this software doesn't seem to work as promised i am no longer going to link the chats in the daily thoughts. i will still have some (including one tomorrow late afternoon) but you will now need to follow the link in the left hand column if you want to get there. also you should be warned that if you are in a chat room that is called chat room 2 or something, i am not going to be in there. i will always be in chat room one. anyone posting as me in a differnt numbered chat room is not me.

anyways, sorry to those that got locked out of the good chat room or had difficulties with it in any way shape or form. it isn't my software, i just signed up for their free chat room, there really isn't anything i can do to fix it.

in an effort to make this page more useful to fans wednesday, i think am going to start a thread on each guy that signs a letter of intent tomorrow on the message board. since the message board is a different piece of software i am hoping that it can take more traffic. whether it can or not i have no clue but i am going to find out i have a feeling.

anyways, that is all i have for tonight. i will be on early and often tomorrow for national signing day. hopefully we all get what we want. me, i want bush tomorrow, but what's new, i always want bush. enjoy.
02-04-03 (3:30pm) big thanks to everyone who stopped by for the chat today. i would estimate that we had maybe 50 or 60 people stop by at some point or another during the chat to check it out. i will be doing another chat sometime tomorrow late in the afternoon after the recruiting action dies down if you are interested in chatting about the prospects.

in recruiting rumors passed off as news, i may have been wrong earlier when i posted that turk mcbride's press conference was at 10:30am. i am now reading that it is at 10am. which is true? i have no clue. i will be keeping an eye on things all day wednesday so when i hear what the deal is i will post it hear for sure.

now to sum up what we are looking at wednesday. first though a disclaimer. i am not a recruiting expert or anything like that, this is just the impression of things that i get.

osu looks to have 3 scholarships to fill with the possibility of us oversigning 3 more for a total of 6 more players that the buckeyes could sign tomorrow.

so far it looks like the following players will be signing with the buckeyes for sure:
  • tony gonzalez: one of the top receivers and cornerbacks in the state of ohio and our first commit this year. standout player for standout program at st ignatius. he is probably a better defensive back in college than he is a receiver but he could end up playing either position.
    • [click here for some free film on this prospect]
  • devon jordan: one of the top pure receivers in the stat of ohio this year. his numbers were down at massillon this year without justin zwick getting him the ball but he still has the same talent that snagged 100 balls as a junior.
    • [click here for some free film on this prospect]
  • dareus hiley: an incredible athlete from cleveland glenville that played quarterback and wide receiver as a senior. some experts list him as a defensive back, but then again some experts list fictional players as top national recruits too. i see hiley as a wide out from day on eon campus and he may even get a look as a kick or punt returner this year.
    • [click here for some free film on this prospect]
  • donte whitner: rated the number one corner in all of high school football despite playing safety as a senior. serious athlete who has already enrolled in school and is working out with the team. will participate in spring ball this season. maurice clarett was quoted as saying that some of the things whitner is doing in conditioning is already borderline freakish.
    • [click here for some free film on this prospect]
  • louis irizarry: the top tight end prospect in the state of ohio and one of the top 5 tight ends in the nation. irizarry is a fluid runner with deceptive speed for a man his size. he has great hands as a receiver and was suprisingly adequate as a lead blocker the two games i saw him play this year.
    • [click here for some free film on this prospect]
  • sian cotton: moves incredibly well for a defensive lineman. the game i saw him play this year he lined up as a fullback on offense and looked dominant there. he could get a look as a short yardage fullback. sadly i have no film on sian due to the weather.
  • curt lukens: looks like a donnie nickey type of recruit right now though he may grow into a linebacker with some additional size. did it all for north canton hoover. sadly i have no film on lukens since he was held out the one time i saw hoover play this year due to a concussion.
  • david patterson: i haven't seen this warrensville heights product play football yet, but i am excited to see him in fall camp. he is said to be explosive off the line of scrimmage and a finely developed pass rusher already. could play either defensive end or tackle in college.
  • brandon maupin: i haven't seen maupin play yet either. brandon is said to be a raw prospect with a ton of upside potential. he is looking like a defensive end or an offensive lineman in college.
  • kirk barton: like the rest of this list, i haven't seen kirk play yet. he played tight end in high school, but massillon perry uses their tight end as an extra offensive lineman more than anything. barton is a tall kid with good size who isn't fat and can run. sounds like a great prospect to me.
  • reggie smith: the pride of east cleveland shaw high school is coming to ohio state as a linebacker prospect. he played a bunch of defensive end in high school so he will have some learning to do, but the skills are all there for him to make the transition to the big time.
  • marcel frost: after decommitting from iowa, frost verballed to coach tressel just last week. we are looking at him as a defensive end, though he can play tight end as well.
  • ashton youboty: a top corner prospect from klein texas that is already enrolled in school. he will be participating in spring practice like donte whitner. has decent size and speed for a corner, i will have a close eye on youboty in spring camp.
  • ira guilford: just verballed to coach tressel last week over notre dame. guilford is the top defensive back and running back in the state of new jersey. he will get his first look as a safety but he may see action both ways like chris gamble. many have compared guilford to a faster version of mike doss. sounds scary to me.

these players are still on the fence to some degree, transferring into ohio state, or will be delaying signing for one reason or another:
  • stanley mcclover: he is a verbal commit of the buckeyes though he is still considering auburn. i see him sticking with the bucks tomorrow, but we will have to wait and see until the letter of intent is signed and faxed back to us, hopefully right side up too.
  • todd boeckman: he was initially offered a scholarship and he did verbal, but the bucks have asked him to grayshirt and delay his scholarship until next january. that will space him out from the other quarterbacks on the roster and give him an extra year to adapt to the college game. already showing great leadership abilities by putting the team ahead of his own ego by waiting until january to sign.
  • cedric scott: darrion scott's little brother is coming to campus in january like boeckman. he will be another grayshirt and will start school fulltime in january. he is probably a fullback or a linebacker in college, but so was his brother darrion and he grew into a defensive end and defensive tackle.
  • cliff reynolds: cliff recently got out of the marine corps and is in class already. he is a preferred walk on and will participate in spring practice.
  • anthony schlegel: schlegel just committed to the buckeyes the day before signing day. he was a sophomore starter and captain at linebacker for air force and a damn good one at that. he will have to sit out the 2003 season as a transfer and will then have three years of eligibility to play two seasons. chris spielman likes him and there isn't a better endorsement out there for an osu linebacker.
  • shawn crable: crable is a signing day decision that is coming down to osu, michigan and pitt. he has a press conference scheduled for 1:30pm at massillon washington high school. i personally think crable is a lock for osu, but what the hell do i know. crable is a tall thin linebacker that is very intense on the field and will be a leader of any defense he plays on with his style of game.
    • [click here for some free film on this prospect]
  • michael bush: one of the top athlete prospects in the nation is being looked at as the qb of the future for the buckeyes. bush has the complete game you want in a qb with the arm strength, the accuracy, and the wheels to make things happen when the pass isn't available. the only thing he lacks as a quarterback is experience. his press conference is supposed to be at 3:15pm wednesday. it is looking like osu, tennesse, louisville, or kentucky for this standout high school football player. my gut feeling is it will be osu or tennessee. i think the bucks have a slight edge on vols but they have a thinner depth chart.
  • james lee: the only lineman out there still listing the buckeyes this point in the process and a good one to boot. lee could play either offensive or defensive line, but looks like an o-lineman to the buckeyes. his decision is coming down to osu, florida, and rutgers. my gut feeling is he will be a buckeye. i haven't heard when his press conference is yet.
  • devin stearns: this wide reciever from california came away highly impressed with his visit to campus, but is looking like he will stay on the west coast. he could be the suprise of the day though. my money is on him hooking up with washington.
  • turk mcbride: some experts have said mcbride was done with the buckeyes but they were wrong. mcbride has it narrowed down to ohio state and tennesse and this top defensive end from new jersey will make his announcement during a morning press conference. i have seen both 10 and 10:30am listed as the time of his press conference so i am not sure about the time.
  • adam graessle: the top kicker - punter prospect in ohio has been offered a gray shirt by ohio state but seems to be a solid commit to walt harris and pitt. could be a signing day suprise though still.
  • david dyches: believed to have a gray shirt offer like graessle and unlike adam he is believed to be interested in it. it looks like we won't know until wednesday and i haven't heard about any press conference yet.

anyways, i was going to save that for signing day, but i decided to release it today since it is a slow news day other than the schlegel transfer. i am done with this site for now and i probably won't be back online until tonight at the earliest. enjoy.
02-04-03 (12:20pm) i haven't seen anything out there worth posting today that i haven't already posted. basically all is quiet on the buckeye front. anyways, i did want to remind everyone that i will be in the chat room answering any questions until 1:30pm today. no registration or credit card required either. i am there now if anyone wants to stop by and chat.
02-04-03 (8:20am) the buckeyes have a new football player this morning. former air force linebacker anthony schlegel has decided to transfer to ohio state. here is a brief article on the transfer and here is his bio from the air force website. in other linkage to keep us regular, 1460 the fan has a piece on the benefits of committing early. the dayton daily news has two articles this morning as well. they have a piece on will allen calling willis mcgahee on the phone to talk and a piece on the sentencing of alonzo spellman to prison for his airline ordeal.

that is all i have for now, but i will be back shortly hopefully with some random thoughts.
02-03-03 (11:55pm) first some recruiting rumors and then some random website nonsense for tonight.

in fantastic news, turk mcbride now has the buckeyes in his final two and will make his announcement wednesday at 10:30am. it was reported a week or so ago that mcbride had eliminated the buckeyes, but it turns out that is just another mistake, mcbride has not eliminated the buckeyes from consideration yet. he will be choosing between the national champion buckeyes and the tennecheats squad led by the fatman phil fulmer. i hope the decision swings on whether or not his mom wants him to graduate from college. osu has been fairly good with the academics ever since coach tressel took over the program. on the other hand, tennecheats will have student assistants write papers for you and all sorts of other advantages that won't prepare a student for life after football. not that any school can make someone graduate (not ethically anyway); obviously it is up to the player to keep up the student end of the student athlete bargain. still though, osu appears to be making great progress in the graduation of football players. interesting fact here, jim tressel graduated football players at youngstown state at a higher percentage than the general student population.

speaking of press conferences, i just heard a rumor that louisville quarterback michael bush has his press conference scheduled for 3:15pm wednesday. other press conferences i have heard rumors about include massillon washington linebacker shawn crable having his scheduled for 1:30pm wednesday. i haven't heard when florida two way lineman james lee is having his press conference wednesday, but when i do i will of course post it here. i have no confirmation on any of these times, so they may not be accurate and you were warned. anyways, it sounds like the drama of national signing day is going to be spread throughout the entire day with possible press conferences at 10:30am, 1:30pm, 3:15pm, and other ones i am not aware of even rumors of the press conferences yet. it should be a fun day to follow the future of the buckeyes wednesday.

our buckeye friend vladimir gonzalez has been a busy man today uploading several videos to his free imagestation account. from the fiesta bowl he now has video on tara the cheerleader kicking the field goal, mike doss making a big interception, matt wilhelm making a couple early tackles for loss, and a clip of my man KP causing a fumble with a sack of dorsey and darrion scott jumping on the loose ball. he still has penty more he assures me so get them while you can.

much like my free recruiting videos, they are hosted on sony imagestation so you will need to register for a free sony imagestation account. they are pretty cool about it though and have yet to spam me once. another issue with sony imagestation is that you are limited to 15 minutes of free video storage. vlad isn't anywhere near as close to his 15 minute limit as i am, but when he gets done with the fiesta bowl, he still has more from michigan and the rest of the season he would like to post. eventually both of us are going to run out of space to store our videos and when that happens we will be replacing old videos with new ones. in other words if you would like to keep them for your future viewing, you may want to save them to the hard drive or burn them to a cd before they disappear.

in other site news, i am going to be doing another chat for the site tomorrow. i am planning on chatting from 12:30pm to 1:30pm but it will honestly depend on how the day is going tuesday so i can't be certain as of right now.
02-03-03 (5:45pm) man did that chat with tom lemming suck or what. he said he would have turk mcbride with him last week and turk was nowhere to be found. no news on his decision either. oh well.

lemming did say that the bucks lead for michael bush and are still 50 - 50 with shawn crable. i honestly don't think much of lemming as an expert, but at least his news is moderately encouraging.

speaking of sucking, this update sure is. thankfully my internet friend vladimir gonzalez has finally started uploading videos into his video archive on imagestation. so far he has just posted the highlight of hottie osu cheerleader tara zinslen of canton ohio drilling a field goal at the half. he has plenty more to upload from the fiesta bowl and will be gradually uploading them tonight and tuesday. check out his site and help yourself to some free video downloads. as a warning, his videos are hosted on the same server that i host my free recruiting videos, sony imagestation. you do need to register for a free sony imagestation account to get in.

in other news, warren howland fullback - linebacker maurice smith has committed to the michigan state spartans. it doesn't look like he got the phone call from coach tressel that he was hoping for. oh well, good luck next year maurice.

i do have a site update to pass along now that i think of it. tuesday i will host another chat with the readers. i plan on doing it from 12:30pm until 1:30pm so stop by if you have any recruiting questions or you just want to listen to some of us fools talk recruiting. the chat is free (duh) and you don't need to register or anything like that. you just click on the link, pick a user name and join in on the fun. if it makes you feel better about the quality of the chat, you are free to type your credit card number in the chat, but i wouldn't recommend it. another note on the chat. if you wanted to chat with another fan for whatever reason feel free to use the chat room on this site for whatever you want. i don't have to be there for it to work. buckeye fans can come along and chat with anyone who they can sucker into chatting with them at any time. anyways, that is all i have for now, i hope to have some more later tonight.
02-03-03 (1:10pm) some more recruiting random thoughts for now.

don't forget about tom lemming's chat at 4pm on espn.com today. there is a slim chance that the buckeyes could get a commit out of jersey defensive end turk mcbride during the chat. rumor has it that lemming may have another commit or two to announce as well. i know lemming isn't the best or even an adequate 'expert', but he does market himself well and that does give him access to some top talents for interviews, all star games, and crap like that. if you don't feel like checking that out, i will be so don't worry. if anything relevant is said about the buckeyes i will make sure you get the gist of it.

things are looking really good with florida defensive end stanley mcclover. mcclover originally committed to the bucks a few weeks ago and then backed off somewhat after that and was looking at auburn. with auburn having a ton of young defensive ends on campus already and auburn still pursuing three other defensive ends in this class, their assurances to mcclover that he would play early sounded like nothing but lies. those lies looked really bad when coach tressel promised he would have a chance to compete for the job and that the best player would play and nothing more. throw in the fact that we are the national champions and auburn takes a back seat in state to an alabama team that is on probabtion every other year it seems and this is a slam dunk to me. i believe that mcclover will sign on wednesday with the bucks on the 5th, but it isn't like i am psychic or anything.

in other news, one of my personal favorites shawn crable has scheduled a press conference for wednesday at 1:30pm at massillon high school to announce his college decision. rumor has it that chris spielman will be there and i imagine it will be picked up by many local radio stations on signing day.

i read a rumor today on a message board that warren howland's maurice smith has decided to go to michigan state and not ohio state. it seems as though the buckeyes could not offer smith a scholarship in this small class. good luck in east lansing maurice, if in fact the rumors are true.

in non buckeye recruiting news, maryland got hit with secondary (as in minor) recruiting violations and as a result stud de victor abiamiri will be going to notre dame instead of maryland. it looks like his teammate ambrose wooden may follow him to south bend as well. both wooden and abiamiri are from the same high school team as stan white jr and looked at the bucks early in the process. we haven't been a player lately though and they look to be a done deal to ND. i doubt this has any impact on linebacker wesley jefferson (who seemed to have the buckeyes second to maryland), but you never know.

anyways, that is all i have for right now. i am going to check out that lemming chat at 4pm today and look for anything of value there for buckeye fans. honestly though, i probably won't be back on the computer until after then. enjoy the day as it happens.
02-03-03 (8:45am) now it is time for some random thoughts recruiting style.

in moe dampeer news it looks like he may not sign anywhere on signing day this wednesday. it looks like he will wait until he gets a passing test score and then make a decision. if he doesn't get a passing test score i would imagine he ends up in a junior college or military school - prep academy and tries to work on the academics there. it still looks like oklahoma or ohio state for dampeer and i honestly think oklahoma will take more academic risks looking at the history of their program.

in official visit news, we had warren howland fullback - linebacker maurice smith in for an official visit this weekend. we were supposed to call him last night and let him know if we had a scholarship offer for him or not. smith is expected to announce his decision sometime today. i don't know what time that decision is scheduled for. if i hear i will be sure to pass it on here.

speaking of recruits announcing their decision today, osu longshot and jersey standout de turk mcbride is scheduled to announce his college choice today during a chat with tom lemming on espn.com. the chat starts at 4pm. expect the vg to be watching that chat in the hopes of an osu commit. mcbride sounds awesome but he also sounds like a long shot. you never know though and that is why i will be on that chat.

maurice smith wasn't the only official visitor this weekend. california super wide out devin stearns made a visit this weekend. osu looked like a longshot with the distance factor weighing heavily on stearns' decision. rumor has it though that stearns was blown away on his visit and may now be a suprise commit. with the defensive dominance of this recruiting class, it would be nice to see coach tressel pick up an offensive player or two.

in james lee news, things are looking really good there and i anticipate he will sign with the buckeyes on wednesday. lee is the two way lineman from florida that we are looking at as an offensive lineman. our main competition seems to be florida right now and they seem to be out of scholarships except for a few they are holding for the absolute cream of the crop in the nation. lee said the other player for him was rutgers. i can't see us lose a recruit to rutgers ever, but signing day is typically filled with shockers so you never know.

in other news, texas kicker - punter david dyches seems to still be highly interestd in the buckeyes. still no scholarship offer that i am aware of, so it looks like he may take the gray shirt offer that adam grassele doesn't want.

anyways, that is all i can think of off the top of my head, i will do some research and have another update around lunchtime, maybe even a little earlier than that even. stay tuned for more information as soon as i get my hands on it.
02-03-03 (8:30am) just some links for right now and then i will be right back with some random thoughts. the canton repository has a piece on curt lukens playing hoops this year for hoover. the only other article i have right now is from 1460 the fan with a recruiting wrap up. i will be back with some random thoughts as soon as i can type them up.
02-02-03 (7:15pm) not much of an update for now, but i got some football news. mike bush was on an official visit to louisville this weekend, obviously that is his last visit and an important one. with bush being from louisville and dave ragone graduating, the cardinals are a good fit for bush. he has a difficult decision to make. he can be a hometown hero at louisville, he can by a kentucky hero be going to UK (unlikely), or he can try to be a national hero by attending a major program like ohio state or tennecheats. it is still going to be a signing day decision it looks like for bush. hopefully the gray shirt of todd boeckman helps influence bush that he is our main man this recruiting class.

there was a suprise visitor this weekend in warren howland linebacker - fullback maurice smith. as far as i know, smith has not been offered a scholarship by the buckeyes. he is ball park 6'2" and 220 pounds. his speed is in the mid 4.6 range. honestly he sounds like a michigan state spartan to me, but it was nice to have him on campus all the same. got to keep the contacts open with all the high school programs and coaches out there.

last bit of rumor passed off as news for now is on shawn crable. a michigan rivals.com moderator is claiming that he is a lock for the wolverines. how he knows, i have no clue and i don't buy it. i keep hearing osu and pitt and nothing about michigan other than from the 'experts'. is michigan a possibility, sure. will they have a scholarship for him on signing day, i am not so sure there. will they get his signature on a letter of intent is the relevant question and i honestly doubt it. i think we get crable on signing day, but i wouldn't be suprised by pitt either honestly. one thing you have to like about crable is that former massillon tiger chris spielman will be at the press conference wednesday. how a tiger can pick michigan in the presence of spielman is beyond me. if crable did, i would expect spielman to charge the stage and just brutally lay into crable with one of his famous form tackles.

anyways, that is all i have for now. i am going to try and get back online later tonight and see if any news starts leaking out from the weekend like it usually does on a sunday.
02-02-03 (4:30pm) just checking in for a minute. i got an email today from john mccallister. many people on the net don't know who john mccallister is, but ask over 70 college coaches who he is and they will sing his praise as clients of his. anyways, without going into detail, john seemed to think that i had a good understanding of the recruiting expert game and my opinions of bill kurelic and duane long weren't that far off from reality. he did take offense to me rating him below kurelic though and after listening to his email, i couldn't disagree.

john mccallister is the definitive source for information on ohio high school football recruiting. he sees games and tapes of players. he doesn't have a website or premium subscriptions to sell that i know of (and if he does, i will surely pass on the link here, because he is an actual knowledgeable source unlike some pretend experts out there). bill kurelic would come in a distant second in the recruiting expert olympics due to his contacts with the program. duane long comes in a distant third. neither kurelic or long attend high school games or see much film. they do call coaches and players and we all appreciate hearing the quotes from the prospects and coaches. bill kurelic and duane long aren't true talent evaluators like john mccallister though. i would call them recruiting gossip columnists at best. mccallister is an expert. when colleges are willing to contract you to go scout out players for them that makes you an expert. when you talk crap on the net and in low quality print publications, you aren't that much different from me (other than the fact that i have actually seen the guys i talk about play football).

basically i would like to take this opportunity to apologize publicly to him for ranking mr mccallister so low. he is a true expert and a true fan of football.

as a note on website business. there is no business arrangement between me and john at all. i am a fan of his work and have heard nothing but good things about him that is all. see, i am not negative just to be negative when it comes to recruiting experts, i just call them like i see them, that's all. some people have a problem with that frankness and do childish things like ban me from contributing to the communtity. well, i do childish things like call them names. an eye for an eye sounds good to me.

enjoy.
02-02-03 (12:45pm) first off, sorry about the late update today. late nights lead to late updates, what can i say. i didn't crawl out of bed until 10:30 this morning and i gotta say i felt damn good doing it too. anyways, better late than premature.

i only have three links for now and then a couple of random thoughts. in linkage, 1460 the fan has an article about coach tressel getting his start as a coach at akron. it also looks like the good people that work for the wolfe family (dispatch, 1460, 10tv, etc) have decided to either not use fact checkers or they are running some sort of contest to see who can identify the most errors in their article. i'm glad i don't pay 5 bucks a month to read that coach tressel spent two years at miami in the past. typically i would expect this type of shoddy reporting from the barely literate one tim may, today i would be wrong. this piece of crap was written by mark znidar. with accuracy like that, expect znidar to be a dominating force in the recruiting expert industry for years to come.

the second link i have for today is from the akron beacon journal on grayshirting. it is written by marla ridenour and as her work typically is, it is top shelf quality. this article even has quotes from john mcallister in it. john who you ask? good question. mcallister is probably the most respected of the recruiting experts in ohio and as far as i know he is the only one who is actually used by colleges unlike wannabees like duane long and bill kurelic. the reason you may not have heard about mcallister is because he doesn't worry about promoting himself like the others, he is so good at what he does that his product sells itself.

the third and final article for the day is from doug harris of the dayton daily news on recruiting. normally doug harris is one of the top reporters covering osu football, but his last article sucked. well, doug is back in classic form today with his piece on recruiting. he has some info on shawn crable (though he failed to mention pitt as a player for crable) and even had some recruiting stories from the past about players like donnie nickey and mike nugent. welcome back to the land of quality reporting doug.

anyways, that is all i had for links for today. i do have some email to answer. one question i have had asked a couple of times this morning was about my junior profiles. i have done profiles on delbert ferguson, darryl clark, ted ginn, marcus freeman, mike massey, and anthony turner so far, but i haven't done a profile of turner's teammate pernell williams. why would i skip a player like that whose team i have seen play? good question.

i went to see chaminade once last season to see williams and junior qb anthony turner. i saw a bunch of turner, a bunch of sophomore tailback javon ringer, and nothing from pernell williams. williams was suspended from the team and school from what i heard and was unable to play that night or ever again at dayton c-j. i asked some guys in the pressbox (if you could call that shack a pressbox) what his deal was and nobody wanted to talk about it. i asked some students in the student section what the deal was and nobody there wanted to say anything either. it was strange. i got the impression that it was pretty bad. i still have never heard officially what happened, but i have heard some somewhat credible rumors that i would rather not repeat. if the rumors are true, and that is a huge if, i don't see there being any chance coach tressel will pursue williams as a football player or a member of the buckeye family. he just wouldn't fit in with what we have going on now.

of course these rumors could be exaggerated and coach tressel could be highly interested in williams. that and the fact that i could have heard nothing more than lies about pernell is why i won't repeat any rumors about him on this site. i hope that explains why i won't be doing a junior profile of pernell williams. despite my best efforts to see him play football, he was unable to hold up his end of the bargain and play that friday night. i only comment on players that i have actually seen play, it only seems right to me that way. how anyone can comment on high school players they have never seen play is beyond my comprehension.

unfortunately, this little rule of mine means i won't be doing a profile of super junior fred davis of toledo rogers. i wasn't able to make it up to the toledo area to see football this season, but fred davis is tops on my wish list for next season. the best trip idea i could come up with to see davis next year is to couple that trip with a trip to ann arbor to watch the buckeyes beat michigan and maybe see some action in widsor canada. sounds like a fun weekend, but i will have to swing it with the cbg and try to get in touch with our toledo friend doctor doug (assuming he is in toledo at that time still).

actually every game i saw last season was in NE ohio except for two weekend trips to the dayton area to see dayton c-j and huber heights wayne and one trip into PA to see youngstown ursuline dominate. it just shows the dominance of NE ohio high school football over the rest of the state. not saying they have the best teams every year (elder proved that last year), but as far as putting out top college talent, there is no comparison. sure there are some good players in the columbus region and there are some in the dayton and cincitucky area as well, but NE ohio is the the king of ohio high school football. always have been always will be. there are probably more college prospects in NE ohio than the rest of the state combined.
02-01-03 (9:15am) just one more link for now, but it is a good one and it is on one of my personal favorite recruits shawn crable. it is a free article by the good people at buckeye sports bulletin, the oldest publication dedicated to ohio state sports and absolutely the best source for credible and timely buckeye information. if you live in the columbus area stop in your local big bear and pick up a free copy of the BSB and see for yourself. enjoy.
02-01-03 (6:40am) it is early and my head hurts so i just got some linkage to keep you regular. 1460 the fan has a piece on marcel frost becoming a buckeye. it was written by one of the bigger hacks in the state of ohio tim may so you were warned. next up i got a piece from doug harris of the dayton daily news on the todd boeckman gray shirt. normally doug harris is one of the better osu writers, but today he is coming up short. he is what 2 or 3 days behind the news. i guess it isn't just the athletes that are slow up north because harris should have had that article out yesterday at the latest. oh well, he has earned a few days off after a good season of covering the bucks. just step up for signing day doug and you will redeem the good name. last two links for the morning come from the canton repository. this piece is on stark county and buckeye legend mike doss. it even has some info on a mike doss bobblehead and throwback jerseys for those caught up in lebron mania. good read from the rep. the other article from the repository has hardly anything to do with buckeye football but it is all about massillon beating mckinley in high school basketball. so what you say. well around here anything massillon mckinley is huge news, but i admit not typically worthy of putting on the site. i included this article this morning since it has a brief blurb about shawn crable returning to the hardwood for only the third game of the season. i knew crable wouldn't let his team down, he just isn't that type of guy. now if he will just step up for the state of ohio and lead us as well. in my best bob barker imitation, come on down to columbus shawn crable, you are the next stark county legend on the buckeye football program. seriously though, there is no better fit for crable as a football player or as a person than the ohio state university. not only do they have everything you want now, we have everything you will want 20 years down the road, and besides you know you want it.

anyways, i think i am going to lay back down for a minute or 120. i just felt motivated this morning to get up and rock it out before sunrise. i will have more later today.

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