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