From the final whistle of the Big Ten Championship Game on the night of December 3, Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer and his staff had 16 days to put some finishing touches on their 2018 recruiting class.
Despite the quick turnaround, they didn’t do too shabby, signing a class of 21 players — with five of those players being the top-ranked prospect at their respective positions.
Plenty was made of the players who didn’t sign with the Buckeyes, but the ones who did were much more newsworthy. Meyer and his coaching staff put in an immense amount of work to make that happen. They put in hours upon hours of time and miles upon miles of flights to bring an early close to a class that still has a few spots left to fill.
And they did it while also making sure everything in Columbus — like preparation for USC — was still ongoing.
How can they be in two places at once — both recruiting and coaching? Simple — they can’t. It’s all hands on deck for the Cotton Bowl. Meyer and his assistant coaches do as much as they can. It is a very good staff, but they are in and out of the office like everyone else around the holidays. That’s why there is always a constant back at the football facilities.
“We rely on guys that are very good at what they do,” Meyer said on signing day.
“The one thing that I can tell you is that this is the best group of young coaches we’ve had, and when I say young coaches, our GA’s, quality control people. It’s the best group we’ve had in my six years here at Ohio State.”
Always good to see our GA’s and support staff are working hard on USC while we are on the recruiting trail!!!
?????️?? pic.twitter.com/HgEhEDzYFz
— Zach S❌ith #Zone6 (@CoachZachSmith) December 13, 2017
The graduate assistants and support staff aren’t involved in recruiting, so they just stay neck deep in football. They have the time to break down the opponent. They learn the tendencies that the coordinators are going to have to know about when they get back from Idaho or Texas or wherever it was they were that particular day before.
The assistants to the assistants keep things moving so that when everybody is finally off of the recruiting trail, they can hit the practice field running.
“Without them, we can’t do that,” Meyer said. “When I say ‘Do this,’ I’m talking about everything. But when you come in off the road and you see the entire scouting report of the team you’re getting ready to play done the way you want it done and that lets the coaches go to work. They’ve done a great job.”
Anyone who has ever worked to break down game films for position coaches have a publicly thankless job to do. During the year they have just a day or so to really give the staff solid scouting on teams who are generally well known. Bowl opponents are entirely different. No one knows who they will be until after the announcements, and now with the full staff out on recruiting trails just adds to the cramming the support staff has to do. It can be monotonous. Without a good support staff the information can be a mixed bag of interpretations to what is being viewed and can lead to miscommunication on the practice field AND gameday. A lot of the adjustments essentially come from what the guys in the background provide.
Hats off to the guys who do the ground work preparing the staff, and by proxy the team.
The TEAM The TEAM The TEAM!!!!