Football

Morning Constitutional: Why Was Saturday a Good Day for Ohio State Recruiting?

by Tony Gerdeman
Parris Campbell Ohio State Receiver Buckeyes

 

Today’s Topic: Why Was Saturday a Good Day for Ohio State Recruiting?

Saturday was “Ohio State Day” at the NFL Combine.

Not officially, mind you, but essentially.

Quarterback Dwayne Haskins worked out, as did receivers Parris Campbell, Terry McLaurin, and Johnnie Dixon.

It was also media availability day for defensive end Nick Bosa and defensive tackle Dre’Mont Jones.

However, it wasn’t just the fact that the Buckeyes were there, it’s the fact that they performed very well.

For any high school recruits watching — and there were plenty doing so — it was an OSU infomercial and every few minutes, you’d hear, “But wait, there’s more!”

And for those quarterbacks and receivers out there, things could not have gone any better for Ohio State.

Dwayne Haskins had a strong day throwing the ball, and Parris Campbell, Terry McLaurin, and Johnnie Dixon all ran well and caught the ball well.

Every single one of them looked wholly prepared and none of their performances went unnoticed.

Campbell ran the best 40-yard dash of the Combine so far with a 4.31. McLaurin wasn’t too far behind at 4.35, while Dixon was no slouch with a 4.41.

The concern regarding Campbell would be how well he would catch the ball.

He did just fine.

Here’s what NFL Network’s Bucky Brooks saw from Campbell.

In a draft lacking an abundance of explosive playmakers, Campbell separated himself from the pack with his sensational showing in Indy. The Ohio State star tied for the fastest 40-yard dash of the combine thus far at 4.31 seconds (the same mark as fellow receiver Andy Isabella) and displayed outstanding short-area quickness in position drills. As a home-run hitter with exceptional speed and running skills, Campbell is an intriguing option as a catch-and-run specialist.

He also earned raves from the NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah.

“This is speed that translates to the football field,” Jeremiah said. “He caught the ball really well, that was my question. We haven’t seen him run a ton of different routes there in that (Ohio State) offense. Today he did a wonderful job.”

Here’s Johnnie Dixon running the 40.

And here he is in the gauntlet drill.

And getting the toes down.

Here’s a snippet from Terry McLaurin’s day.

This is his 4.35.

Oh, and Dwayne Haskins was also there.

Here’s three minutes of his highlights.

For those high school prospects who watched, they saw Buckeyes prepared for the biggest job interview of their lives. For those who didn’t, they’ll get another opportunity in late April, when the NFL Draft gets here and the hard work pays off.

So yes, on a lazy Saturday afternoon during the NCAA’s mandated quiet period in recruiting, it’s safe to say that Ohio State had a pretty good day.

[Parris Campbell photo courtesy NFL.com. | Ohio State Football]
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50 Responses

  1. Hey Gerd! Where are all those fellas who told us ALL OFFSEASON what a mistake it was tOSU went with Haskins over Joe Burrow?

    1. Most likely the same guys who wanted Fickell gone. Then Coombs (oh no, it was Withers we meant, not Coombs. He’s BIA).
      Then wished P Campbell had gone to the nfl last offseason so they wouldn’t play favorites and play him (dropsies) over more sure-handed younger players like Austin Mack or Bin Victor (both had actual dropsies most of the 2018 season).
      Might be the same guy(s) who contend that Dobbins “lacks speed and vision”…
      Might be the same guys crying about filler click-bait speculative articles in mid-February…
      just sayin’

      1. Lol I love replying to my own posts!
        Go Bucks!
        Haters, stay! Gerd hearts your clicks and y’all make my day!

      2. Hey Michael- “just sayin” is often used by mentally vacant people…To your wildly inaccurate “points”:

        1) I was not one of the “fellas” who advocated Joe over Dwayne
        2) I was not one of the “fellas” who wanted Fickell or Coombs fired
        3) I did not suggest Campbell should have gone to NFL last season and
        4) I am a big JK fan who never said anything about him having shortcomings
        of any kind

        Other than those enormous errors, your response was spot on. Congrats!
        You are a mouth breather who can’ think for himself…again, congrats!

        Tony- it would be about your speed to search for comments in past articles that almost certainly lacked relevance as well. Go for it. Or…how about something- ANYTHING- related to OSU football that isn’t idle speculation based on fantasy that is based on wild hypotheticals? You know, something with substance maybe? Just sayin…(that one was for you, Michael)

          1. I know this is tough, Tony. It calls for you to turn the power down on the scarlet and gray glasses. There have been plenty of updates on draft eligible OSU players and their combine performances, that’s great for them and I wish them the best. The articles about what returning freshmen “may” or “hope” to bring to the team in fall are a bit of a stretch, and predictable, yet still relevant. But articles about the impact that the NFL combine (not even the draft, the combine) has on recruits who haven’t committed yet (and who we can’t even name)? That is not speculation, there’s no anchor for the story, nothing upon which to frame even the wildest guesses or hopes- it’s hopelessly vacuous… You can be a shill and still be smart about your choice of article!
            Any thoughts on knuckledraggers like Jennings and Marks, who simply dredge up other commenters’ names who weren’t even involved in the exchanges until that point? Or is that too real, too based in actual reality?

            1. Variety is the spice of life. Thanks for reading as always!

              1. And truisms are the refuge of the tired. Just be aware that there are people who can spot the fluff merely by glancing at the title of the piece ( aka, “bathroom journalism”). You know I’m right, you just can’t cop to it on this forum.

                1. Truisms are indeed the refuge of the tired. One of my favorite truisms. Thanks for reading!

                  1. It doesn’t take much to ‘read” you at this point, Tony… keep trying with the false friendliness though

                    4. That’s true- your “scene” is providing verbiage that even you equate with a bowel movement. Check and mate, can’t wait for the next vapid article.

                    5. Thanks for reading. It is truly appreciated. Have a peaceful evening and may the evening’s blessings find you well.

                    6. “Good luck to you” as well- run that through the translator and apply liberally

            2. You’re the gift that keeps on giving? You’ve said this same stuff 25 pointless columns ago! Self awareness, insight….learn about them and get some!

              1. Heal thyself, Bill. Thanks for calling me a gift, though- couldn’t agree more. These exchanges need someone with a triple digit IQ, glad I can fill that void in your life.

    2. I have the ability to search through comments if we want……

  2. Gerd, they’re not going to believe you if they don’t believe the coaches and Haskins himself.

    2. Because of course Haskins isn’t going to say he was ready from day 1. The confident 8 yr old who knew he was going to play qb for OSU was all of a sudden questioning his readiness. Please! That’s called being a loyal soldier and saying the right things.

      1. That’s one way to spin it, Bill. The other is he got here and saw the work everyone put in at every position. Why did a teammate call him a pudgy kid who wasn’t serious then?

        1. He seemed pretty serious as a highly recruited 4 star qb coming out of HS. He wasn’t looked at as a long term prospect to prospective teams most notably Maryland who were looking to play him. By the way, seeing him at the combine my first thoughts were that he is a pudgy kid NOW!!

  3. Wow, Gerd! The armchair coaches are out in force. Not only are they not willing to buy any of your statistical defenses but not even the words of coaches and *GASP!* Haskins himself that he wasn’t ready! How about the remembrance posted just days ago that he was a pudgy kid who didn’t take it serious his freshman year?

    1. Dude, Gerd tried to say if we had Bama’s Defense in 2016 and 2017 then that would have saved J.T. Only problem with that analysis us our 2017 defense was just as talented as Bama and our 2016 defense was HISTORICALLY talented (Lattimore, Ward, Hooker, Bosa, Jones, Lewis, Holmes, etc etc etc). Try as he may, Gerd cannot formulate a coherent argument for 1) QB Power Dive being our base play in 2016 and 2017 with Haskins and the WR talent we had and 2) not AT LEAST starting Haskins in 2017 and certainly playing him in place of J.T. in 2016 when J.T. was struggling.

      But I get it, Gerd is in a tough spot… he can only be so honest. Sometimes it’s better to refrain.

      FWIW, all this “wasnt ready to play stuff” is just P.C. talk to protect the coaches and their decision. Haskins is a team guy…he will play along. Dude is a top 5 NFL pick! He was better than J.T. at birth!!! Lol

      1. How’d that 2017 defense do against OU and Iowa?

        1. You’re speaking to coaching, not talent…the NFL draft says our defense was as talented as anyone 2015 – 2017. Stop it…Gerd.

          1. I think my first reply to you put the onus on the coaches.

        2. How did our offense help our D in those games?
          OU
          Drive 1 – 3 plays, Punt.
          Drive 2 – 8 plays, Punt.
          Drive 3 – 10 plays, FG.
          Drive 4 – 6 plays, Punt.
          Drive 5 – 1 Play, End of half.
          Drive 6 – 7 plays, TD.
          Drive 7 – 8 plays, FG.
          Drive 8 – 3 plays, Punt.
          Drive 9 – 8 Plays TO on downs.
          Drive 10 – 1 play, INT.
          Drive 11 – 12 plays, FG.

          IA
          Drive 1 – 6 plays, TD.
          Drive 2 – 11 plays, FG.
          Drive 3 – 7 plays, TD.
          Drive 4 – 7 plays, Punt.
          Drive 5 – 4 plays, INT.
          Drive 6 – 1 play, End of half.
          Drive 7 – 3 plays, Punt.
          Drive 8 – 3 plays, Punt.
          Drive 9 – 3 plays, Punt.
          Drive 10 – 2 plays, INT.
          Drive 11 – 12 plays, INT.
          Drive 13 – 1 play, TD.
          Drive 14 – 4 plays, End of game.

          I rest my case.

  4. Case in point, to spend 2016 and 2017 running QB Power Dive as the base play of the offense with Haskins and WRs like this on the team MADE NO SENSE WHATSOEVER!!! Urban’s love affair with J.T. was dare I say “odd”.

    1. Fwiw, prior to last season, JT Barrett had two of the three seasons with the most passing attempts in OSU history, so he threw the ball plenty to OSU’s wide receivers.

      1. tony, watch tape of barrett throwing the ball and then watch tape of haskins – and TELL ME that barrett would have beaten out haskins for the starting job in an open competiton?

        1. There is much more to being a QB than throwing the ball.

    2. you said it. i thought this all last season – why was urban running jt barrett 25 times a game for 80 yards while all of this WR talent watches. and don’t get me started on why haskins was NOT allowed to compete for the starting job against barrett.

      1. JT Barrett didn’t carry the ball even 20 times in a game in 2017 fwiw, and only twice in his career did he carry it 25 times or more, and both times he rushed for over 125 yards. Both wins. One was IU and the other Michigan. And again, prior to this season, Barrett had more pass attempts season after season than anybody but Joe Germaine in 1998. He threw it plenty to those wide receivers. I believe Haskins would have put up better numbers in 2017 than Barrett, but as I said in this thread somewhere else, you’re asking a lot of a coach to bench a 4-year starter for an unproven redshirt freshman. It just doesn’t happen that often. I can’t even think of an instance off hand.

        1. I can think of at least one; Saban replacing Hurts with Tua in the NCG. Meyer would have never done that. He would have sunk with Barrett. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

          1. Hurts wasn’t a 4-year starter. He was a sophomore.

      2. Reply to all of you who missed the point. What was Barrett running the ball instead of Haskins throwing to our obviously talented receivers?
        Answer: Zack Freakin’ Smith, that’s why.
        Answer 2: Paris had the dropsies. Y’all cried about it every week. How soon we forget.

  5. I don’t understand how you can say that the wr’s were underutilized this past season. They pretty much dominated on offense the whole year and were the cornerstone of the offense. The only time they weren’t utilized was while JT Barret was the QB. I never knew we even ran crossing routes because they looked like curl routes because JT couldn’t throw on time and hit them in stride. Haskins enters cold off the bench early 4th QTR and hits crossing route after crossing route like clockwork. In hindsight I’m surprised we didn’t have more guy’s transfer because of Haskin’s not starting.

    ***Tony, was JT hitting receivers in stride in practice? Just curious how Haskin’s didnt get more playing time in 2017 based on that game in a2, the difference between the two was alarming in that after surgery they started JT over Haskin’s?
    And JT nearly blows the game. Haskin’s would have destroyed the Badgers and USC for that matter.

  6. Hopefully young, impressionable and naïve kids will see those results and equate god given skills with the university these kids attended. A deeper dive actually shows four kids who were under utilized and skills were stifled for much of their careers. Fortunately for OSU the former will be the case.

    1. I will disagree completely that they were underutilized. Terry McLaurin and Parris Campbell played plenty in the first half of their careers without much to show for it stat-wise. Johnnie Dixon spent his first three seasons injured, but caught 16 touchdowns the last two seasons. Dwayne Haskins, meanwhile, came in late in the year as a redshirt freshman and was put in a position to succeed against Michigan. Then as a redshirt sophomore, he set every individual record there was to set. He left with two years remaining. If he was underutilized, it’s because he didn’t finish out his eligibility.

      1. Bill Mark’s I couldn’t agree more. The 2017 team was denied a shot at the playoffs due to horrendous player personnel decision making. Haskins should have started…period. Gerd is the ultimate sheel. He cites, Haskins leaving with two years of Eligibility remaining. However, the kid was here 3 full years!!! And essentially played “1”. No way that Happens at Bama or Clemson. Both their current QBs will be gone after year 3 and they will have gotten all they can out of those generational QBs in that time. Face it Gerd, we did not do that and it cost us.

        How do you explain the 2015, 2017, and 2018 teams missing the playoffs? LOOK AT THOSE ROSTERS!!!

        1. If JT was at Alabama, he probably would have been the perfect QB for them because they had the defense to overcome any shortcomings offensively. It’s not like Bama’s QBs were great for most of the CFP era. So if OSU had Alabama’s defense, maybe JT leads the Buckeyes to a title. He wasn’t able to throw it well enough to win one tho. In terms of why OSU didn’t make the playoffs in 2015, 2017, and 2018, I could point at the coaching staff each of those years. And also the 2015 team not being as hungry because they won it the year before. That was a very satisfied group of players, as evidenced by the number of suspensions.

          Regarding Bama and Clemson, you’re talking about two QBs who were ready to play as true freshmen. That wasn’t Dwayne Haskins. So no, they wouldn’t have turned to him. Especially with the guys they had already starting. Was he ready as a redshirt freshman? I think he was ready enough, but that’s always going to be a difficult decision to bench the starter in favor of the unproven guy. It was a decision that Saban couldn’t make until the second half of the 15th game of the year, btw. And only because they were desperate.

          1. Saban clearly pulls J.T. for Haskins at Iowa in 2016. Not ready?

            And our defensive talent was every bit of Alabama’s in 2016 and 2017. Check the NFL Draft!
            The DLine depth and secondary talent were second to none! Not to mention LBs like McMillan, Baker (starting in NFL now).

          2. Tony, how do you know who was ready to play and who wasn’t as freshman? Were you told that or did you surmise it with your keen eye? In reality Christopher and my points are valid and accurate. I realize you are a jock sniffer and feel the need to come to the Buckeyes rescue but I think a simple response, if one needed to be made, would have been good arguments fellas. Personally I think we should all wait for Longtime Numbskull and James Mills to chime in for a final and definitive answer.

            1. If I didn’t think this was a good argument, I wouldn’t be replying. We’re talking football. Despite your insults, t’s cool. How do I know he wasn’t ready as a true freshman? Because coaches and Haskins have said so. And because it is very rare for freshmen to be ready. And because he redshirted. How do you know he was? Because you saw results nearly two years into his development?

            2. Bill Marks- got some news for you, YOU are far more concerned about ME, than I am with you. You did manage to craft a five sentence answer without grammatical errors, so kudos to your ghostwriter.
              Tony- “DTrain was “put into a position to succeed” in 2017 against Michigan? Let me guess: the ingenious Urban Meyer engineered the loss in progress in that game because he knew he could pull ole number 7 out of the bullpen to steal the show? Um, no. Dwayne Haskins did it himself- he “put himself in the position to succeed” was the goofy wording you employed, I believe…
              But hey, how about the actual “point” of the article? That Saturday was clearly a good day for OSU recruiting? We don’t know and likely won’t know, unless EVERY recruit the next couple years is polled about the 2019 combine and asked to quantify the OSU player results as their prime reason for committing. Other schools have good pro days, too. Again, we drift off into the dead time miasma of fan fiction absent actual tangible story material. When I find myself desperately hoping for the Spring Game, I know the pickings are slim indeed…

          3. tony, you’re delusional if you believe everything you’re posting.

      2. I see it totally different and I realize you are not in the business of criticizing the Buckeyes. Haskins should have been playing earlier. Cardale Jones should have been playing earlier. Sure Campbell and McLaurin were in the lineup early in their careers but were seriously under utilized while the offense revolved around Barrett left and Barrett right. The point was that talent will get you to the pros. It certainly isn’t lost on me that high profile schools give you the exposure that every fame hungry kid craves. I also have seen plenty of uber talented kids not get an opportunity to shine. I am only responding to the correlation of shining at the combine and recruiting.

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