This week – yes, the one happening right now – is one of the most important weeks of the year for the Ohio State football program.
No, there isn’t another Michigan game happening, and the Fiesta Bowl is still nearly three weeks away.
This week, while the players are focused on final exams, the Ohio State coaching staff is out on the road recruiting.
As soon as the Buckeyes arrived back in Columbus on Sunday morning following the Big Ten Championship Game, the entire coaching staff hit the road to go finalize the 2020 class and start putting in some early work on 2021.
Sunday, OSU head coach Ryan Day met with the media for a short press conference just after noon when the final College Football Playoff rankings were released. Then, he got to work.
Just a handful of hours later, photos of Day with OSU commits like DL Darrion Henry and OL Paris Johnson and Trey Leroux started popping up on social media.
What fantastic home visit @ParisJohnsonJr, @sydneyyjjohnson & I had with @ryandaytime and @CoachStudOL. #GoBucks #BuckeyeNation ? pic.twitter.com/cedwL8JwI4
— Monica Johnson (@MonicaCLJohnson) December 9, 2019
Go Bucks!!! @R2X_Rushmen1 @ryandaytime pic.twitter.com/rBldEA0pCa
— Darrion Henry-Young (@darrion_henry) December 8, 2019
Had a great home visit with Coach day! @OhioStateFB @ryandaytime pic.twitter.com/aRfqzsn5WR
— Trey Leroux (@trey_leroux) December 8, 2019
The rest of the Buckeye coaches were already on the road before Day, and they’ll spend the whole week away from home, making connections, and trying to bring in the next generation of Buckeyes.
“I feel for them because literally, they’re gone now. We just won the championship how many hours ago? And these guys just leave their families and they’re gone,” said Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith on Sunday.
There is a time crunch for every collegiate coaching staff this time of year because of the new early signing day. The majority of FBS prospects will sign their National Letter of Intent next Wednesday, December 18.
The timeline is even more compressed for the Buckeyes this season because they were busy preparing for the Big Ten Championship Game during the first week of December when most other coaching staffs were already out meeting with prospects.
“We weren’t on the road last week when everybody else was. Which is good – I’m glad we weren’t on the road, but at the same time, these guys have got to be on the road now all the way through next weekend,” said Smith.
The talent-attracting operation has gone to a whole new level at Ohio State since Urban Meyer and his recruiting guru Mark Pantoni arrived on campus in late 2011.
While Jim Tressel’s classes were generally built with a majority of players from inside the state’s borders, Meyer, and now Day, have seen that focus shift to a more national approach.
A decade ago, Tressel’s 2010 class of 18 was made up of 10 players from Ohio and four others from bordering states. That was pretty typical. The 2009 class was 24 players, with 14 from Ohio and 5 from border states.
Things have changed a lot in the past 10 years.
The 2019 Buckeye class included 17 players, only seven of whom were from Ohio or bordering states.
The majority of the class was from much further away. Garrett Wilson came from Texas, Harry Miller and Steele Chambers from Georgia, Jameson Williams from Missouri, and even Enokk Vimahi from Hawaii.
The eight highest-ranked commits in the Buckeyes’ 2020 class are from eight different states. That national reach is continuing this week.
“It’s more about focus and intent. We didn’t recruit as nationally as were are now. We didn’t. We are recruiting nationally like there’s no tomorrow now,” Smith said.
That national focus is possible for a few reasons. For one thing, the Buckeyes are a national brand right now. When your team wins its conference every season, dominates the biggest rivalry in the nation for a generation, and pumps out NFL stars year after year, kids from Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California may be more willing to overlook a little snow than they would otherwise be.
But Smith said that Ohio State’s location also makes it possible for the coaching staff to get to places quicker than other schools.
“We’re blessed to be in Ohio at a great airport where we have good connections, and things of that nature. So our travel costs might be less than Nebraska’s because of geography,” he said.
This week, the Buckeyes are going hard after some top prospects on the west coast.
“We’ll have two guys in California next week, and then one guy is going from New York to California, so we’ll have three. That has never happened before,” Smith said.
The Golden State has always been loaded with top football talent, but it has become a prime hunting ground for the Buckeyes right now.
Part of the reason is that the major college programs in the state are what is known in the business as “something of a tire fire at the moment.”
USC just gave the Clay Helton era a one-year stay of execution, and Chip Kelly’s UCLA has opted for something of an ironic detachment from the whole recruiting process.
Only one of the top-25 prospects from California’s 2020 recruiting class is committed to an in-state school.
Meanwhile, the Buckeyes have capitalized, bringing in talented Californians like WR Chris Olave and OL Wyatt Davis in recent classes. They have CB Clark Phillips and LB Kourt Williams already committed for 2020, and QB C.J. Stroud is their top remaining target.
Beaux Collins, a top 2021 WR prospect, is also high on the Buckeyes.
Similarly, they’ve done a lot of work in Arizona, landing commitments from QB Jack Miller and SAF Lathan Ransom in the 2020 class, and going hard after other top players.
Targeting an area where the local teams are down has been a winning formula for the Buckeyes over the years.
They hit Texas hard during the dying days of the Charlie Strong era in Austin, bringing in three of the Lone Star State’s top-six prospects in 2017. Jeff Okudah, Baron Browning, and J.K. Dobbins have been instrumental in this year’s dominant run.
And when Mark Richt’s tenure at Georgia got a little rocky, the Buckeyes were there to swoop in and snag players like Vonn Bell (2013) and Raekwon McMillan (2014).
With the Buckeyes’ success and resources, it doesn’t really matter where the talent is located. They’ll always start within their own state’s borders, but beyond that, it’s all about finding the right players.
“Our focus has changed, we’re more national, we definitely want to keep Ohio strong. We’ve got to lock it up. But our numbers aren’t what they used to be,” said Smith.
“It’s talent. You’ve got to have talent. And we’re at a level now where I feel comfortable playing a Clemson or Alabama or whoever. Because we have the ability to play them from a talent perspective.”