Lawrence Marshall is a Buckeye

Submitted by AVPBCI on

2014 Southfield DE Lawrence Marshall just verballed to OSU per TOM VH

RationalBuckeye

February 10th, 2013 at 3:31 PM ^

Hold the phone, and maybe this doesn't apply to you directly, but to the fanbase as an aggregate body:

You're saying that Tressel didn't just fine with second-rate recruiting against UM to draw parallels with Hoke. I get that, it's decent argument.

But then other UM fans will nod knowingly at you point, but turn around and say "Tressel only beat us because he was running a dirty program." I don't like Tressel, so we can have a rational discussion here, but the two can't be in conjunction. If he only won because he was a cheater, then your argument is deflated. If he won because he was a good coach and got the talent he needed despite it not being the best in country, then it's basically tacitly saying that the indescretions of the program didn't affect the product on the field at all

clarkiefromcanada

February 10th, 2013 at 4:51 PM ^

I'm not sure that the two things are entirely incongruent as it is not so much that Tressel's recruiting was "second rate" (there wasn't much difference between the teams in ranking in that time) but that he got the players he needed to succeed in his system. I do not like Tressel on an ethical level (see Smith, Troy or Clarett, Maurice etc.) but I respect that he knew what he wanted to do on the field, how he wanted his teams to play and the sort of talent he required in order to make that happen. I don't think the "indiscretions of the program" exclusively made the program a winner for the past decade ...you have to give some credit to Tressel, his staff and the players. That said, it was definitely a bonus that he got some compensated high performance players (Clarett comes to mind) and that kind of player put him in National title consideration etc..  Certainly, he does not beat 'the U', for example, without that sort of paid player. 

In the current scenario, Hoke was outrecruited this past year by Meyer by any objective measure. The distance between the teams in terms of talent is not very significant, however and the players that Hoke is getting fit what he and Greg Mattison on defence and Al Borges on offense are looking for that fit their vision. This isn't the Sparty "coach em up" argument...Hoke is getting high four stars and so is Meyer...there is a small statistical variance between the programs and not all players are recruited by both programs so the comparison is skewed in some ways.

At the end of the day, Tressel did a very good to borderline exceptional job identifying the talent he needed for his systems and coaching them. The "indiscretions" of your program took what otherwise would have been a very good team (but one that would have lost more often...and to Michigan) and won a National Title with Clarett etc. 

On the plus side we can agree we both don't like Tressel.  

Blue in Yarmouth

February 11th, 2013 at 7:55 AM ^

Just because you disagree with what someone says you don't have to make jokes about their nationality. I'm from Canada too and FYI, it's a great place. If you have a problem with someone fine, but keep focused on what the issue is and stop flinging insults about their nationality. I mean...that;s what 5 year olds do. 

CLord

February 10th, 2013 at 3:36 PM ^

Monte, you're full of crap.  Just GTFO.  It's way too early in Hoke's recruiting career here for you to prognosticate such negative gibberish.  For all your gloom and doom bullshit, tell me when the last time was UM landed the nation's #1 RB...  Oh, about the time UM was pounding OSU to the turf for years, but you're probably too young to remember that.  Find that rock you came from under and crawl back under it.

Monte

February 11th, 2013 at 10:03 AM ^

Michigan was pounding Ohio State into the turf on a consistent basis, what, 13 years ago? 10-2 in the last twelve years is insane and all the kids who are being recruited for the future only know this. If you're entering high school it's fair to say that you think Michigan is a shitty football school. 

SalvatoreQuattro

February 10th, 2013 at 1:25 PM ^

He already has one of the better Ohio prospects in Ferns. Hoke is holding his own. 

Like Ohio, not every Michigan kid will want to go to the big instate school. It's either MSU, OSU, or some other school. Marshall and Webb just happened to pick OSU. It's happened before.(See Gholston, Vernon; Washington, Taurian;Krenzel, Craig)

 

Calm down. UM and Ohio are recruiting at the same level.There is no distinguishable difference between the two.

AHM16

February 10th, 2013 at 1:18 PM ^

In all honesty let Urban win the recruiting rankings. I FULLY trust this coaching staff to develop these players to compete at the highest level. Michigan has a better staff than Ohio

BrownJuggernaut

February 10th, 2013 at 1:18 PM ^

I have got to give credit to Meyer's recruiting strategy. He decided to go after Michigan's homebase hard and it's worked thus far. If they had chosen to take a softer stance on these guys, I'm sure Michigan could have locked them up, but Meyer has been very aggressive and is making Hoke and Co's recruiting job a little more difficult. I expect our coaches to be up to the challenge though. 

BrownJuggernaut

February 10th, 2013 at 1:37 PM ^

Not sure if sarcastic, given your comment at the top of the thread. I just think that Hoke has shown he can recruit on the same level with not that much head-to-head competition between the two. Meyer is finally starting to try to get in there and really see what Hoke is made of. I think Hoke is up to the challenge. I think his staff is. Hoke has done a good job of drawing interest from a lot of the top national prospects. We land a few of those guys and we're not lamenting losing Webb or Marshall. 

Hoke WILL have to be strong on McDowell, Doles, and Harris though.

2014

February 10th, 2013 at 1:37 PM ^

His strategy is only successful if it ends up being a net benefit.

Damon Webb is going to be a top 100 recruit nationally, so it's a shot to us and a plus to him.

Marshall is a good prospect, but we probably can do better. Meyer can definitely do better given his historical level of recruiting. Probably not a net benefit.

He's trying to screw with us, showing us what happens when we don't stay off his lawn. Good for him, but if he keeps it up it's going to hurt him in the long run...there are only 3-4 kids in Michigan worth it this year. I'm not sure Marshall is one of them.

If we're playing the "who can steal the better player from the other team's home state" game, it's going to be almost impossible for him to win that in the long term. Ohio is too deep and Michigan is too shallow...really MSU is going to end up being the loser here. As usual.

BrownJuggernaut

February 10th, 2013 at 1:46 PM ^

Right, if this leads to him landing McDowell and/or Harris, then we're really talking about Urban owning the state. Meyer probably could have done better than Marshall, but that hurts Michigan only because it's close by. I'm pretty sure most of us will admit Michigan is in on more highly rated defensive ends. Marshall is a solid prospect, close to home. This is definitely going to escalate.

EDIT: You raise a good point as far as who is Meyer missing out on by going after Michigan guys. 

M-Dog

February 10th, 2013 at 1:52 PM ^

OSU has scholarship limits too.  Every kid they grab out of Michigan is one less kid that they can grab out of Ohio.  Meyer aslo wants to have a significant number of kids from the south.

The net result is a de-emphasis of Ohio by OSU.  You can see it when you look at their numbers.  

That strategy has some risk.  Over time, Meyer will lose his reputation as "that coach from Florida" and become "that coach from the Big Ten".  That won't sell as well to many southern kids who will choose to go to a "rising" SEC school - Ole Miss, South Carolina, TAM, etc. - instead of Ohio State.

OSU will get some kids from the state of Michigan, but that's not always going to be a relaible source of talent for Ohio State.    

Taking your eye off the Ohio ball to make Hoke's life harder may not be a good long term strategy.  

Historically, when Michigan has been able to make in-roads into Ohio, they have been strong.  Because of simple math and a wandering eye towards the south and Michigan, Meyer is conceding significant Ohio ground to Michigan.

  

EvanstonBuckeye

February 10th, 2013 at 8:10 PM ^

Pretty good analysis of Meyer's strategy and, yes, Ohio kids are noticing and being passed over or slow-played has hurt some feelings of players at traditionally pipeline programs (e.g. Cardinal-Mooney, Trotwood, Glenville). It's a gamble for sure. That said, this will not be a top year for Ohio talent, so look for both Meyer and Hoke to zero in on the top talent (Ferns, Dante Booker) and move on. In this sense, MSU and other B1G schools should do well, though talent will probably be more of 3*-level (for those that swear by stars). As has been said here and elsewhere, it's very early and UM will get theirs.

 

burtcomma

February 10th, 2013 at 1:28 PM ^

You guys are way too worried about one kid making a single decision on where he wants to go to college and play football.  OSU will get their players, and we will get ours and sometimes they will get people we want and sometimes we will get people they want.  Get over it....We expect that OSU and UM will continue to both get top 10 classes most of the time, and thinking that Meyer or Hoke will likely move that needle much from what it has historically been long term is sheer foolishness.  Some kids will prefer one to the other, or one school to the other, and that will not change.  Real question is likely more one of individual talent evaluation by both staffs, and the ability to find players who can be and will be coached up and developed.  I trust Mattison and Borges and the entire Michigan staff more than I trust the entire OSU staff to be able to do that based on what I have seen from this staff so far, so should all of you.

TheGhostofYost

February 10th, 2013 at 1:23 PM ^

When you go undefeated, people want to come to your school.  It's not magic.  All of this "OMG Flag Planting!" stuff is so overplayed.

Logan88

February 10th, 2013 at 6:28 PM ^

Yup. Generally, a team's recruiting success for a class is based on how their season went for the year 2 years preceeding the recruiting class (i.e. 2014 recruiting is impacted by 2012 season). UM had a good 2011 season and reaped the benefits in the 2013 class. OSU's success in 2013 class (despite their sh*tty 2011 season) came from the new coach bump and the fact that the new coach in question was Urban Meyer who has 2 MNC rings.

Unfortunately, UM had a relatively disappointing 2012 season (we know that UM played an extremely difficult schedule while OSU played a much easier one but most recruits aren't going to care about that) and it might be reflected in a weaker 2014 class for UM -- relative to the 2013 class. Also unfortunately, OSU had an undefeated season (and didn't even have to play an undefeated ND or a juggernaut Bama in the MNC game and risk losing) so they are probably going to clean up again in 2014. Sucks but probably true.

West German Judge

February 10th, 2013 at 2:00 PM ^

So far the kid's we've taken with OSU offers are:

2014

Michael Ferns-OH

2013

David Dawson

Chris Fox

Ben Gedeon-OH

Derrick Green

Maurice Hurst Jr.

Mike McCray Jr-OH

Henry Poggi

Deveon Smith-OH

Logan Tulley-Tillman

Dymonte Thomas-OH

2012

Kyle Kalis-OH

Ondre Pipkins

Terry Richardson

James Ross

Kalis, Thomas, and Ferns are virtually guaranteed to be huge blows to Ohio. I'd say we've won the border war so far.

ohiobuckeye21

February 10th, 2013 at 4:17 PM ^

Hmm.. Who are you considering the top player out of ohio last year, Jalin Marshall was this year and Adolphus Washington was the previous year both buckeyes with brionte dunn being number 2. In 2011 trey depriest went to bama but braxton miller was number 2 in ohio steve miller was 3, michael bennet 4 and doran grant number 5 all buckeyes 2010 number 1 was andrew norwell a buckeye melvin fellows in 2009 a buckeye and mike adams 2008. I agree that Michigan will always get good talent out of Ohio and their are going to be kids that we want bad like dymonte but when we got vonn bell the dymonte pain kind of went away

ohiobuckeye21

February 10th, 2013 at 5:02 PM ^

I was looking at scout, though i just looked at rivals and they have washington for last year as well but anyway both schools will recruit well every year and michigan will come into ohio and get players even players we want sometimes. Thats why i never understood why michigan fans hate the state of ohio so bad, half the players on michigans football team are from ohio, like i get hating the buckeyes but i would love the state if 2 of my teams 3 heismen winners came from it.

ohiobuckeye21

February 10th, 2013 at 10:04 PM ^

Lol thanks guys just trying to give an opinion from the other side not trying to dog anybody, and if they do have kalis ranked higher he was originally a buckeye commit and the circumstances caused him to flip... that being said he is one of those that i mentioned before that michigan came down here and took and we really wanted bad as we didn't really replace him i.e. dymonte thomas/vonn bell

turd ferguson

February 10th, 2013 at 2:53 PM ^

Agreed.

The way I look at recruiting is that it reshapes the probability that a team wins any given game.  We're recruiting at an extremely high level and so is OSU.  In fact, they might be at a slightly higher level going forward.  Maybe that gives them, based on talent alone, a 50-55% chance of winning a neutral site head-to-head game with us.  That's fine.  The talent is similar enough that other factors will generally determine the winner (coaching, execution, talent development, injuries, luck, officiating, weather, etc.). 

These probabilities are getting a little out of hand, though, when you compare Michigan & OSU to the rest of the conference.