Pappy: Las Vegas, NV: Tom, in your most recent recruiting class rankings you placed Ohio State at #4, and you went on to justify the ranking by saying quote "Yes, the Buckeyes have 16 commitments and this class is very strong, but we cannot put Ohio State ahead of LSU and Georgia until these prospects prove their worth on the field." Please, please, please, explain what you mean by that. Isn't kind of hard to prove your worth until ANY of these kids see the field? Why are the Ohio St. recruits any different from the SEC school recruits at this stage in the game?
Tom Luginbill: We would be glad to address what we meant when we said "prove it on the field". Looking back, the statement could have been worded better, but no answer we give now will make any OSU fans happy and we understand that.
Tom Luginbill: What we meant simply is this- In our opinion despite OSU having 16 verbal commitments, we do not feel that a few of those are OSU caliber players and are a little surprised they have gone after them. Obviously, you want to recruit and win your state every year and every program takes guys for various reasons that also may not have to do with whether or not he is the best player so we feel some of those kids are going to have to prove they are OSU caliber.
Tom Luginbill: Second, it would be hard to argue that OSU, who has dominated recruiting in the Big Ten over the last five years, has recruited better athletes and players than that of the top-tier SEC programs like LSU, Florida and Georgia to name a few as evidenced by the on-the-field results over the last two years. We felt that Georgia and LSU's top guys right now are slightly ahead of OSU's top guys despite OSU having 16 verbal commitments because as mentioned above, there are a few that make OSU's class a little bigger, not necessarily better.
Tom Luginbill: Now, of course all players from all schools have to prove it on the field, we recognize that of course, but seeing what we have in the 2009 class and following recruiting trends over the last four years, we feel that the players OSU has been recruiting and is recruiting are going to have to begin winning the match-ups with top tier SEC teams on the field in order for us to feel like the pendulum has swung back OSU's way. This is our opinion, not fact, but we think there is credible evidence behind our notion of where things stand right now.
Tom Luginbill: Understand we are in a business where we are either making people angry or happy with our reports, grades, rankings, comments etc and we understand that, but we do take the time to answer your questions, put ourselves out there and respond to your inquiries. As we always say, we do not pretend to have all the answers and nobody does, but from a football standpoint our staff works from experience in this game both on the coaching side and the scouting side and in this particular instance with OSU, one of our guys Bill Conley spent 17 years on the staff there and has a pretty good feel for them. Every fan of every team wants to feel like their team is doing the best-- that is what fuels college football.
Tom Luginbill: Remember too, it is June and we have a looooong way to go until February. Recognizing it won't change any opinions, we at least hope this gives you a clearer view of our perspective.
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