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Justin Scott (DL Miami, FL)

My take is from the having a allegedly LJ now difficult time traveling hard for recruits, and keeping up with the new recruiting styles. He isn't landing them like he used to. NIL has to do with it, but he is slowing down and teams are negative recruiting based on that.
This is blatantly false! This is who LJsr landed in just the last 2 classes:
Jason Moore
Kayden McDonald
Joshua Mickens
Will Smith Jr.
Tywone Malone
Omari Abor
Kenyatta Jackson
Hero Kanu
Caden Curry

OSU has lost 1 guy who barely played anyway. Other than that, this is a very talented group of DL, and is not an example of not "landing them like he used to"

Scott, and the 5 star DL lost last season were lost due to 3 letters: NIL. OSU is not going to pay an incoming frosh more than their current roster. OSU is not trying to mimic aTm or Miami, who neither have had any success despite landing multiple 5stars. And I honestly don't blame OSU one bit for not trying to match whatever exorbitant amount that Miami offered. I'd get a seasoned vet in the Portal, and then pursue a local, hungry OH kid who will work his butt off for an OSU offer
 
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Agreed osuvictory1. But doesn't tOSU have a corporate jet that could help LJjr make these trips? But there's nothing that can compete with the huge amounts of money NILs can through at HS kids. I mean, who can contemplate $1million/year coming out of HS! Crazy stupid, and A&M has proven it doesn't work....or does Cryami believe it's smarter? Guess we'll see....
Idk.....My take is based upon the Buckeye beat journalists/podcasts that are out there. They were beating the drum last year because OSU lost out on most, if not all of their top DL targets, with the aforementioned arguments being made. I tend to agree with the sentiment. It is probably time for a succession plan to take place.

Plus, LJ sr and Knowles apparently butt heads, which if Knowles bolts is pretty much a moot point.
 
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This is blatantly false! This is who LJsr landed in just the last 2 classes:
Jason Moore
Kayden McDonald
Joshua Mickens
Will Smith Jr.
Tywone Malone
Omari Abor
Kenyatta Jackson
Hero Kanu
Caden Curry

OSU has lost 1 guy who barely played anyway. Other than that, this is a very talented group of DL, and is not an example of not "landing them like he used to"

Scott, and the 5 star DL lost last season were lost due to 3 letters: NIL. OSU is not going to pay an incoming frosh more than their current roster. OSU is not trying to mimic aTm or Miami, who neither have had any success despite landing multiple 5stars. And I honestly don't blame OSU one bit for not trying to match whatever exorbitant amount that Miami offered. I'd get a seasoned vet in the Portal, and then pursue a local, hungry OH kid who will work his butt off for an OSU offer
Well both can be true. Many of those aren't the 5* prospects they were after. Much of which comes down to NIL, but the arguments for other reasons have been hammered at over and over by the beat, which I find to be one of the most credible corps in the nation, because they just say it like it is.

I love LJ, but there is little doubt a succession plan needs addressed.
 
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Scott is going to factor into the '24 team, bank on that.
That aged quite poorly (and quickly). This is a huge loss. We can't keep missing on DL like we have been, the future outlook in the next 1-2 years is not looking great with the DL we will have...you can't win a title with a bad DL and there's not really much room for optimism there with the last two classes. We can keep landing all the top skilled position players on repeat, but without an OL/DL then it will not matter. It's not like we haven't tried, but whatever it is isn't working there.
And I frankly have no issue with that.

To each his own.
To the above, often I would agree with this sentiment but we could not have this happen with our DL recruiting in '23 and now in '24. There just isn't a backup option that comes near to Scott at this point in the game. The whole "wasn't a culture fit" and NIL schtick is cognitive dissonance (not aimed at you at all, just everything I am reading from our fans trying to rationalize this one)...our future DL is much, much better with Lightfoot and Scott and we lost both to Miami purely on NIL. Ju$stin $cott will not be the last one where we have to play this game, so I hope we are prepared to fight it.

The game is won in the trenches and we are flat-out losing in recruiting at OL and DL lately. If 2 of Williams, Hall and/or Hamilton leave, we are in huge trouble in our interior DL. I mean getting absolutely gashed inside with no Williams/Hall/Hamilton/Eich/Chambers, and nobody coming in that can legitimately fill the DT spots unless McDonald and Moore make massive improvements.

Only silver lining I see is that now we can transition to moving on from LJ Sr and hopefully announce his replacement sooner rather than later...only reason I saw to keeping LJ Sr for another year or to NLOID was to keep Scott and possibly being in the CFB for continuity. With that out of the picture, it would probably do more harm than good to keep LJ Sr at this point...he was an a amazing coach for many years here and we should be grateful to have had him as a coach up until present day. But the time has come for him to at least partially hang it up and get our replacement talking to recruits, though I hope LJ can consult and be part of the defense for one more year during that transition.
 
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That aged quite poorly (and quickly). This is a huge loss. We can't keep missing on DL like we have been, the future outlook in the next 1-2 years is not looking great with the DL we will have...you can't win a title with a bad DL and there's not really much room for optimism there with the last two classes. We can keep landing all the top skilled position players on repeat, but without an OL/DL then it will not matter. It's not like we haven't tried, but whatever it is isn't working there.

To the above, often I would agree with this sentiment but we could not have this happen with our DL recruiting in '23 and now in '24. There just isn't a backup option that comes near to Scott at this point in the game. The whole "wasn't a culture fit" and NIL schtick is cognitive dissonance (not aimed at you at all, just everything I am reading from our fans trying to rationalize this one)...our future DL is much, much better with Lightfoot and Scott and we lost both to Miami purely on NIL.

The game is won in the trenches and we are flat-out losing in recruiting at OL and DL lately. If 2 of Williams, Hall and/or Hamilton leave, we are in huge trouble in our interior DL. I mean getting absolutely gashed inside with no Williams/Hall/Hamilton/Eich/Chambers, and nobody coming in that can legitimately fill the DT spots unless McDonald and Moore make massive improvements.

Only silver lining I see is that now we can transition to moving on from LJ Sr and hopefully announce his replacement sooner rather than later...only reason I saw to keeping LJ Sr for another year or to NLOID was to keep Scott and possibly being in the CFB for continuity. With that out of the picture, it would probably do more harm than good to keep LJ Sr at this point...he was an a amazing coach for many years here and we should be grateful to have had him as a coach up until present day. But the time has come for him to at least partially hang it up and get our replacement talking to recruits, though I hope LJ can consult and be part of the defense for one more year during that transition.
Thread hijack here. Are there any names as potential replacements for LJsr?
 
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Thread hijack here. Are there any names as potential replacements for LJsr?
Nobody that I know of. I'm sure feelers are being put out there, just nothing public. I would place high confidence in a replacement being announced in the next 1-2 months...sooner the better or recruiting will continue to suffer. I have said it for awhile, but hopefully there is a plan that entails LJ Sr sticking around a couple more years to help out while the new DL coach gets acclimated. That scenario keeps recruits that committed primarily due to LJ Sr around and gives more certainty for future recruits on who their coach will be.
 
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Well both can be true. Many of those aren't the 5* prospects they were after. Much of which comes down to NIL, but the arguments for other reasons have hammered at over and over by the beat, which I find to be one of the most credible corps in the nation, because they just say it like it is.

I love LJ, but there is little doubt a succession plan needs addressed.
Now this I fully agree with!

I also agree with the NIL issue as well…
 
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Not surprised and honestly it’s just what this era is man. Best of luck to him. I guess step up our NIL game??? We don’t typically produce top 10 DL in OH so got to find a solution if we want elite difference makers that can help get that stop when you need it against elite squads.

At least these guys who jump on these last minute NIL bags now seem to go to places where they will be non factors in the grand scheme like Miami or Texas A&M. It still sucks but at least he’s not going to Bama UGA or any other real contender
 
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I think recruiting some lower rated guys and developing them instead of just purely chasing only elite type recruits is part of the solution. Especially since these top top guys are also likely to transfer out after a year or two anyways if they don’t get adequate playing time right off the bat. Gotta have some guys who are more willing to stay for the long run in the tank. A good balance of developmental guys and higher rated elite recruits. Find the lower rated guys you really like earlier in the process instead of scrambling at the end when stuff like this happens. This along with properly utilizing the transfer portal. We aren’t going to and I think correctly so start throwing blank checks at HS kids like some. So gotta find solutions in other ways
 
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I think recruiting some lower rated guys and developing them instead of just purely chasing only elite type recruits is part of the solution. Especially since these top top guys are also likely to transfer out after a year or two anyways if they don’t get adequate playing time right off the bat. Gotta have some guys who are more willing to stay for the long run in the tank. A good balance of developmental guys and higher rated elite recruits. Find the lower rated guys you really like earlier in the process instead of scrambling at the end when stuff like this happens. This along with properly utilizing the transfer portal. We aren’t going to and I think correctly so start throwing blank checks at HS kids like some. So gotta find solutions in other ways
I agree and disagree with this statement. I fully agree that OSU should pursue a combination of elite recruits and some lower rated tri state guys. But tbh, from what we're seeing any and everyone is entering the Portal for varying reasons. But the main reason for so many names is coaching changes. HC firings at IU, ULM, Miss St, and countless assistants across the country have also caused a number of players to leave since their position coach was shown the door. I think coaching continuity may be one of the most important factors that isn't talked about enough.
 
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I think recruiting some lower rated guys and developing them instead of just purely chasing only elite type recruits is part of the solution. Especially since these top top guys are also likely to transfer out after a year or two anyways if they don’t get adequate playing time right off the bat. Gotta have some guys who are more willing to stay for the long run in the tank. A good balance of developmental guys and higher rated elite recruits. Find the lower rated guys you really like earlier in the process instead of scrambling at the end when stuff like this happens. This along with properly utilizing the transfer portal. We aren’t going to and I think correctly so start throwing blank checks at HS kids like some. So gotta find solutions in other ways
I'm gonna get blasted for this so fire away. What you just described is exactly what Harbaugh has done at TCUN. He's built a team full of mostly lower ranked guys and kept them around for 4-5 years for development, and made good use of the portal and puts a team full of 22-23 year olds on the field. We tend to send our top talent to the League after 3 years and keep facing that veteran team with a team full of 20=21 year olds. Like it or not, TCUNs method has worked. Now of course we will have to see what happens next year when all of those veteran players are gone, but he hit a formula that worked in the meantime. Just food for thought.
 
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