• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

LB Freddie Lenix (Cincinnati signee; transfer to Notre Dame College)

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
link

1/19/06


Lenix now at UC

Fred Lenix, a 2005 OSU recruit from Cleveland Glenville, has enrolled at the University of Cincinnati.
Lenix, a linebacker/safety, attended Cuyahoga Community College last fall and had planned to enroll at OSU this winter. Cincinnati sports information director Tom Hathaway said Lenix had not yet been added to the Bearcats’ roster.
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
Link

Coaches help freshman adjust
By C. Trent Rosecrans
Post staff reporter


After a year when so much had been taken from Freddie Lenix - a scholarship to one of the nation's top football programs, his grandmother and a great aunt - it hurt when the one thing he could always count on was taken away too.
Although the linebacker had enrolled at UC in time to participate in spring football practice, the Bearcat coaches decided to hold him out of practice so he could concentrate on school.
It was tough - the one constant in Lenix's life had been football, the game he loved as much as anything. But now the people who wanted him to play football most wouldn't even let him put on his pads.
"There was a point where I was kind of mad," Lenix said. "I wanted to get out there and run around and put on pads. I hadn't done it since high school."
UC was supposed to be the place that would finally let him play, and yet he was still on the sideline.
As one of the state's most decorated players as a senior at Cleveland's Glenville High School, Lenix and teammate Jamario O'Neal donned Ohio State caps and signed on the dotted line on signing day thinking his career was made and he was headed to Columbus to play for the Buckeyes.
After taking the ACT twice and with a good core GPA in hand, Lenix didn't think about too much but helping lead the Tarblooders to another state track championship as he finished his senior year of high school.
Despite sending his signed letter to Columbus that February, Lenix hadn't gotten a letter from Ohio State saying the school had chosen him. In the end, although he'd been declared eligible by the NCAA Clearinghouse, he wasn't accepted by Ohio State.
While the nation's top recruits were headed off to college last summer, Lenix was left at home. Ohio State coach Jim Tressel convinced Lenix that things would work out, despite having to miss the 2005 season. All Lenix would have to do was attend Cuyahoga Community College and then enroll at Ohio State in the winter, ready for spring practice.
It turned out that still wasn't good enough for Ohio State's admission office and Lenix was left without a home. After visiting UC, Michigan State and North Carolina, he decided to become a Bearcat and enrolled in classes at UC.
At that point, he thought everything had settled down and was about to get back on track.
Instead, he had a tumultuous spring. Within a month of coming to Cincinnati, his grandmother, Lela Hunt, and great aunt Ella Lenix, both died. While dealing with that as well as the step from community college to UC, Lenix was held out of spring football practice as well.
"We knew that being in spring practice would be a great advantage for him and this football team, but I thought he needed to get things squared away at home and situated and in the right frame of mind for school," said UC coach Mark Dantonio. "I think he got overwhelmed and I didn't want him not to succeed as a person. He's going to succeed as a football player. I felt like we had time to get his feet on the ground and move forward, but we needed to do it in the right way."
As a 20-year old, it didn't quite seem that easy to Lenix. All he knew was he wasn't being allowed to play football. That's what he wanted more than anything. He'd come to practice and see his teammates running around hitting each other, yet he wasn't allowed to hit anybody.
"We didn't need to see him run around, there were more important things at that point," said UC defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi.
Even though Lenix understood what the coaches were telling him and even accepted it, his malaise continued even in the weight room. Always a solid worker on the weights, Lenix admittedly wasn't giving it his all. His mind was elsewhere - with his grandmother, his auntie, his two sons, Freddie Jr. and Mylen - everywhere but where it needed to be.
That's when Dantonio stepped in and sat down with him. Dantonio didn't meet alone with Lenix as his head coach, but as someone who cared about the young man.
"It was nothing, we just talked," Dantonio said. "It wasn't like he hadn't heard it before, we just talked."
It was just another talk to Dantonio, but it meant the world to Lenix, who was still trying to find his way in college and in life.
"(The coaches) helped me mature a lot - I couldn't do it for myself, I may have chosen the wrong thing if I hadn't had someone older and more experienced to help me with it," he said. "The coaches helped me through that. Now I'm grateful for that, and I'm here to pay them back for doing that for me."
 
Upvote 0
Link

LENIX BACK TO LB - Freshman Freddie Lenix is back to playing linebacker after a short tryout at cornerback.

"He's back to being a linebacker, we need to find a place for him to play," Dantonio said. "But he needs to do his part, this is different game than high school. He needs to find his way onto the football field, probably first on special teams and then develop from there."
 
Upvote 0
Lenix is getting back on track at UC. I for one hope Lenix gets into the game and realizes his dream to play in Ohio Stadium this Saturday.

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060914/SPT0101/609140336/1078

Lenix finally gets to OSU
BY BILL KOCH | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The question was posed to University of Cincinnati coach Mark Dantonio at his weekly press conference. How many of the 62 Ohioans on his roster also were recruited by Ohio State?

Dantonio thought for a moment, then named freshman linebacker Freddie Lenix. That's where the list began and ended.

Lenix, a 6-foot, 215-pound speedster, was not only recruited by the Buckeyes, he signed a letter of intent with them in 2005. It was one of the happiest days of his life.

"I always loved Ohio State," Lenix said. "It was a real big thing. When I finally signed with them it was like, man, I accomplished a lot. I overcame what everybody was saying about me, about my size and my ability to play in the Big Ten."

But he soon learned that signing with Ohio State is no guarantee of being accepted by the school. When he was told he didn't meet OSU's academic requirements, he was crushed.

"It hurt me real bad," Lenix said.

All those emotions have come rushing back to Lenix this week as the Bearcats prepare to face the Buckeyes on Saturday. Instead of running into Ohio Stadium wearing the scarlet and gray of OSU, Lenix will be sporting UC's C-paw.

As he stands on the sideline, he'll look across at the Buckeyes and think about how he could be standing there with them, playing for the country's No. 1 team.

"It'll cross my mind," Lenix said. "For anybody, it would cross their mind. I signed with them. That could have been me. But I'm not going to let it take me out of my game plan, just in case I get in the game."

Lenix says he's gotten over the disappointment of not playing for Ohio State and is now thoroughly invested in the UC program.
But he didn't always feel that way.

"I was real immature about the situation," Lenix said. "I was just thinking I don't want to go to other schools because I signed with the Big Ten and that's the biggest conference in the country. But when I sat down and talked to the (UC) coaches, they told me how the program was on the rise, about the move to the Big East, about the nice facilities they were building."

Lenix signed with UC in February.

Dantonio and his coaches considered him the plum of their 2006 recruiting class.

At Cleveland Glenville High School, he had been a running back, a linebacker and a track star who ran the 100 meters in 10.4 seconds. He seemed certain to make an immediate impact at UC.

But it hasn't worked out that way. In two games, Lenix has yet to get on the field for the Bearcats, although Dantonio said he might play on special teams this week.

Why hasn't he played?

"It's a game of blocking, tackling and execution," Dantonio said. "That's what he has to do."

Defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi says Lenix is going through the same things a lot of freshmen endure as they adjust to college football.

"He just hasn't picked it up mentally yet," Narduzzi said. "He's not playing as fast as we need him to be. Everybody is so much further ahead mentally on defense that when he's in there and there's 10 guys who know what to do and there's one guy that doesn't know what he's doing or doesn't play as physical as you need him to be, he sticks out."
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
Closing the book on OSU
After twice trying -- and failing -- to meet Ohio State's entrance requirements, Glenville graduate Freddie Lenix decided he would have to play football elsewhere. He ended up at Cincinnati, where he will be in uniform and on the field when the Bearcats play Saturday in Ohio Stadium
Friday, September 15, 2006
Doug Lesmerises
Plain Dealer Reporter

Columbus -- Freddie Lenix could have been part of Ohio State's new linebacker crew this season. Instead, he'll be on the other sideline Saturday. The former Glenville star is a Cincinnati Bearcat and in the process of switching to cornerback.

After a confusing year of waiting to find out if he would be admitted to Ohio State, Lenix finally enrolled at Cincinnati in the spring, realizing the hard way that signing a national letter of intent at Ohio State doesn't mean you're ready to hit the field.

"The NCAA signing deadlines are not always congruent with admissions deadlines," said Mabel Freeman, Ohio State's assistant vice president for undergraduate admissions.

"A letter of intent to play is not in any way an admission."

Lenix was one of 17 players in Ohio State's 2005 recruiting class, a group that included current starters James Laurinaitis, Malcolm Jenkins, Anderson Russell and Alex Boone. He said he qualified under the NCAA guidelines for core classes, grade point average and test scores.

"I thought everything was a go," Lenix said this week. "Then I started wondering why I hadn't gotten my acceptance letter yet. Then they told me I wouldn't be able to go to school in time, and that really hurt me. I committed to Ohio State and then to wait that long to find out I couldn't go, that hurt."

It happens.

Recruiting classes are judged by the players who sign, but it's a long time from February to the fall.

The Internet scouting service Rivals.com revised its recruiting rankings just before the season to count only players who actually enrolled. Ohio State, by getting its entire 20-player class to campus this year, moved up from 12th to 10th on that list. But Lenix was the casualty of the 2005 class and running back Dennis Kennedy, now flourishing at Akron, didn't make it in 2004. Ohio State coach Jim Tressel declined to speak specifically about either player this week.

OSU recruiting coordinator John Peterson said the football staff works with the admissions office on its recruits.

"We're continually trying to build a working relationship and grow as far as communication," he said. "There's never a for-sure guarantee. It's not open enrollment, like when I was coming out of school."

In fact, Ohio State this week trumpeted its higher standards, Freeman saying there were 19,000 applicants for the 2006 freshman class that will include 6,000 students. She said there are no specific standards for admission, but described instead a "holistic review" that can take into account exceptional skills in any area, including sports.

If initially denied admission, there is an appeal process, though few decisions are changed. Lenix said he enrolled at Cuyahoga Community College last fall and was told by the football staff that a good showing there would help him get into Ohio State for the winter quarter.

"I did that and when it was time to get back, they still didn't accept me," Lenix said. "They told me to come back in the spring, but I realized after the first two times, if they didn't accept me, there wasn't a real good chance of me getting into here."

Lenix remained in touch with linebackers coach Luke Fickell during the process.

Said Fickell: "He was hard to get a hold of sometimes, but we knew where he was and we knew what he was doing."

Finally, Lenix reopened his decision and visited Michigan State and Cincinnati before choosing the Bearcats and enrolling in the spring. He sat out spring practice to focus on school, then joined the team for fall camp, where, after a year away from football, he was almost immediately switched to cornerback. As high as 220 pounds as a linebacker, Lenix weighs 218 right now and is trying to get down to 210.

"I've got to learn all the checks and different coverages, but I'm catching on pretty easy," he said.

"It's kind of hard to go from outside linebacker to corner," Cincinnati free safety Haruki Nakamura said, "but we expect him to be a playmaker for us."

Lenix did not play in Cincinnati's first two games, but he will be in uniform Saturday. He could see his first college action on special teams, in the stadium he thought he would be calling home.

"It's going to be weird in a way, thinking about that I'm supposed to be here," Lenix said. "But after that leaves my mind, it'll be all fun and games with my friends.

"I'm not mad at Ohio State. I just didn't meet the standards for them. To this day, they never really told me why and I never really tried to find out. I moved on. I had to get on the field."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

[email protected], 216-999-4479
Click to expand...

http://www.cleveland.com/osufootball/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/sports/1158309881312510.xml&coll=2
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top