JOHNSON “WANTED TO PLAY IN A PRO SET”
It's a well-known fact that there was a point in time – after Urban Meyer's retirement – that Paris Johnson Jr. was looking around at other schools in order to make sure that Ohio State, Ryan Day and the Buckeyes' new slew of coaches was going to still be the best fit for him and his future.
There were a lot of reasons he eventually chose to stay committed and sign with the program. Chief among them? The Buckeyes' propensity, more than many other programs, to send offensive linemen to the pros and to get those players more pro-ready than most other programs because of their offensive schemes and play calling.
“College football, every team doesn’t require linemen to have full skillsets,” Willie Anderson, a former four-time NFL Pro Bowl offensive tackle, told Eleven Warriors this week. “Some of these guys get to the NFL and when an NFL coach starts talking to guys, certain things are foreign to guys because they don’t know how to do it. That was one big thing Paris wanted. He wanted to play in a pro set that gets guys ready for pro football. A lot of these colleges, guys are in two-point stances the whole damn game. They don’t have that in the NFL much.”
It makes sense that a player, who has made it his lifelong goal to reach the NFL and provide for his mother and his family, would want to ensure that his college program will be able to make him as pro ready as possible.
There are plenty of other programs that do the same – like Georgia and Stanford, the two programs Johnson was also seriously considering – so there are a lot of other reasons that Ohio State became his choice. But Day's offensive system was a big one, and now that offensive linemen have seen how that system can be beneficial for them, it's become another selling point for the program.
“He had heard that certain linemen from certain schools go to pro football and struggle because they’d never had the verbiage, never had to do certain techniques,” Anderson said. “No knock against Baylor, but you go play offensive line there, offensive linemen are not that important because they’re going so fast.
“You take Ohio State and certain teams, quarterbacks are still taking 5-7-step drops. Linemen gotta pass protect for a certain amount of time. They’re still running the football. It’s a shame because NFL line coaches are all mad at the colleges because guys will come out of college not prepared. It’s harder now because after the CBA agreement, guys don’t have as much time to develop young guys. So out of college, you’ve gotta come with NFL skills already because they don’t have time to teach you, and it’s sad. That’s one of the reasons I started my academy – because linemen gotta have skills. It’s more than just being big. You’ve gotta have a skill set.”