Recruiting Results by Class

[Oh8ch]

The table below is an attempt to organize info on how OSU recruits have performed after the fact with recruiting class as the basis for organization. This is evolving as it goes and comments and suggestions are more than welcome.

I am looking at how kids were rated coming out of HS and how they turned out. I am using Scout's rankings exclusively for HS ratings as it is just too complicated to do anything else.

As for how they "turned out", I am looking at All B1G Ten honors and the NFL draft. How many years they spent as starters or letters won would be great metrics and I may add those if I find time and a way to easily gather the info.

Any ideas on other metrics are encouraged - but ease of use is important unless you want to gather the data yourself.

I started with 2002 - the first year comprehensive numbers are available - and my goals is to eventually catch up with my Scholarship Roster table so that as kids roll off the current team they go from one table to the next.

I am putting this in the football forum rather than recruiting simply so we don't have to watch our language.

 

[Oh8ch]

 

[Oh8ch]

Observations on the 2002 class.

2002 may turn out to be one of the most interesting classes in this thread. JT stumbled into a gold mine in Ohio. For the 2019 class that Ryan Day is putting together there are TWO Ohio kids rated in the top 200 nationally. In 2002 there were 13 and JT landed 11 of them.

What is particularly interesting with this class is what happened at the top end. We had four 5 Star recruits. Only one of them (Clarett) contributed as much as a single season as the regular starter and even he missed games due to injury. On the other hand he was instrumental in winning a the NC in 2002 - the only year he was a member of the team.

On the other hand, of the top 11 rated players in this class not a single one was drafted in the first round. Of the bottom 13 there were four first round picks. This includes two 3 stars who were rated #399 and #543 overall.

Yet with all that talent - and 12 of 24 players were drafted - nobody left early for the NFL with the exception of Clarett, who had been dismissed from the team. (I could be off on this as I do not have redshirt info for everyone.)

There were only six kids in the class not from Ohio and half of those were not around to use all of their eligibility. Of the 18 Ohio kids 15 played for at least 4 years.

And a couple of quick memories regarding those other 5 star recruits for the younger crowd.....

In 2002 it we didn't have all this social media and the speculation and drama around signing day was actually much more intense than it is today. The best example of this was 5 star Mike D'Andrea - the number one player in Ohio and a kid who we simply HAD TO HAVE to chase the NC. But on the eve of signing day it became clear that he was going to Nebraska. I still don't know if there was anything to that rumor other than his visit, but there was jubilation everywhere when he signed for the Buckeyes. And sure enough we did win the NC with D'Andrea - he just didn't play any role in it. D'Andrea battled injuries for his entire - and shortened - career as a Buckeye.

Another interesting story involved QBs. Fans had been waiting for 5 star Justin Zwick for two years. He was the best QB out of Ohio since Art Schlichter. But he had committed early so there was no drama. The story involved recruiting a second - and obviously unnecessary - QB named Troy Smith. Speculation was that we would give him a try but most likely he would be moved to DB. I shit you not.

(One of my most vivid memories of OSU football was attending the first day of fall camp in 2002 - a practice that included only the incoming class. There was Jim Tressel personally working with not one - but both - of his incoming QBs. I don't think he ever say Smith as a DB.)

And finally there is the saga of 5 star Derek Morris. Derek had one of "those Dad's" and they played games with OSU all the way to signing day. But this was potentially the second coming of Orlando Pace and most of a divided fan base was delighted when he finally signed. Then, after failing to qualify academically, he trashed OSU on his way out the door with statements he later retracted. I am of the opinion that OSU might never have won the NC that year if Derek had been on board. Bullet dodged.

 

[Oh8ch]

Observations on the 2003 recruiting class.

Other than the preponderance of Ohio players the 2002 and 2003 classes could not have been more different.

Of the small 15 person class only two were from outside of Ohio. However, only 8 of the 15 completed their eligibility. Many of the departures were due to disciplinary problems - some severe. It does not appear that any of the 7 players who transferred or were dismissed made it to another Division I program.

It is surprising that a class so decimated could be part of a team that made it to the BCS Championship in both 2006 and 2007.

The biggest disappointment was Louis Irizarry who was going to revolutionize the way OSU used the TE. Instead he and Ira Guilford were dismissed from the team before the start of their Sophomore seasons due to the robbery of a fellow student.

There were some highlight players as well including two first round draft picks.

Anthony Gonzalez starred for the Bucks, played in the NFL and got himself elected to congress.

Dante Whitner had a long NFL career including multiple Pro Bowl season. Not bad for a kid who at the age of six was struck by a car and considered questionable that he would even walk again due to over 30 fractures.


One other observation came as a complete surprise to me given my intention to build my charts using Scout data. The Scout database has been compromised in regards to OSU players from 2003 thru 2008. Other than the top handful of players each year (6 for 2003) player records are incomplete and are "unlinked" to some of their stats. No OSU players can be found in the player rankings lower than Brandon Maupin at #121. While Rivals rated Guilford and Youboty the #8 and #14 Safeties in 2003, neither is listed among the top 50 safeties by Scout. Their records simply do not exist other than being listed by name in the OSU recruiting class.

In these cases I am borrowing the "by position" and star ratings from Rivals (Rivals does not have an overall ranking that I can find).

 

[Dryden]

https://theathletic.com/1415802/2019/11/27/ohio-state-michigan-recruiting-ryan-day-jim-harbaugh-jim-tressel/

The money quote:

“I joke with Coach Tressel about the 2003 class,” Carpenter told The Athletic. “There were a lot of turds from Ohio in that class that never panned out. They weren’t good enough to play here and they were all out of the program pretty quickly. You could tell the second they showed up on campus they weren’t going to make it.”