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OH10;2195567; said:I forgot about the Chef; was referring to Daniel McMillan (probably a pipe dream, I know).
OH10;2195565; said:I would have to imagine that Ohio State's recruiting board is very small right now with the number of spots left. You have the LBs (McMillan, Mitchell, Lewis), the WRs (Gibson, Quick, Allen, Timmons), the OLs (Johnson, Finley, Munger) and the two DBs (Bell, Worley).
Bell may very well be the most important recruit on that board.
Buckeye86;2195570; said:2013 Recruiting Board
There are some still on that board that probably could come off but that gives a pretty good idea of where things are at (I think).
Super 11 surprise: Tennessee native makes the team
August 18, 2012, by Todd Holcomb
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Super 11 player Vonn Bell is the consensus No. 4 recruit in Georgia. (Jason Getz, [email protected])
The past year has been full of thrills and surprises for Vonn Bell, and being selected to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution?s annual Super 11 team is one of the biggest.
That?s because Bell, rated as the No. 3 safety prospect in the nation by one recruiting site, doesn?t live in Georgia.
In fact, he is the first Super 11 selection from Tennessee ? or any state other than Georgia. He plays at Ridgeland High in the hills of Walker County, about a 40-minute commute from his family?s home in Ooltewah, Tenn., a little town outside of Chattanooga.
?I feel like a Georgia boy somewhat after going to battle with my Georgia team every Friday night,?? Bell said. ?It feels like home. My coaches welcomed me with open arms.??
Living outside school-district lines is common for Georgia athletes. Living in another state is not.
Bell?s mother, Vanessa, has worked as a special education inclusion instructor at Ridgeland for four years. Like many school systems, Walker County allows the children of faculty to enroll in its schools regardless of address. The Georgia High School Association normally requires for transfer students to move into the school district to be eligible for sports, but it makes exceptions if the legal guardian is a teacher, coach or counselor at the school.
The move was Vanessa Bell?s idea. She was concerned that Vonn?s former school, Chattanooga Central, was changing head coaches for the third time in three seasons. And she also thought Georgia football was stronger.
After playing in Georgia for a season, the son agreed.
?We play against a good D-I prospect every Friday, and you get to see what you can do against them,?? Bell said. ?Coaches look for how players respond to competitors like that.??
Bell joins a Super 11 group that includes the nation?s No. 1 recruit, Grayson defensive end Robert Nkemdiche, who has committed to Clemson. The Super 11 list also includes players who have committed to Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt and UCLA. Bell is one of only two who has not made his college choice. Dooly County?s Montravius Adams, the No. 1-rated defensive tackle in the country, is the other.
Ridgeland was 7-5 last season. The Panthers were eliminated from the playoffs by Peach County, which featured 2012 Super 11 receiver Demarcus Robinson.
Bell was credited with 180 tackles in 2011. He had five interceptions and five fumble recoveries, three returned for touchdowns. He had more than 1,000 all-purpose yards.
?Please help me pass his name to people who need to know,?? Ridgeland coach Mark Mariakis wrote in a December e-mail that nominated Bell for all-state. ?Transferred to us from Tennessee school, so his name in Georgia is not out there yet. Will be major D-I player.??
Mariakis was right, although Bell had no scholarship offers at the time. Mariakis sent out highlight tapes. Bell?s older brother, former college basketball player Volonte Bell, made one of his own and posted it on YouTube.
Georgia?s Mark Richt was the first high-profile head coach to respond. He offered Bell a scholarship based on the tapes alone.
?I?ll never forget the day, Jan. 7,?? Bell said. ?Coach Richt called my coach. That?s when he offered me a scholarship. It took off from there. Once an SEC school offers, they?re all going to offer.??
Vanessa Bell has a scrapbook that keeps the business cards from college coaches she has met since Jan. 7. She has 29 of them. Bell is now a five-star recruit, according to Scout.com.
Vanessa says living in the Chattanooga area and working at Ridgeland doesn?t seem unnatural, that a friend teases that she has lived as a nomad all her life. She was born in Kansas, reared in Kentucky. Her husband, Vencent, grew up in Mississippi and played football at Murray State, where the couple met. They?ve lived in Texas and Alabama ? and now 10 years in Tennessee.
Vonn has narrowed his college choices to Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Texas and Clemson.
?I wasn?t expecting this, but I always dreamed of it,?? Bell said. ?Now, I?m living it, and I?m very thankful.??
bukIpower;2196994; said:with both our safties graduating after next year IMO Vonn Bell is the most important recruit left on the board for us right now.
pnuts34;2197029; said:As much as I'd like to agree, I really love vonn's game. But our most important recruits left are Mike Mitchell and Dorian Johnson imo. Cam borrows' versatility and jayme Thompson have us set at S. And Darron lee can also play S. Not to diminish bells importance at all though. He would make our already stellar db haul, a legendary one
bukIpower;2197059; said:Very true, I'd say Dorian Johnson along with Bell are two that we need the most. We have a lot of young talented LB's though.
ShowMeBuck;2197103; said:We need Bell because he is a potential game changer and you always take players like that. I forget how many fumbles forced and fumbles recovered he had last year, I want to say 4 each...plus a ton of tackles. You can't have too many players like that....
His junior statistics were off-the-chart good: 180 total tackles, 119 solo tackles, five interceptions, three forced fumbles and three recoveries for touchdowns. He added 31 receptions for 487 yards and six touchdowns receiving and 280 yards and five scores rushing.
Those are video game stats, almost too-good-to-be true stats. Are half the tackles the kind you get for touching the pile of bodies already on the ground at the end of the play? Was the competition that bad? . . .
. . .Bell attended Ohio State's camp and walked away with MVP honors. Urban Meyer's Buckeyes staff, according to recruiting services, made Bell their No. 1 camp priority and are hoping OSU makes his soon-to-be-pared list of possible schools.