Ohio State Buckeyes

Urban Meyer calls early commitment trend 'very alarming'

Published Aug. 5, 2015 3:54 p.m. ET

Marcus Hartman

Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer is arguably doing it better than anybody these days, but he still can barely stand having to recruit prospects too early.

How early is too early?

"Juniors are committing and I'm not allowed to go out in the spring and recruit, so you try to get them to come to your campus," Meyer said last week during Big Ten Media Days in Chicago. "I think it's very risky. I'm concerned about it. Mark Pantoni is our director of that part of our program and is very concerned about it. If you start taking commitments and getting a ton of commitments as sophomores, I don't like that. It's not what we try to do. We have to be very cautious because what happens? My son has grown that much."

The Buckeyes have not only 19 players for the 2016 class who have verbally committed prior to playing their senior seasons but also 10 for 2017 who are yet to begin their junior years of high school.

Six of the latter group committed before the end of their sophomore years, including one (quarterback Danny Clark) who committed as a freshman.

The issue is particularly troubling for Meyer because he sits in the middle of the most fertile recruiting base in the Midwest: Ohio.

While it's a luxury for Meyer to be the coach of the program that is likely to be the childhood favorite of many of the top prospects in the state, Ohio's prowess for producing talented football players is no secret.

Schools from across the Big Ten and beyond are annually trying to pry some of the best players from the state, and some have found the earlier they get involved with a prospect, the better.

Meanwhile, Meyer tries to strike a balance between bringing in the best players from across the country while keeping Ohio's top prospects home when he can only sign so many players per year. That act alone is not easy, but the issue of "late bloomers" makes it even more complicated.

As an example, Meyer cited the case of Darron Lee, a three-star prospect from New Albany, Ohio, who was flying under the radar in the summer of 2012 until coming to Ohio State's summer camp prior to his senior season.

He performed well enough against other highly rated prospects from out of state to earn an offer from Ohio State, and Lee rewarded that foresight by becoming a playmaking linebacker last season for the national champion Buckeyes.

Last year, 12 of Ohio State signees committed before the start of their senior year but Meyer was able to add Ohioans Alex Stump, Jerome Baker, Rashod Berry, Robert Landers and Davon Hamilton before finishing the class.

This year, numbers figure to be much tighter, though.

"Who knows what's going to happen with these guys?" Meyer said of future players such as Lee. "All of a sudden you get a Darron Lee and you don't have a spot for him, so I don't like the direction it's going."

In a perfect world, Meyer would prefer to have only half his class full at this point.

"I can't stand it, but how can you walk away from a guy you think is a good one when he says, 'Well, I'm gonna go somewhere else?'" Meyer said.

"I think it's good to have a mix (of five-star guys and lower-rated) because always those five-star guys don't turn out to be (recent Ohio State recruits Raekwon McMillan and Vonn Bell), but there is nothing better than seeing a Darron Lee. Are you kidding me?"

Meyer also cited as an example safety Tyvis Powell, a three-star recruit from Bedford, Ohio, who committed to Ohio State before Meyer was hired as head coach, and Chris Borland, a two-star prospect from Kettering, Ohio, who committed early to Wisconsin in 2009 when Jim Tressel was Ohio State's head coach.

"And Ohio State has had a nice tradition of (finding diamonds in the rough)," Meyer said. "Coach Tressel did a phenomenal job at that. I think Wisconsin is as good as there is at that so I really study who they take. You look at when Bret (Bielema) was there, the Borlands and all those guys, that's as good a linebacker as I've ever coached against. How did he end up there? Probably because we were filled or something. And Ohio has a tendency to do that. These different guys show up at Michigan State and become great players. That's very alarming."