Jim Tressel’s 2009 recruiting class is just about complete. About 7 months ahead of schedule.
Ohio State has early verbal commitments from 23 players. You can find the list here, or here, or even here. We certainly aren’t breaking this news. The limit for any one season is 25 by the way. Which means that Ohio State can only offer 2 more scholarships between now and the February signing day. Sure, there is a chance that they could lose a few of these athletes before then. In fact one of the students, Melvin Fellows has decommitted before. (Fellows previously gave a verbal to Illinois before changing his mind and picking the Buckeyes.) But it is safe to say that barring some type of catastrophic event, 20 of these guys are Columbus bound.
So if there are only a few scholarships left to hand out, who will get them? A good question. Let’s first look at who we are losing, and what positions these verbals will play.
Seniors Leaving-
Todd Boeckman QB, Maurice Wells RB, Brian Robiskie WR, Rory Nicol and Brandon Smith TE, Alex Boone and Jon Skinner OT, Steve Rehring, Ben Person and Kyle Mitchum OG from the offense. Nadar Abdallah DT, Marcus Freeman, James Laurinaitis and Curtis Terry LB, Malcolm Jenkins and Shaun Lane CB, Jamario O’Neal and Nick Patterson S from the defense. Plus kicker Ryan Pretorius, and punter A.J. Trapasso.
Juniors with Draft Potential-
Chris Wells RB, Brian Hartline WR, Jake Ballard TE, Anderson Russell and Kurt Coleman Safeties, Lawrence Wilson DE
That could leave a little bit of a hole. We’re talking about potentially 8 starters on offense and 8 on defense. This year’s recruiting class is heavy on offensive lineman and linebackers, and of course, that QB we grabbed is supposed to be pretty good too…
The ’09 class is shaping up like this- 10 offensive players (4 WR’s, 2 RB’s, 1 FB, 1 TE, 1 C, 1 G) and 13 defensive players (2 DE’s, 2 DT’s, 3 LB’s, 6 DB’s). Add transfer Guard Justin Boren to the mix (no scholarship) and it looks like the team has done a good job of replacing the players that will be departing.
What is most interesting to me is that these players are committing so early to the program. It seems like they don’t want to be left out. That’s a good problem to have.
(Photo by Scout.com)
