By Eddie Calvert

I don’t want to give away any top secret recruiting information, but I think that it is already a pretty well known fact, so I’m going to take a chance and say it anyways.  There are essentially two ways to scout and recruit talent.  One of those ways is with focus on team core.  The other, on team spark.

Team core, this is where teams are made and unmade.  This is the heart and soul of every champion on the gridiron, the offensive line, and the defensive line.  I can have the greatest quarterback ever, the fastest running back in all of history, and a receiver who just can’t be covered.  Without the core, however…there is no time for the quarterback to throw (you can eliminate the receiver now!), and no holes for this great back to run through.  That leaves you with nothing.

Defensively?  Great linebackers can’t make tackles at the line of scrimmage or two yards deep, or pressure the QB’s if they are trying to fight off lineman who are running through their defensive line.  And oh yeah, this does impact the secondary too.  If the defensive line can’t pressure the quarterback, or tie up the offensive line allowing the linebackers to cause havoc, then let’s see you attempt to cover a 6’2, 4.4 forty wonder kid with great hands all day!

Team spark, it takes a quarterback smart enough to read plays and run the offense, to have the natural instinct to feel pressure, with the arm to make the necessary throws.  It requires a running back able to read holes, smart enough to hit the right gap, strong enough to take the hits and tough enough to hang on to the pigskin.  Receivers have to be equipped with the right talents at their positions too, and so on and so on.  Now here comes a familiar phrase, (you’ve probably heard a brilliant football analyst say this somewhere before), without the offensive line, the team core, all this talent is negated, and that leaves you with nothing.

So I am overjoyed with this Buckeye recruiting class.  Ohio State is said to have a good class coming in, but nowhere near the top five, and many don’t have Coach T’s guys in the top ten.  Don’t get me wrong, you must have some spark, but it doesn’t start there.

There was a big big football game recently, the New England somethings, and this team from New York.  Now this New England team had three or four times the spark of that other team.  And you know something funny happened, even though nobody gave that New York team a chance, the core of the New England team was overwhelmed, and neutralized all that spark.  That left them with next to nothing.  My recollection is vague here, but I think that I remember New York actually winning that game?

So let me sum this up. 6-7/310   6-7/301   6-5/300  Those my friends are the stats of the top three offensive line recruits from this class height and weight, tackle, center and tackle respectively.  By the way, they can run too!  We have spark to add to this, but remember this, it starts here, and the core here in this class looks awfully darn good.