Pryor Hath Cometh

The long awaited commitment of the nation’s (almost unanimous) top ranked recruit is here, and it’s a big score for the Buckeyes. We’ve kind of assumed it from the beginning, guessed it along the way, and now it’s on a LOI.


Start the hate, envy, and confusion:

The Denied
Michigan Fan #1: Michigan’s future wasn’t relying on this kid anyway.
Michigan Fan #2: We never wanted him anyway, Pryor didn’t fit in.

Penn State Fan #1: We have 2 better QBs than him anyway.
Penn State Fan #2: We have a great institution, Pryor would ruin it.

Oregon Fan #1: We didn’t think we’d get him anyways.
Poe McKnoe: Okay, that’s fair.

The Ignorant
ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption’s Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon had a tidbit on their show about the Pryor decision. In fact, it was the second story after the Rockets losing to the Celtics. Okay, that’s fair. It’s a big story so it should be second.

But then to spend the duration of the segment discussing how, and I quote, “This is not news”. It’s against the rules of common sense to devote one or two minutes discussing how a story is not news on national television. It’s news because you made it news, Tony and Michael. I went to work today, and that didn’t make PTI. NOT NEWS.

Then PTI proceeds to finish it off with “Well Michigan is the school that has been turning out the NFL QBs, not Ohio State”. Wrong. Lloyd Carr and his pro style, dropback passer offense has sent several QBs to the NFL, even though Tom Brady is really the only one to be concerned about. Ohio State has never had a Tom Brady, but they have had a Heisman Trophy winning QB. The Rich Rodriguez spread offense isn’t the ideal producer of successful NFL QBs. You could say West Virginia isn’t the hot bed of NFL talent, but most NFL QBs have come from less known schools such as Southern Mississippi, Ole Miss,

The Needy
The Detroit Free Press published a couple, several, more than a few, ok, 10 [ten] (TEN!) articles after the Pryor announcement. That’s just post press conference. People get paid for this? I mean nothing else is going on in Detroit? Recession? The Mayor? The Pistons? Nothing? The ‘Articles’ had such zingers as: “Michigan shouldn't be disappointed that it missed out on Pryor” and “Michigan's future never depended on Pryor”. Geez, don’t act like the sky is falling or anything. Play it cool.

The Sporting News is an entertaining farce. Most articles are written to get the readers’ panties in a bundle. TSN couldn’t quite keep up with the Freep.com, with only 7 separate stories and letting each writer take a stab and writing something reasonable. The writers publish stories that bring out the writers of Dumb and Dumber 3, complete with a supposed text from Tressel to Pryor.

And Finally...
The University of… Lamaar Thomas, who committed several months ago, started the new trend of calling The Ohio State University The University of Ohio State. I’m okay with it. It becomes a big deal when Pryor says it, but ol’ Flash couldn’t even make a splash. But there has to be rules, rules, rules.

The term will only be applicable during the following circumstance: It can only be used when a recruit commits to Ohio State over any university that include “The University of” in their moniker. In this case, The University of….Michigan.

OMG!

Terrelle Pryor Watch will come to an end...reportedly.

After helping the Jeanette team knock off Philly's Strawberry Mansion (!) and put another state title under his belt, Terrelle Pryor shocked the world (!) and stated he plans to get it over with and sign with a school this week. As reported by the ever dependable (!) Altoona Mirror:

‘‘I’ll be deciding next week. Next week, I’m going to say the school I’m going to, sign it, and get it over with,’’ Pryor told a huge throng of reporters. ‘‘I don’t know yet [if I’ll take any other visits]. I’ll probably be done.’’

He later clarified that he expects to announce this coming week where he’ll play his college football. That makes it unlikely any other officials visits will be scheduled. Pryor also offered another revelation Saturday afternoon. ‘‘It’s down to two schools,’’ Pryor said. ‘‘I can’t tell you which two.’’

Altoona Mirror

Now let's take a look at the 4 schools that could make up Pryor's 2 schools. They are arranged in order of least likely to most likely.

Oregon: Oregon has an offense that Pryor likes. That's it. No relationships, no visits. It's a Pac-10 school in the Pacific Northwest, which means a 2000 mile hike for Pryors family. Not looking good, Ducks. At least you still have Dennis Dix... I mean Jonathan St....Oh, you don't.

Michigan/Penn State: Toss up! I don't have a clue. I wouldn't be shocked at either choice, but I would be surprised. Michigan has a spread offense with a coach he had strong ties with, and it's 1600 miles closer than Oregon. Penn State is the home state school that your dad likes, and supposedly didn't sign on National Signing Day to check out the school. He hasn't (officially). Both schools have lackluster basketball teams. Toss up!

Ohio State: Has, has, has to be the favorite. It's the only school that's received a Terrelle Pryor visit complete with a Jim Tressel led parade, featuring Pryor and the other Buckeye recruits. Hell, with Value City closing its stores, Pryor was 5 seconds away from having the building named after him. If he doesn't select the Buckeyes, I would laugh and laugh and laugh because I would have been fooled.

But then again, there's always Memphis.

Head Shots from 2/14/2008

Joe Tiller Doesn't Like Himself Any Rich Rodriguez : Not unless Joe Tiller likes guys in wizard hats selling snake oil. By wizard hats he meant leather jackets, and by snake oil he meant playing time at running back.

"If we had an early signing date, you wouldn't have another outfit with a guy in a wizard hat selling snake oil get a guy at the last minute, but that's what happened."

Joe Tiller's crazy old man comments concern a WR, Roy Roundtree, who had been a Purdue verbal before pulling the hip thing to do this year and signing his letter of intent with Michigan. Roundtree joins two other recruits who had verballed to Florida and Penn State, respectively.

We know nothing about Rodriguez and his sales techniques. Let's just say that no other coach has drawn comparisons to wizards nor snake oil salesmen. We do know he's going to have to put out a PO to Nike for all new uniforms with 6'2" 180lbs Darryl Stonum being the "big guy" at WR. Roy Roundtree checks in at 6'0" 154lbs, Martavious Odoms at 5'8" 164lbs, and a couple ATHs under 6'0" 190lbs.

Penn State ('s Blogs) Really Wants Terrelle Pryor : As you know the superest recruit of all time, Terrelle Pryor, has 4 options on where to play his college ball (Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, and Oregon) and will most likely pick one of these 4, unless North Carolina makes a late surge (ha!). Ohio State was supposedly the leader, and that makes other schools on his list jealous. The folks at the Black Shoe Diaries think that ESPN said it best in November 2004 concerning a Cooper recruit:

The conventional wisdom for the past several months was that Pryor was Ohio State's to lose. If that is indeed the case, then I would suggest he read this.

That embedded link will take you to the story about Sammy "The Bull" Maldonado, who took remedial math and reading at Ohio State and wondered why he couldn't get it to transfer. Summary of the story is: "I was a prized recruit", "I carried 22 times for 50 yards in 2000", and "I was third on the depth chart behind Jonathan Wells and Lydell Ross" (Even I can't explain him being behind Ross).

His other statement that "I think Tressel wanted the guys he recruited" really sums up the 2002 National Championship season. What it boils down to is Maldonado expecting to get by on football the rest of his life and his remedial math and reading was fine, but when football didn't pan out at Ohio State he realized his classes weren't that hard.

Antonio Smith, cornerback of the 2006 Buckeye defense, would like to argue with actions and not words. After his final season, he won the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. 2008 recruit Keith Wells from Georgia says:

“They’ve got a top 20 engineering program, their football team is thriving, definitely excelling the last few years, and I definitely feel I have an opportunity to get in there and play early.”

Oh Keith, so you're going to major in Engineering? Good for you. You mean you can pick which classes you want to take? That doesn't sound anything like that ESPN article. But it does sound a lot like my time at Ohio State, and mechanical engineering was a load of work in itself. I'm sure we all remember Craig Krenzel and every announcers' obsession with saying "molecular genetics". College, for football players and laypeople, is what you make it.

SEC Sports Calls Jim Tressel a Dirty Recruiter : Did I say SEC Sports? I really meant CBS Sports, but what's the different? Gregg Doyel goes reaching with a special gem discussing Rich Rodriguez, Bobby Petrino, Urban Meyer...and you guessed it...Jim Tressel. Any story with the demand "Connect the dots" is obviously reaching but Doyel and his editors have no shame, dedicating a full page to "An Evening with Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel".

Ohio State's Jim Tressel blatantly skated up to the edge of ethical badness last week, acting with such audacity that even the newspaper that broke the news had no idea it was breaking anything at all. And still won't unless it reads this here story.

What I like about Internet articles is that they have no facts and would never be touched by print or television media. The newspaper didn't even know it was breaking news? Hmm, maybe it really isn't then. Facts are that Posey was the #3 recruit to verbal to Jim Tressel back on 3/13/07 (almost 1 year prior to the fundraiser) and that Ohio State has never secured a recruit for the football factory of Walsh University, which will be holding it's own "An Evening with Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel".

Some people are born Buckeyes, and I would be interested to hear was Devier and his mom think of this story.