Take Two: Should Buckeyes fans be worried about RB recruiting?
Take Two returns with a daily offering tackling an issue in the college football landscape. Rivals.com national recruiting analyst Adam Gorney lays out the situation and then receives takes from Rivals.com national recruiting director Mike Farrell and an expert from the Rivals.com network of team sites or a regional analyst.
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CLASS OF 2020 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | Position | Team | State
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THE STORYLINE
Over the last few weeks it looked like a near certainty that Ohio State was going to land commitments from four-star running backs Bijan Robinson and Jaylan Knighton and the Buckeyes’ entire recruiting class would almost be wrapped up.
But then Robinson committed to Texas and Knighton picked Florida State. Earlier, the Buckeyes lost Kendall Milton to Georgia, and it appears Penn State leads for four-star RB Jalen Berger.
In short, Ohio State struck out on many of its top running back targets. There is still a lot of time left in this recruiting cycle and Ohio State is still a dream destination for many elite players with a bunch of talented running backs left on the board.
The Buckeyes under first-year coach Ryan Day have compiled the fourth-best class nationally, had a huge haul in recent months and the class is led by five-star commitments OL Paris Johnson Jr. and WR Julian Fleming.
But this is also cutthroat recruiting at that level and the question should be asked whether there is any sort of concern about the new staff’s ability to close, especially in light of former coach Urban Meyer’s unreal ability in hardly ever letting a top target get away.
Should there be reason for any concern or is the running back situation a one-off fluke for this Ohio State coaching staff?
FIRST TAKE: MARC GIVLER, BUCKEYEGROVE.COM
“The plan is to take two running backs, one an all-purpose back and one more of a traditional running back, but it’s pretty much a total reset at this point. There are going to be a dozen names that get linked to Ohio State in the next month or two. It’s almost starting over in terms of how broad they’re going to look now and it’s not so focused on three or four different guys. It’s going to be a much wider net.
“It’s hard to say if this would have happened under Meyer. One of his strengths was how meticulous and thorough he was with recruiting and how he obsessed over every detail, but if you look at what they’ve done in recruiting over the last seven or eight weeks, they were right in the middle of one of the best recruiting stretches they ever had going back to Meyer and Jim Tressel.
"This is a blip on the radar and they’re just about full in the class so it’s just an odd timing thing here where they thought they had two guys and moved on from other guys and focused on these two and came up empty. I don’t think there is anything here long term that would continue to trouble them. It was just a weird week.”
SECOND TAKE: MIKE FARRELL, RIVALS.COM
“It’s a tough question to ask and answer. They weren’t going to get Milton, so you don’t worry about that one, but Robinson was definitely leaning toward Ohio State when we saw him at the Rivals100 Five-Star Challenge presented by adidas. Knighton was the other running back that they wanted and they really counted on those two being a part of the class.
“It’s not a chink in the armor and Day is recruiting really well. Would this have ever happened under Meyer? We will never know but I’m still convinced they’re going to still get their pure running back and their all-purpose back and they’re going to be four-star guys and, who knows, they might be better than those two guys.”
