I remember absolutely losing my mind when Garrett Wilson committed to Ohio State five years ago as the highest-rated wide receiver prospect ever to commit to the Buckeyes.
Now, Ohio State casually lands a consensus five-star wide receiver prospect and it just feels like your standard Tuesday afternoon.
And I barely blinked because this has happened multiple times a year for like half a decade!
Since 2019, Ohio State has landed 16(!) different top-100 prospects at wide receiver and seven different top-50 players. They’ve landed a five-star receiver five times in five classes, secured the top receiver in the class four times, and brought in nine different players ranked among the top-five receivers in their respective classes.
It’s straight-up bonkers.
And the most hilarious part is, somehow this might be Ohio State’s best wide receiver class yet, and people probably aren’t going to realize it because they’re just so numb to Brian Hartline hoarding top-100 receivers like a fucking goblin.
Jeremiah Smith is the best overall wide receiver prospect we’ve seen in the past 15 years and Mylan Graham can change direction better than any human being I’ve seen outside of a video game.
And they’re probably not done yet! They’re still going after dudes like Tyseer Denmark (who’s an Oregon commit, but that’s not my problem), Terrance Moore, Joshisa Trader, and potentially even Micah Hudson.
Live look at Brian Hartlin right now:
- ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS!
So the good news is, Brian Hartline is going full Super Saiyan this recruiting class. The bad news is, during an appearance on the Barstool Sports “Bussin’ With the Boys” podcast, he straight up admitted that he won’t be here forever.
From Chase Brown, who famously replaced me at Eleven Warriors:
“In my soul, I’m an NFL guy,” Hartline said. “I love the NFL. I think it is the All-Star League of college football. I don’t care where you’re from – what school, small or big – it’s full of the best players in the world. There are no better players. I love that. I love that the degree of separation is so small.”
…
“I love my alma mater at Ohio State,” Hartline said. “My heart’s in the NFL. I think one day I’d want to coach there, and that’s the reality of it. When? I don’t know. My in-laws are here, and my wife’s from Columbus. There’s a big foundation that’s been built here. I love coaching the receivers. When I started, I was like, ‘I’ll be the receivers coach for the next 15 to 20 years. Leave me alone. I’m good.’ But then that grows.
“I love building the receivers room. I love it. That was an awesome opportunity, choosing and developing it. I’d love to do that on a team. I’d love to be a head coach and try to do that on a team, not just in one position. I’m kind of doing that now but just offensively, but I like dealing with people and building a team, whether that’s a staff or with individual players. Where does that end up? I couldn’t tell you.”
Hartline also said he would be open to a head coaching position at another program, with the caveat that the team has a legitimate chance of winning a national title, something he always wanted to accomplish as a player and is still looking to achieve as a coach.
“I want to be able to win a national championship,” Hartline said. “It would have to be a top program that paints that vision, that it can get done there. It’s that or the NFL. For me, all the marbles have to be on the table. It has to be the pinnacle, or I may not have as much interest. If the pinnacle is not an option – a Super Bowl or a national championship – that’s hard for me. I want all the marbles on the table.”
This seems like an obvious thing to say and admit – I mean, who wouldn’t want to coach in the NFL or be the head coach of a national title contender? – but it’s also a stark departure from the way he’s talked about Ohio State for the past five years.
As recently as two years ago, he was saying he “can’t imagine” leaving Ohio State. Four months ago, he said, “my heart is at Ohio State.”
Obviously, he just got the offensive coordinator job so he’ll probably be keen to do that for at least a little bit. But at some point, the only way Ohio State is going to be able to keep him in Columbus is if they give him the keys to the entire team.
- A SONNY DAY
At the most basic level, football coaches have a relatively simple job: put the best players on the field and make it extremely easy for them to be the best players on the field.
And today, I am happy because it sounds like that’s exactly the plan for Sonny Styles entering the 2023 season.
From Dan Hope of Eleven Warriors:
Eliano thinks a more specified and situational role could be the best path forward for Styles in 2023 as the Buckeyes look to maximize his strengths.
“We’ve streamlined it for Sonny. So you’ll see Sonny more in a streamlined position to where he can excel and utilize his God-given ability,” Eliano said. “Really and truthfully, we want him to be great at specific things instead of okay at a lot of things. So that’s the conversation, what I mean by streamlining. So you won’t see him in a lot of places. You’ll see him pretty stationary in one to two spots.”
When asked specifically what that role could look like, Eliano said “it still remains to be seen,” and “we’re kind of dabbling in some things.” When asked if it could look similar to Styles’ role against Georgia, though, Eliano responded affirmatively.
“To a certain degree, absolutely,” Eliano replied.
In the Peach Bowl, that meant Styles effectively serving as a third linebacker, which worked out well against a tight-end-heavy team like Georgia – you get the extra size on the field without sacrificing speed and ball skills because Sonny Styles is a mutant created in a lab.
Personally, I would much prefer if this future NFL All-Pro that was holding his own against a team stacked with NFL players when he should have still been in high school were simply a regular starter in the base defense playing as many snaps as possible – especially when I have serious reservations about at like 2/3rds of the current “starters” at safety.
But I guess I’ll take what I can get at this point.
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