Ryan Day’s Message To Recruits Attending Saturday's Game Against Penn State: “You Come To Ohio State For Games Like This”
Ohio State is set to welcome more than three dozen elite recruits to campus for Saturday’s game against Penn State, including numerous commitments and a handful of top targets from the current cycle.
And while the atmosphere, alternate uniforms and result of the game won’t make or break any one prospect’s recruitment, it will all go a long way toward determining how the Buckeyes wrap up their class – and get a jump on future classes, as well.
“We have a ton of recruits coming into town and it’s a big deal,” head coach Ryan Day said during his radio show on 97.1 The Fan on Thursday afternoon. “They’re able to see the best environment there is in college football on Saturday night.
“That’s important for families to see because that’s part of the process. They understand how important football is here and how Buckeye Nation supports us. I tell the guys all the time, you come to Ohio State for games like this.”
This weekend is unique in that most of the players will be on unofficial visits, as Ohio State actually hosted 44 of their allotted 62 official visitors in June, which signaled the end of the nearly 15-month long recruiting dead period.
“What that really allowed us to do was to gather information that we would typically get when we’re in the schools,” Day said. “We hadn’t met most of these people in person, so it was great to get them here. We were very aggressive early on to learn about what the right fit is because now more than ever in recruiting, it’s about the right fit for a lot of reasons.
"That was a great opportunity to learn a lot about these guys, so getting them back now is great because you’re building that process. That’s something that would have happened naturally if it wasn’t for the pandemic. We would have had guys on campus more and more and built those relationships, which I think we’re doing now. I feel much more comfortable about the class than I did six months ago.”
Those uncommitted prospects who will return to campus in an unofficial capacity after previously taking an official visit include Humble (Texas) Atascocita four-star offensive tackle Kam Dewberry; Hammond (Wisc.) Saint Croix Central four-star offensive guard Carson Hinzman; Duncanville, Texas, four-star defensive end Omari Abor; Greenwood (Ind.) Center Grove four-star defensive tackle Caden Curry; Altoona (Iowa) Southeast Polk four-star safety Xavier Nwankpa; and Las Vegas Bishop Gorman four-star safety Zion Branch.
The Buckeyes actually made it a point to have Nwankpa and Branch come to Columbus for their official visits on June 4-6 alongside many of the pledge, showing them both how important they are to the staff and how they fit into the defense alongside one another and four-star commit Kye Stokes.
“It was very important,” Day said of that weekend. “The guys who decided they wanted to be Buckeyes early on, we wanted to prioritize them and have them on campus that first weekend and then get them around some of the other ones who weren’t committed and get that feedback.”
Fast forward a few months and Ohio State is now looking to put the finishing touches on its 2022 recruiting class, which currently features 16 commitments but has needs along the offensive and defensive line, as well as the aforementioned safety position.
Long-awaited official visits from Bellflower (Calif.) St. John Bosco four-star offensive guard Earnest Greene; Opa Locka (Fla.) Monsignor Pace five-star defensive end Shemar Stewart; Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) American Heritage four-star defensive end Marvin Jones Jr.; and Rancho Santa Margarita (Calif.) Catholic four-star defensive lineman Hero Kanu could change that, however.
“Again, we’re really in search of the fit,” Day said. “We’re really competitive about who we bring in and rankings and all those types of things. But at the end of the day, it’s about the right fit. We want to have the right guys who want to be here.
“It’s not about just coming and if they don’t get on the field, they want to go transfer out or enter the portal. We want guys who want to be Buckeyes and understand what it means to be a Buckeye because the sustaining of that throughout the development process is how you sustain a program, and that’s something we’re very focused on.”
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