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Glenville pipeline still flowing to OSU

feed — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:04:10 +0000

Under Jim Tressel, it was hard not to trip over a Tarblooder. Ohio State’s lineup was loaded with Glenville products under the former Buckeyes coach as he tried to keep a budding pipeline strong. During his stay, Tressel managed to get 16 Tarblooders to sign national letters of intent. He had his hits with players such Troy Smith, Ted Ginn Jr. and Donte Whitner. He had his misses with Jonathan Newsome, Shawntell Rowell and Freddie Lenix. But the one thing that remained strong was the connection Tressel and the Buckeyes had with the Tarblooders program.

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Ohio State 2014 Spotlight: S Smith

feed — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:04:08 +0000

Throughout the next few months, BuckeyeNation will look further into those juniors offered by Ohio State. We’ll give as much detail as we can and go behind the scenes to see why these Class of 2014 standouts are so attractive to the Buckeyes. Next on the list of safeties is Erick Smith, who comes from a school that has sent 19 athletes on to Ohio State — with a 20th waiting in the wings — since 2002. Vitals: Smith (Cleveland/Glenville) is 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds.

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Ohio State Football Recruiting: Multiple OSU Targets in Updated Rivals100

Bleacher Report — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:25:11 +0000

College football fans, and by extension fans of recruiting, eagerly await moments like this to break up the long and grueling offseason.
Rivals.com released its updated “Rivals100″ Monday afternoon, a compilation of the top football recruits in the country, and four high school prospects earned their fifth stars in the latest ranking.
Three of those four new 5-star recruits are being heavily recruited by the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Linebacker Raekwon McMillan, offensive tackle Damian Prince and running back Joe Mixon joined the group that now includes 18 recruits who are rated 5-star prospects by Rivals.
McMillan, who has nearly 30 offers from the likes of Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Georgia, Miami, Notre Dame, Oregon, Texas and many others, lists Ohio State as his leader at the moment. The 6’2″, 240-pound linebacker out of Hinesville, Ga. piled up an incredible 152 tackles during his junior season, 22 of which were made behind the line of scrimmage.
Ohio State’s…

Continue reading at Bleacher Report – Big Ten Football

Klein, Cheek on McGuff’s Ohio State women’s staff (The Associated Press)

feed — Tue, 21 May 2013 04:41:17 +0000

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — New Ohio State women’s basketball head coach Kevin McGuff has announced the hiring of Patrick Klein and Joy Cheek as assistant coaches. Klein begins his third year as an assistant after working under the fired Jim Foster. He also served as an assistant at Illinois 2007-09. Cheek comes to Ohio State after spending the past two seasons as an assistant coach at her alma mater, Duke. She was one of two recruiting coordinators for the Blue Devils, in addition to also overseeing the perimeter players. The hiring of Klein and Cheek leaves one more assistant position open on McGuff’s staff.

Continue Reading: Klein, Cheek on McGuff’s Ohio State women’s staff (The Associated Press)

Ohio State Football: Comparing Braxton Miller to Troy Smith

Bleacher Report — Tue, 21 May 2013 01:52:44 +0000

Ohio State’s football program, which isn’t known as a great quarterback producer, has had a string of solid quarterbacks recently. Since Craig Krenzel led the Buckeyes to the 2003 National Championship, quarterback play in Columbus has been at worst exciting and at best electrifying.
OK, the handful of starts from Justin Zwick and the three starts for Joe Bauserman provided more moments Ohio State fans want to forget than remember. But even the year and a half of Todd Boeckman brought a Big Ten Championship and a trip to the BCS National Championship Game.
Terrelle Pryor had a heck of a run for three seasons in this stretch as well. But in the coming years when “Ohio State” and “quarterback” are mentioned in the same sentence two names will come to mind: Troy Smith and Braxton Miller.

Different Paths to Stardom
Miller was a household name, at least in the state of Ohio, before he ever signed to play at Ohio State. Smith wasn’t a low-rated recruit by any stretch of…

Continue reading at Bleacher Report – Big Ten Football

OSU offers fifth player with NFL lineage

feed — Tue, 21 May 2013 01:34:46 +0000

One thing is becoming abundantly clear in the Urban Meyer era. The two-time national champion coach likes players with NFL bloodlines. In the Class of 2014, Ohio State has offered Christian McCaffrey the son of three-time Super Bowl winner Ed McCaffrey. Jonathan Haden, the brother of NFL superstar Joe Haden, and Austin Roberts, the son of Super Bowl champion Alfredo Roberts. Tennessee offensive line commit Orlando Brown Jr., the son of late Cleveland Browns offensive tackle Orlando Brown, was also offered by the Buckeyes.

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Man who claimed for years to be Ohio State All-American tight end appears to be a fraud

feed — Mon, 20 May 2013 20:44:26 +0000

(CharlotteBuckeyes.com)Giovanni Strassini had a pretty good deal going. He’d show up as a guest at functions for a Charlotte-based Ohio State fan group, he’d pose for pictures and sign autographs, and he’d talk about his exploits as an All-American tight end for the Buckeyes in the mid-1970s on Facebook.

The only problem? Well, Ohio State has never heard of Giovanni Strassini.

Of course, that’s where the story gets weird.

Strassini (or whoever he is) saw his story start to unravel on a message board thread at BuckeyePlanet.com. The posters on that site easily figured out there was no Strassini who wore No. 89 for the Buckeyes. He wasn’t the third basemen for the baseball team in that era either, as he had also claimed. He definitely didn’t score an 8-yard touchdown in the 1976 Rose Bowl, one of the more easily verifiable facts to look up. The Buckeyes’ only touchdown that day was a 3-yard touchdown run by Pete Johnson.

The Rose Bowl ring Strassini posted on Facebook didn’t look exactly like the actual Rose Bowl ring from the season he claimed it was from. And he wasn’t drafted by the Cleveland Browns either, blowing up another one of his stories.

Yet somehow, Strassini pulled this scam off for at least a couple years before anyone noticed.

His Facebook account under the name “Giova Stroh” has been deleted but here’s a screen shot from the cached page:

Continue Reading: Man who claimed for years to be Ohio State All-American tight end appears to be a fraud (Dr. Saturday)

ESPN 150 OT has top eight in mind

feed — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:44:50 +0000

It was a Thursday night in late April and Alex Bookser (Pittsburgh/Mount Lebanon) was watching the NFL draft. A 6-foot-6, 295-pound prospect, Bookser is being recruited as a lineman on both sides of the ball. Bookser was an offensive lineman by the end of the night Thursday. “Ever since I saw the draft I decided to go O-line,” said Bookser, referring to the run on tackles in the first round, including three among the first five picks.

To continue reading this article you must be an Insider: ESPN 150 OT has top eight in mind

Offer has Jackson thinking about visit

feed — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:25:30 +0000

According to Vincent Jackson (Tampa, Fla./Jesuit), the offer apparently came a while ago. He just never confirmed it. And now Ohio State’s offer is out in the open, the 2014 outside linebacker isn’t taking it lightly even though he has offers from no fewer than 33 schools. Monday’s confirmation of the offer — he was also offered by Ole Miss — came without hesitation and it sat well with the 6-foot-3, 245-pound Jackson. While he said he doesn’t have a top group, Alabama, Auburn, Texas A&M and Oregon have stood out.

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2014 Recruits Michigan and Ohio State Will Go Head-to-Head For

Bleacher Report — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:50:21 +0000

It’s almost a forgone conclusion that Ohio State and Michigan will boast two of the best recruiting classes in the 2014 cycle, but arguing about which program will come away with the better class is really the topic that both fanbases want to discuss.
The two major Big Ten programs usually compete for many of the same recruits, and the program that has the better overall class in regard to quality and/or ranking normally comes down to which program wins these head-to-head recruiting battles.
Everything in this rivalry is a competition, and that includes recruiting.
With that in mind, here are three recruits who Michigan and Ohio State will be fighting for this recruiting cycle:

Chase Winovich, 3-star OLB, Thomas Jefferson High School (Pa.)

Pittsburgh could end up becoming a player in this race, but for all intents and purposes Winovich seems to be debating between Michigan and Ohio State. He has offers from both programs, and he’s made visits to both…

Continue reading at Bleacher Report – Big Ten Football