COLUMBUS, Ohio — From the moment ElevenWarriors.com first reported Ohio State 2015 signee Jamel Dean would be leaving the program after not being medically cleared by the Buckeyes’ medical staff, one number has seemed to be at center of the situation: 85.
That’s the number of scholarship players Ohio State must possess by the time fall camp opens at the beginning of August. It appeared the Buckeyes would be sitting at 88 without any additional attrition before the news of Dean’s departure, causing cries that Urban Meyer had “oversigned” his roster and was now using roster management to get down to the required limit.
And while it’s easy to see how one could arrive at that conclusion, that doesn’t necessarily make it an accurate one.
Ohio State staff members are not permitted to publicly comment on situations involving a player’s health such as Dean’s, but a source close to the program insisted to Bleacher Report that this is not a case of Meyer managing his roster. The source said this is an issue the Buckeyes had been dealing with since Dean arrived on campus as an early enrollee in January, which is just now hitting a crescendo as news of his departure has been made public.
Although he has criticized the handling of his former player publicly to multiple media outlets in the past day, John Wilkinson, Dean’s high school coach at Cocoa (Fla.) High School, confirmed as much.
“It was a big thing that went on and on and on. I’ve known…
Continue Reading: Hold Your Judgement on Ohio State’s Handling of Jamel Dean Departure
