NFL combine success, attention provides Buckeyes recruiting testimony

Chase Young isn’t the average NFL Draft prospect. He wasn’t an average college recruit when he picked Ohio State four years ago, either.

But 5-star prospects need developing just as much as 3-star, under-the-radar prospects do, even if they’re starting from a slightly better spot when it comes to certain things like speed, size and strength.

Young was special from the start, but he picked Urban Meyer’s program in the summer of 2016 because he wanted to be developed differently, completely.

“They groom you as a man and not just a player,” Young said at the NFL Combine. “It starts with [strength] Coach Mick [Marotti] and getting a relationship with him. It starts with your position coach. And I feel like [defensive line coach Larry Johnson], he goes out of his way to not just teach us how to be the best player, but the best man off the field.”

NFL teams love good guys off the football field, sure. They like well-prepared young men who are ready to contribute to a football team and to a professional sports franchise. And at Ohio State in recent years, there’s been a congruence of purpose to that end.

The Buckeyes have talked a big game when it comes to creating NFL ready players for decades. But it’s never been more true than it is now. It’s Urban Meyer’s famed Theory versus Testimony recruiting pitch coming to fruition on the big stage in Indianapolis as hundreds of NFL team personnel watch in realtime.

It’s worked out pretty well, too. Ohio State products have won three of the last four Defensive Rookie of the Year Awards and offensive guys like Michael Thomas and Terry McLaurin have taken the league by storm thanks to their maturity and preparedness. It’s a result of what the Buckeyes preach day in and day out while these kids are in college.

“We’re just different, man,” Buckeyes receiver Austin Mack said. “We’re built different, and our culture man, that says it all. Coach Mick and our strength staff, man, they’re incredible. They instill in us a culture that we live up to and we play like that every Saturday.”

Ohio State had a plan for Chase Young and delivered on its promise. (Birm/Lettermen Row)

Recruits, as much as NFL executives and coaches, notice too. That’s one of the primary reasons that Ohio State remains one of the country’s powerhouse programs even after Meyer’s departure — and why Ryan Day has had no problem maintaining the Buckeyes place as a premiere destination for elite recruits across the country. Last March, as McLaurin, Parris Campbell and Johnnie Dixon were making noise at the Combine because of their on-field work, then-Ohio State target and now Buckeyes commitment Marvin Harrison Jr. told Lettermen Row that their performances were eye-opening for him.

“It made a huge impact — I actually called Coach Hartline and we talked about the Combine, and it really is a huge impact [on a recruit],” Harrison told Lettermen Row. “I think they had the most receivers there, and three of them are running 4.4 40-yard dashes or lower.

“What really impressed me the most was you could tell that the Ohio State receivers looked ready for the NFL. Their routes were sharp, all of them were some of the best route-runners there. They all caught the ball good in the drills. Just seeing the success all of them had there and seeing how prepared they are for the next level really made a big impact on me.”

Harrison isn’t alone in that opinion, and though the Buckeyes receivers are getting a lot of attention because of Brian Hartline’s tutelage, Ohio State’s output has been across the board. Young offensive linemen like Pat Elflein, Billy Price, Michael Jordan, Corey Linsley are going to get a lot of publicity, later-round picks like Jamarco Jones and undrafted free agents like Demetrius Knox made NFL teams as rookies. Jones played 11 games for the Seahawks — starting three — while Knox missed the year with an injury suffered in the preseason.

Again, some schools out there are talking about development, Ohio State is doing it.

Parris Campbell, Curtis Samuel, Terry McLaurin and Johnnie Dixon blew up the NFL Combine in the last few years. (Birm/Lettermen Row)

“It just shows that what they say they’re going to do with recruits” Kentucky 2021 lineman Jager Burton told Lettermen Row. “They are really going to do it … that’s hard to find.”

And it’s not slowing down, becoming something of a self-fulfilling prophecy with the nation’s best players.

“I can 100 percent say that Ohio State had us prepped for the NFL,” Knox told Lettermen Row this week. “From little things like being on time or running not just to, but through, the finish line and then some.

“The effort that you have to give and the studying that you have to do. It’s everything we already did at Ohio State. It really taught me how to be a professional and how to carry myself on and off the field. Even when we have down time, you have to know when to have fun and when it’s grind time. I’ve seen people in the league that didn’t learn those things, and it set them back a bit because of it. Without the qualities I learned while at Ohio State, it would have definitely been harder.”

Theory suggests that every college program allows for NFL exposure. The best of the best NFL prospects will get seen no matter where they play college football, but being seen by the NFL is different than being prepared for the NFL. The next wave of Buckeyes heading to the league will likely be highlighted by the first three picks in April’s NFL Draft — and yes, Ohio State should partially claim Joe Burrow — giving Ryan Day’s some invaluable exposure and publicity.

That’s the kind of recruiting testimony that Day’s program needs in order to keep Ohio State well ahead of the pack inside of the Big Ten and competing for national championships.