OHIO STATE FOOTBALL Tressel
Spring brings new looks, veteran poise to Buckeyes
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Doug Lesmerises, Plain Dealer Reporter

Columbus -- Ohio State's spring football practice, which begins today with 47 players on the field by Jim Tressel's count in their fourth or fifth years in the program, should look and feel different. The Buckeyes should expect:

Less scrimmaging, which could mean the April 19 spring game for the public might not ex actly be a game.

"I think his torically we've stuck to the game setting," Tressel said. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

More hardcore weight room time, as the Buckeyes look to make up for days lost by their late bowl game and required NCAA off days.

More teaching in meetings by the older players, so they don't get bored.

"This is almost like a job to them, as much time as they spend, and if you do the same old some old, you run the risk of losing your edge," Tressel said. "So I think the different way we approach spring will be invigorating and exciting."

However, not everyone will be involved. Tressel said players sidelined for the spring by off-season surgeries include starting offensive linemen Steve Rehring and Ben Person, defensive end Robert Rose and incoming freshmen offensive lineman Michael Brewster. And running back Chris "Beanie" Wells will sit out some contact drills as he heals from surgery on his left hand.

Also, there should be opportunities on the offensive line for players competing to replace departed right tackle Kirk Barton. They include rising sophomore Bryant Browning, Jon Skinner and Kyle Mitchum, both returning from injuries, and already enrolled freshman-to-be Mike Adams, who would be the most highly rated recruit in his class if not for a guy named Terrelle Pryor.

"I'm sure if I'm Mike Adams I'm thinking, I'm taking that spot over,' " Tressel said.

Among the other battles are the No. 2 quarterback spot, where Antonio Henton should be pushed by Joe Bauserman, who opened eyes during bowl practice. After losing three fullbacks to graduation, that spot is wide open, with former linebacker Ryan Lukens and former tight end Brandon Smith among the possibilities. Also available for potential spot duty at fullback are linebackers Austin Spitler, the primary backup for James Laurinaitis at middle linebacker, and incoming freshmen Andrew Sweat.

One Buckeye who won't be around is speed coach Butch Reynolds. Tressel said he resigned Tuesday to pursue outside training opportunities and give more attention to his foundation in Akron. Tressel said a committee will search for a new addition to the strength training staff, which may or may not be a speed coach.

Damn, I miss the Spring game every freaking year because of my baseball coaching. This years game (April 19th) falls during my teams first tournament of the year.

I am usually on bucknuts but that is usually pretty one sided in discussions. I hope some irish or wolverine fans come here for some lively topics.

The Buckeyes signed that quarterback, Terrelle Pryor, right?

Will he start right away, or will it be whatsisname from last year?

quote:

The Buckeyes signed that quarterback, Terrelle Pryor, right?

Will he start right away, or will it be whatsisname from last year?

Todd Boeckman. He'll be the starter this year. Word is that Tressel is going to mix a bit of the spread offense along with the power running game. It's up to Boeckman to simply be adequate as a passer for him to hang onto the starting spot.

The Buckeyes are overwhelming favorites to again win the Big Ten this year. If things work according to plan, that should both allow for Pryor to see a good deal of snaps and for Boeckman to play nearly every down with the first team.

Beanpot

Here's a recent story about Pryor:

The Future

Nas once rhymed that all he needed was one mic, but Jeannette (Jeannette, Pa.) star Terrelle Pryor needed way more than that for what he was about to do.

On March 19, 2008, during a news conference to announce his college decision, Pryor sat at a table equipped with more microphones than a Wu-Tang concert. Waiting to hear from the senior quarterback/small forward/Mr. Everything was an eager national audience that had been obsessing for nearly two years about what college the athletic prodigy would choose.

A huge smile covered Pryor’s face as he put on a baseball cap and unzipped his jacket to unveil a T-shirt declaring his carefully thought-out decision. Six weeks after delaying his college announcement during a press conference on National Signing Day, Pryor revealed to a cheering audience that he was choosing Ohio State over Michigan, Penn State and Oregon.

He wasn’t ready back then. This time, surrounded by his family and coaches, Pryor seemed more at ease, more sure of a decision that took years to make. He may be the future of football, but it’s his future — so it was important he was confident in his choice.

“It’s relieving,” Pryor said after making his announcement. “It’s over. I had no clue what recruiting was about. It hits you at all different angles. It’s just stepping up and thinking like a man. I had to grow up fast because I dealt with a lot.”

What Pryor dealt with was arguably the most hyped and scrutinized recruitment ever of a prep athlete. So while Pryor will do his best to act like a normal high schooler before heading off to college in the fall, there was nothing ordinary about his senior year.

As the nation’s No. 1-ranked football recruit in the Class of 2008 by RISE, Pryor expected to have a bull’s-eye on his back from the moment he stepped on the field last fall. At 6-foot-6, 220 pounds, Pryor is the most physically advanced quarterback to come out of high school in years. He’s constantly compared to Vince Young, and anything less than a prosperous future in the NFL would be a letdown to many of the scouts who’ve followed his career.

The only question regarding Pryor’s senior season on the gridiron was whether he could live up to the hype bestowed upon him after leading Jeannette to the Western Pennsylvania Class AA title and the Class AA state finals as a junior. He silenced any doubts in a season-opening victory over Brownsville (Brownsville, Pa.) by sprinting 53 yards for a touchdown on the very first play from scrimmage.

Pryor and his teammates continued to dominate opponents throughout the season, even in games the Jayhawks were supposed to be tested. Take, for instance, Jeannette’s much-anticipated matchup with East Allegheny (North Versailles, Pa.) on Senior Night in October. East Allegheny came into the game 6-1 but left on the wrong side of a 77-6 score.

Hours before the East Allegheny matchup, Pryor showed his lighter side at a pep rally. Dressed in cheerleader outfits, Pryor and the rest of the seniors burst into the center of the Jeannette gym as students and faculty erupted in laughter. Even while joking around, Pryor couldn’t help but showcase his superhuman athleticism when, without much of a running start, he jumped over one of Jeannette’s female cheerleaders.

Later that evening, fans lined up a good hour and a half before kickoff to enter Jeannette’s McKee Stadium and watch the nation’s most electrifying player in action. Jeannette is a blue-collar town that bleeds the red and blue of the Jayhawks. Myriad Jayhawk flags adorn the streets around the stadium, while the stands are often filled to the brim. Yet Jeannette had never before seen a player quite like Pryor, who gave the fans their money’s worth on Senior Night with a 56-yard blur of a touchdown run off the left side in the first quarter.

“There aren’t a lot of people that you go to see who do something that makes you go, ‘What?’And he does that,” says Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Mike White, who’s covered high school sports for the paper since 1979. “You think he does it all, and then he does something else that raises the bar even higher.”

Jeannette went on to finish the football season 16-0, win its second consecutive WPIAL Class AA crown and, more importantly, capture its first state title with a 49-21 victory over Dunmore (Dunmore, Pa.) in the Class AA finals. Pryor led the way in the championship game by running for 209 yards and three scores, passing for a touchdown and even catching a 28-yard TD.

After the season, the accolades started pouring in. He earned PARADE National Player of the Year and USA Today Offensive Player of the Year honors after finishing with 3,788 yards of total offense and 58 touchdowns, including a 100-yard interception return (oh yeah, he also played safety on defense).

For his career, Pryor became the first player in state history to both rush and pass for more than 4,000 yards. He ran for 4,238 yards on 435 carries, completed 232-of-399 passes for 4,340 yards and accounted for 125 total touchdowns to enter the discussion of the best athletes in the history of the storied WPIAL, joining the likes of Tony Dorsett and Dan Marino.

“I would say he’s the best athlete to come out of the WPIAL in my lifetime,” says Jeannette third-year football coach Ray Reitz.

That athleticism clearly carries over to the hardwood as well. In Pryor’s first basketball game of the season — with barely any practice under his belt because of football — he tallied 24 points, 11 boards, five assists, five steals and four blocks in an 81-50 win over Freeport (Freeport, Pa.).

Basketball used to be Pryor’s main focus. Before his sophomore year, he even considered transferring to hoop powerhouses Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.) or Arlington Country Day (Jacksonville, Fla.) before the Jeannette football coaches convinced him to reconsider.

“My coaches knew from my years before that I was good in football,” says Pryor. “They just said, ‘You’ve got to give it a try because you could be a good football player.’ They talked me into it, and I ended up believing it. I just thought so highly of myself in basketball.”

Pryor, who would easily be a Top 50 national hoop recruit if football wasn’t his No. 1 priority, actually committed to the Pitt basketball program in January of his sophomore year before de-committing three months later to reconsider his options.

As a senior, Pryor guided the Jayhawks to their first state basketball title with a 76-72 overtime win over Strawberry Mansion (Philadelphia, Pa.) in the Class AA state finals. The highlight of Pryor’s hoop season came when he tallied 39 points, 24 rebounds, 11 blocks and six assists in an 82-68 victory over Beaver Falls (Beaver Falls, Pa.) in the WPIAL AA championship.

“It was the best performance I’ve seen from a high school athlete,” says Jeannette basketball coach Jim Nesser.

Pryor finished his high school hoop career eighth on the WPIAL all-time scoring list with 2,285 points, but he has decided not to pursue basketball for at least his first two years at Ohio State.

“Right now, it’s just football,” says Pryor, who also ran track this spring. “I just want to be the best quarterback I can be, and I want to be focused on doing that.”

Former two-sport star Charlie Ward, who won the Heisman Trophy and starred in basketball at Florida State in the early 1990s, thinks it’s a wise decision by Pryor to concentrate on one sport at the next level.

“It’s good because now he knows what he wants to do as opposed to having people telling him what sports to play or having to deal with questions on what sports he wants to play,” says Ward, who went on to play 11 years in the NBA and is now the head football coach at Westbury Christian (Houston, Texas).

While Pryor spent his senior year backing up the hype, he also unfortunately discovered the pitfalls of being a much-publicized recruit, especially in a small town like Jeannette.

“Being the No. 1 player in the country is a great honor, but it’s also a curse because you’re in a fishbowl,” says Reitz.

In October, Pryor was issued a citation for disorderly conduct after getting into an argument with a man Pryor says inappropriately touched a female friend, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He has since paid the fine and simply says he’s moved past the incident.

And during basketball season, Pryor was involved in two regrettable episodes. First, he got into a verbal confrontation with fans who were talking trash during a WPIAL playoff game. Then, Pryor was part of an altercation with players from North Catholic (Pittsburgh, Pa.) following the Jayhawks’ 86-60 state quarterfinals win.

Though Pryor wasn’t the only person involved in these incidents, his name was the one that received the most ink because of his prominence. “Kids target him,” says Jeannette senior lineman Jason Marquis, one of Pryor’s closest friends. “They see him and it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s Terrelle — bring him down.’The sky’s the limit for him, but they want to bring him down.”

“Some people pay $6 to get in the door and they feel like they can say whatever they want, and it’s not right,” adds Nesser. “That doesn’t give them the right to make personal attacks on a high school kid. I don’t care how much notoriety he has — he’s still just a high school kid.”

High school kid or not, Pryor tried to absorb the verbal jabs like a well-trained boxer. And though at times the detractors managed to land a few uppercuts, Pryor never let the haters K.O. him.

“My temper isn’t the greatest,” says Pryor. “I could’ve done a better job at reacting, but I think I did a good job at not reacting as the year went on. I just kept saying in my head, ‘Don’t react. Don’t react.’”

As his recruitment came down to the wire, Pryor enlisted the help of family friend Charlie Batch, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ backup quarterback. Batch, who met Pryor through his Project C.H.U.C.K. summer basketball league, mentored Pryor through the recruiting process. Batch went with Pryor on his recruiting visit to Michigan and brought a different perspective to the entire ordeal. He broke down specifics about how teams would use Pryor but also discussed academics and graduation timetables.

“He seemed stressed out, and as the process went on you could hear it in his voice,” says Batch. “His biggest problem is telling people no. He didn’t know how to go about telling people no without hurting their feelings. I told him, ‘You’re not going to be the first person who’s told them no, nor will you be the last.’”

A week after choosing Ohio State, Pryor is much more relaxed. He talks of going to his senior prom, but the best part for him is that he no longer has to answer questions about where he’ll be going to college.

That doesn’t mean college isn’t on his mind, however. Soon after committing, he was sent an Ohio State playbook by Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel. Pryor plans on poring over the playbook all summer before heading to campus in the fall.

As talented as he already is, Pryor knows he needs to continue his development in Columbus, and hopefully the NFL. He doesn’t want to be one of those hyped football recruits who doesn’t pan out.

“I don’t want to be a footnote,” says Pryor. “I just have to work and improve at everything if I want to get to the next level. Rankings don’t mean anything once you get to college.”

Of course, no matter what happens, Pryor will always remember his whirlwind senior year of high school, something he simply describes as “an experience.”

An experience — quite the understatement for a kid who endured arguably the most scrutinized recruitment ever.

http://www.risemag.com/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStat...ries&articleId=14498

Beanpot

shep the rumor mill at bucknuts says that Tressel is planning to use Pryor like tebow in his freshman year in situational plays.

I dont know if that will actually pan out considering Henton is basically a bigger version of troy smith who already knows most of the plays and is mobile. Either way if its not this year next year he will be knocking on the door of leading this team.