Football Signing Day Quotes – Ohio State Buckeyes
2/6/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
Feb. 6, 2002
Jim Tressel, Ohio State Football Coach
Opening Statements
“We are really proud of the young men who will be the future of the Ohio State Buckeyes. As you sit back and think about what all has gone into the young men and their families casting their confidence in Ohio State to sign a letter here, there are so many factors involved in the decision process. But the number one factor is that this is Ohio State University.”
“When you look at the group as a whole, I think we put together excellent diversity in positions and excellent diversity in geography. Probably the thing football-wise that Bill Conley and the rest of the staff put a premium on is that they all could run. Speed is the key to the game of football. We also looked for players who could hit, could play with technique and who knew the role of their particular position in the large scheme of things in the game of football.”
“We feel great about the group as a whole, both as students and as athletes. We think they will represent Ohio very well.”
“If you look at the class, there are 18 players from Ohio. We feel like we were able to blanket the state and also get some very good players from some other states. We always want Ohio to be our focus.”
“How good this class is depends on how they mesh with the upperclassmen. I know it is ranked highly and that is good. Any time you can get people to say positive things about your school, that is a plus. But the rankings that really matter are the Big Ten rankings and the national rankings at the end of the year. So we will have to wait and see just how good this class is. But I do feel good about this group.”
“We made it a point last year to have a good recruiting year in our first full year here. I think we were able to do that.”
On the offensive line prospects”
“The offensive line was an important issue because simply in numbers, we were way behind. We’re probably still behind if you look at outstanding division I-A programs, you will see that they may even have more people on scholarship than we will have this fall. But this was an opportunity to catch up and we did close the gap a little with some outstanding players.” On the ranking of the class as a whole:
“You pay attention to the rankings today because it will be talked about today. When spring ball comes around, we will be talking about other things. But right now it is good for Ohio State, good for Columbus and good for our fans. One of the great things about being at Ohio State is that they are talking about us.”
On recruiting Florida and Ohio players:
“Florida was an area we worked hard on. There is great competition in Florida. I thought our guys (the coaching staff) did a great job in the selection process of whom they wanted to recruit in the out-of-state areas. I think we would always like to be top heavy in the Ohio area. Very seldom will we have classes of 25. We held back some scholarships. I’d like to think we are normally going to be in the 16-20 range in a typical recruiting class so we probably won’t sign 18 guys out of Ohio normally.”
On Ohio players:
“I think if you look at rosters from around the country, every year is a good year for Ohio. You see a lot of Ohio kids signed to other schools. I suppose if this were the 1960’s, we would try to sign them (Ohio players) all. You can’t do that anymore. It depends on what your needs are as to how strong of a year you need to go after Ohio players. Ohio, because of our high school coaching and our culture that loves the game of football here in Ohio, Ohio recruiting is always good every year”
On the linebackers:
“They are a versatile bunch with good range and size. They can run and are good tacklers. You can never have too many linebackers.”
On the expectations of the class:
“There is no doubt, this class has high expectations and wants to raise the bar. This is a class or extraordinary young men who believe they can do extraordinary things. Some of the guys who adjust early will play. We will just have to wait and see.”
On Justin Zwick:
“He is a very talented quarterback. He studies the game and it was apparent when he visited here that he had a great feel for the game. The great thing about Justin is that he will do whatever we need him to do next year. When you look at his numbers in high school, 11,000 yards or something like that, it is amazing. I couldn’t have done that against air. He did it in games.”
On Troy Smith:
“We have been involved with him since last summer. He came to our camp, so we knew all about him. We lost two quarterbacks this year and he is the kind of athlete that you want to have on your team. He may not start out taking snaps, but we know he can do it if need be. We were very honest with him, told him that there probably would not be enough reps for two freshman quarterbacks, but that didn’t seem to bother him.”
On Quinn Pitcock:
“He comes from a great program. He likes the game. We are very high on him. He is kind of a no nonsense guy. He is also a 3.8 student. We are excited he is going to be here. If you look at what at what Piqua has done over the years, Quinn understands what it takes to win.”
On Derek Morris:
“You can’t get a much bigger out of state catch than Derek. I know Jim Bollman (offensive coordinator) worked really hard on getting him after seeing him on film. Then Jim had a chance to see him at an all-star practice and was really impressed. Some of the guys who were there told me he had a 36-inch vertical. He’s a positive, up beat guy who fell in love with Ohio State when he visited. Will he compete to play early? That depends on how he adjusts to the next level, but he is very talented.”
On Maurice Clarett:
“Maurice Clarett’s a great player. I think anyone who has seen him play knows that. We think that our running back corps (Lydell Ross, Maurice Hall, Jesse Kline) is exciting. The greatest challenge (running backs coach) Tim Spencer has is to take that very talented, very intelligent group of young men and bring them along. We are excited about Maurice and the rest of the guys we have.”
