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Buckeye Talk: Ohio State podcast by cleveland.com

247Sports' Brandon Huffman on J.T. Tuimoloau and Ohio State's success in the Northwest: Buckeye Football Futures

Buckeye Talk: Ohio State podcast by cleveland.com

cleveland.com

Sports, Football

4.51.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2021

⏱️ 68 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We're once again talking J.T. Tuimoloau on Buckeye Football Futures. This time we brought in the only person the 2021 prospect and his family really communicate with: 247Sports national recruiting editor Brandon Huffman. He gives us insight into how the official visit to Ohio State went, what the defensive end's timeline might be and why the Buckeyes have had such success in the Pacific northwest in recent years. Nathan and Doug also discuss Mentor 2023 prospect Brenan Vernon's commitment to Notre Dame and Duane Washington Jr.'s early entry to the NBA Draft -- and a quick word on Wednesday's football commit. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, hey, where you been? But got to talk is about to begin. Hey, hey, hey, come on in.

0:30.0

Welcome to Buckeye Talk. I'm Nathan Baird from Cleveland.com along with Doug Lamerice, my new BFF, at least for the week with Stephen

0:36.6

Means still on vacation, but we're talking about how state football recruiting as always on Thursdays. And the ongoing wait for the

0:44.4

decision from JT to him, allow the Washington defensive lineman, the last blue chip prospect in the 2021 class, waiting for his

0:53.5

decision on whether he's going to pick Ohio State, whether he's going to pick Oregon USC or Washington. Doug, when was the last time you remember a

1:01.4

commitment? The probably has never been one that's really dragged on this long into the process this same way, right?

1:07.7

No, I mean, the only comparable one for me at this level is Terrell Pryor, who did not announce on signing day in February, and then waited like a month later.

1:17.2

But I remember doing that during the NCAA basketball tournament March. So that wasn't.

1:22.9

It wasn't July. So I mean, it's it's not there's no real comparison, I think, for a lot of reasons, pandemic being obviously among them.

1:31.2

Yeah, wait, wait, own the new cycle, by the way, like blow off national signing day and then announced during the NCAA tournament. That's a little

1:38.2

unconventional. I was in Washington, because that was back. I can't remember. I think maybe the Ohio State that was the year Ohio State

1:44.9

didn't make the NCAA tournament. The only way to the NIT. And I would just cover the tournament. Like I would just go to the nearest site then.

1:50.5

So I was in Washington DC covering, I don't know, Michigan State, McNeese State. And it's like, oh, it's a prior, prior commitment. I remember being in the, the media room

2:01.3

at the Washington DC basketball arena, being on like a conference call with Jim Tressel talking about like the biggest recruit in Ohio State in 10 years.

2:09.9

And I was like, why am I at this McNeese State game? But that's how it went.

2:14.4

Was it like something happening back in Columbus? And you had to, I guess everyone was probably remote at that point. Yeah, I think it was, I think they just did a conference call with everybody. So I didn't miss anything live, but yeah.

2:23.7

We're going to be joined for the most of this podcast today by the guy who has owned this reporting on on JT Tunalized recruitment. It's Brandon Huffman, the 247 sports national recruiting director. We had a great conversation with him, not just about JTT, but about

2:37.9

Ohio State's recruiting on the West Coast and the dynamics that go into that. He gave us some insight into the family and in Tunalized reaction to the Ohio State official visit.

2:48.7

And as we hear from him later, it could happen. The commitment could happen to somewhere in the next, I mean, before we're done recording this, which we're doing on Wednesday afternoon, it could happen.

3:02.0

Within a couple of weeks, he thinks that there's this is such an unconventional recruitment that the timetable is still at this point, completely uncertain. And we hear so much about like I hear so many coaches like kind of

3:17.3

complain in some ways about like the timing of things and how they need to have certainty and how, you know, you can't allow certain freedoms to athletes because coaches need to have certainty and who is going to be on their team and all the stuff. But teams are obviously kind of rolling with the punches here. And Ohio State has plenty of scholarship room.

3:36.5

We haven't heard a peat from them about this being some sort of problem for them.

...

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