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

Welcome to Buckeye Talk. I'm Nathan Baird from Cleveland.com. Along with Steven Means, it is Wednesday and we are talking recruiting Ohio State has picked up a couple of commitments in the last week.

One happened Tuesday night. Another one happened last week. The one last week was Malik Hartford, a senior or I'm sorry, a safety from here in Ohio. And we're going to talk about him a little later, but we're going to start off talking about the breaking news, breaking ish news of the week.

And that is American Heritage running back Mark Fletcher out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, committing to Ohio State Tuesday night. He was kind of an expected committees, the number 153 prospect in the country, the number eight running back picks Ohio State over Miami, Michigan and Penn State.

Steven just tell us a little bit about what kind of player Mark Fletcher is and what he brings to that running back room here in a couple of years.

Yeah, it's for what Ohio State wants to do in this 2023 class, it basically just checks off for one half of the coin. If you remember the 2021 class, when they wouldn't got Evan prior to top 100 recruit and then they went and got traviant Henderson as the number one running back in the country.

Yeah, there's some kids from Virginia who's he's okay, he's nothing special, but you bring both for those guys in in that class, they want to repeat that in the cycle.

And Mark Fletcher for all tents and purposes is the Evan prior side of that, not necessarily in play style. He's a lot bigger than Evan prior is.

Yeah, yeah, like he's a bruiser really more, he's like more like Mayan Williams in a sense of how he runs, he's taller, but the bowling ball bounces off of everybody kind of violet runner that you see with Mayan Williams, he's more like that.

So Tony offer checks off that part. Good.

6 1 225 pounds. So again, not a guy whose physicality kind of jumps out at you as far as his talents, if you've been able to watch him on film or you've seen him in person, just how does he run and how do you think that translates to the college level.

I think it translates pretty well for what Ohio State's offense is and we're going to really see it play out this season, obviously, Travion Henderson's the top dog, he's the lead back.

But as we said, multiple times as you go on the practices, CJ Strauss working with Mayan Williams as much as he's working with Travion Henderson, which means that there is going to be some level of a two back system, even if it's Travion 10 carries to my from Mayan every three for four carries he gets.

That's kind of the pick up here. And as you kind of see where I'm leading down the road here with it, if he's the second guy in that two back system, that's a pretty good two back system. So that's what my expectation for Mark Fletcher is coming in here.

The other side of that coin is where the focus now goes. And that's Richard jump, that's where you put all your focus as the number two running back in the country, the number 19 overall player.

And when he was here last summer working with Tony offer, he looks like a freak. He's 511 200 pounds, but he looks like a 25 year old grown man.

It was pretty interesting to see him in person now granted the workout Tony offer put him through was pretty, was pretty extenuous. So he was a little tired after it, but that that's a real life.

He's Travion Henderson and the idea of those two sitting behind Travion and Evan prior in 2023. And then Richard Young takes over as the top dog in 2024 while Evan prior and Mark Fletcher and Dalin Hayden or kind of your your secondary guys is what's on the table here. Richard Young put out his top seven.

Over the weekend, including Ohio State into that, but of that seven, this is a battle between Ohio State Alabama and Georgia. And so now that you know Mark Fletcher is in place out of Florida, American Heritage High School, which is going to be a pretty important high school for Ohio State in this cycle, which we can get into later in this pod.

Now Tony offer can spend the rest of his time down at Lehigh acres Florida, you know, trying to get the Travion Henderson of the 2023 class.

So the reason that the Henderson prior thing worked was because Evan prior bought into it and I guess Travion Henderson did too. He wasn't, you know, warded off by Ohio State wanting to take two guys in that class. He was fine with whatever competition was going to ensue there and as it turned out, he was advanced enough that there wasn't really competition there.

What have you, have we talked to Mark Fletcher about what Ohio State has told him about the situation and why it appeals to him as opposed to going somewhere and being the clear number one in that class.

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