The sad story of Charles Waugh

In today's world of the internet and reality TV it still amazes me how quickly a person can go from totally anonymous to instant fame. This past week was a reminder in the person of Charles Waugh. Monday was the first time I ever heard of him or more to the point, ever heard of his twitter handle of @bdubstriviaguru (note that this name means B-Dub Trivia Guru as he worked at the BW3 in Grandview and allegedly ran their trivia nights). That's when he sent a relatively harmless post to over a hundred people associated with Ohio State athletics including quite a few potential recruits. The post was the same to every single one:

"I hated every minute of training but said to myself, don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion. - M. Ali

It's a fairly innocent quote but as it was sent from someone who weighes over 300 lbs and sent mostly to kids aged 16 - 22 he got a lot of grief from opposing fans.  Landgrant Holyland has a good recap of what happened next on their site.  The gist is Buckeye fans saw his posts to recruits, contacted compliance who then investigated him and found out that Waugh is a registered sex offender.  His sentence carried with it a stipulation that he not contact minors.  Since he was obviously breaking his sentence Ohio State contacted Twitter to let them know and sent an email to their student athletes letting them know to avoid contact with Mr. Waugh.

L to R - Anzalone, Waugh, Bosa, Heurmann

I saw the story on Landgrant first thing this morning and linked the post on the O-Zone with a statement that a registered sex offender had been seen having lunch with Ohio State players and that he had also spent time after the spring game with potential recruits (see picture on the right).  I figured once people read the story from Landgrant it would explode but I was surprised that it only got 4 responses.  Fast forward to about 3pm and it was learned that Alex Anzalone had de-committed from the university.  A few hours later it became clear that he was no longer even considering the school.  Tonight, a paper in Florida gave further clarification with a quote by Anzalone's father.

"You don't want your son to go to a place where there's a potential issue (like this)," Sal Anzalone said. "You expect the (football) staff to have some sort of control on how things are handled with recruits when they visit. This is ridiculous. 

"I was concerned with what recruits do, and with them being allowed to visit these kind of places where it puts kids at risk. That's the issue. You entrust people (at the school) to do the right thing."

While he said he doesn't believe the Buckeyes coaching staff was aware that a sexual predator had access to its recruits and players, Sal Anzalone said he is upset at what transpired. 

"Of course," he said. "Who wouldn't be? I'm outraged."

At this point the Ohio State blogosphere exploded in outrage.  While a sex offender talking to our players is certainly shocking, a player decommitting over it affects the team's chances to win and BuckeyeNation responded negatively to Anzalone's statement.

If you read the whole article I think the reporter carefully worded his article to slightly misrepresent Mr. Anzalone's views, it is easy to tell he's upset and I think he has some valid concerns.  He attended Saturday's game with his son but on Saturday night Alex was chaperoned by current Ohio State players.  My suspicion is that the above picture was taken at that time.  Hidden in Mr. Anzalone's comment is that he seems to be as upset that his son was in a bar as he was about the sex offender.  There is no way the university or the students can know the background of every person a potential recruit might meet however they can take steps to avoid placing them in a compromising situation and I think that is the point.

Buckeye fans on the forums varied in their reaction depending on their nature.  Some fans are mad at the Anzalone's and calling them pathetic for backing out of their commitment.  Others are blaming compliance for doing a poor job.  I'm in the middle of the two extremes.  I think the university did everything it could and reacted promptly when they learned of the issue.  I also think that there might be more to the Anzalone's actions than they are saying.

The real culprit is one of the time honored traditions in college sports.  Every school makes sure that when a recruit visits, they are also shown the night life on campus.  Let's face it, most 18 year olds are more interested in campus parties than they wonder if the school has a good accounting program.  Anyone that has been close to the process knows that Saturday night is where the players take the recruit out on the town and show them a good time.  The chaperon is given an amount equal for a meal at a fancy restaurant with no questions asked.  This can be a key point in the recruiting process as it is a look into the social life the player can expect if they attend the school.  What usually happens is the player takes them to a cheap meal then spends the rest of the night getting them drunk and if everything goes well they find willing female.  This doesn't happen with everyone as the best recruiters put similar minded players with similar recruits.  For instance, I'm sure Urban Meyer had a similarly religious student take Tim Tebow out on his visit.  My guess is they were in bed before 10pm.  On the flipside, a night of drunken debauchery can make quite an impression as I worked with a former Big Ten player who told me he committed to a school immediately after his visit because he lost his virginity on the campus visit.

The Buckeyes had most of the best players in the country on campus for their Spring Game and 2 of the 3 pictured above committed right after their visit.  Take a good look at the picture.  Note that it is dark in the background.  My suspicion is it was taken at BW3s and it was at night.  The raises the question -- how did these three players get in contact with Waugh?

The first way is that he contacted them on Twitter and they met him for dinner but that isn't remotely possible.  The second is the coaches set up the dinner with Waugh but that is even more ridiculous as there are potential NCAA violations all over this.  The third is he was taken there by players that have a previous relationship with Waugh.  I think it is pretty obvious that the last is the most likely case.

Many people are focusing on the sex offender part of the case and while that is important I really don't think Charles Waugh is anything more than an overzealous fan (with an admittedly sordid past).  From an Ohio State point of view Charles Waugh is irrelevant at this point.  The Kentucky police are investigating this and my guess is he will be spending some time in jail in the near future.

The issue from an Ohio State point of view is the relationship that the players had with the Grandview BW3.  Ohio State players are superstars in Columbus and they'd never need to pay for a meal if it wasn't against the rules.  So the question is - why were so many Ohio State players spending so much time with Charles Waugh?  I'm afraid we know the answer to that question which is the real reason Anzalone decommitted and why Ohio State distanced themselves from the whole thing.  Now that the sex offender story has hit the mainstream media I'm sure both sides know that the night Anzalone met Waugh is going to get a lot of scrutiny.  It is better for both sides to part ways now so any rules that were broken by BW3/Waugh had no resulting benefit to OSU.  Considering that Ohio State is on probation for the next 3 years I pray that this is the last we hear of this sad tale.

How will Urban Meyer's system affect recruiting?

One thing that I've been wondering about is how will Urban's offensive scheme affect our recruiting.  To get an idea I decided to look at the past.  The schedule recaps Letters of Intent signed by Coaches Tressel and Meyer during their tenures at Ohio State and Florida.  It then shows a % breakdown by postion and then extrapolates to an 85 man roster:



Ohio State
LOI
%
85 x %
OL
23
12.8%
10.9
RB
15
8.3%
7.1
FB
3
1.7%
1.4
WR
17
9.4%
8.0
QB
10
5.6%
4.7
TE
10
5.6%
4.7
DT
14
7.8%
6.6
DE
18
10.0%
8.5
LB
25
13.9%
11.8
CB
23
12.8%
10.9
S
18
10.0%
8.5
P
1
0.6%
0.5
K
3
1.7%
1.4
180


Florida
LOI
%
+/-
85 x %
+/-
OL
18
15.8%
3.0%
13.4
2.6
RB
8
7.0%
-1.3%
6.0
-1.1
FB
1
0.9%
-0.8%
0.7
-0.7
WR
15
13.2%
3.7%
11.2
3.2
QB
5
4.4%
-1.2%
3.7
-1.0
TE
5
4.4%
-1.2%
3.7
-1.0
DT
10
8.8%
1.0%
7.5
0.8
DE
10
8.8%
-1.2%
7.5
-1.0
LB
16
14.0%
0.1%
11.9
0.1
CB
12
10.5%
-2.3%
8.9
-1.9
S
12
10.5%
0.5%
8.9
0.4
P
1
0.9%
0.3%
0.7
0.3
K
1
0.9%
-0.8%
0.7
-0.7
114
There are a few things that stick out:

• Surprisingly, Urban has 2.6 more offensive linemen which if he continues this practice will make many Buckeye fans happy.  Lack of experienced linemen was a continued compliant during the Tressel era.
• Given the switch to an offense more reliant on 4+wide receiver sets, Urban recruited 1.1 less running back but 3.2 more wide receivers.
• Fullbacks (-0.7) and blocking tight ends (-1.0) are somewhat interchangeable in Urban's scheme meaning we will recruit less specialty players in these two areas.
• Defense is surprisingly similar with the exception of cornerback where Urban had about 9 on the roster where JT had 11.  This is most likely due to Coach Tressel's love of special teams.  

Urban had 38.8 on offense and 44.7 on defense.  Coach Tress had 36.8 and 46.3.  Teams usually carry more defensive players due to special teams but one thing I do know that Urban did move some offensive players to defense if when they arrived they struggled to be a good fit to his scheme.  For example, Joe Haden came in as a wide receiver and left early as a cornerback.

No doubt recruiting philosoply is going to be affected by Urban's arrival and the transition might be a little messy as when combined with the scholarship reduction he might be having some tough conversations with a few players over the summer to make room for next year's class.  I'll probably cover that in a future post.

Urban Myth about redshirting

Last night there was another set of arguments one the forums regarding Urban's "We don't redshirt at Ohio State" quote.  Being pretty sure he meant the comment as a recruiting tool I decided to look at his history. Below is a 5 year summary of freshmen recruits that Urban had the opportunity to redshirt.

Ohio State under Jim Tressel redshirted about half his players which is the same that Urban Meyer did at Florida.

Urban's comment is saying that he never purposely recruits projects or players he expects to redshirt. His exact quote was:

In your experience, and understanding every player is different, how long does it take players with that talent level to make an impact on the field?

UM: We're going to rotate them right away. We don't redshirt here at Ohio State. We're changing that up. We're going to have the culture out here that there's no redshirting. If you don't play here, it's because you're not good enough. It's not because we're holding you back. We're going to recruit the kind of player where we want them on the field right now. That's the approach we took at Florida, and it's the approach we're going to take here.

He said that so recruits know he expects them to play immediately and if they don't make it it's because of a combination of inexperience and effort. If they do perform they won't get lost behind an upperclassman. It helps recruiting because all high school seniors think they are ready for college football and they all want to go where they have a chance to play immediately. Urban is also telling upperclassmen that any preferential treatment they get is earned every day.

None of this means that Urban doesn't redshirt. He does it as much as anyone.

Buckeye logjam in the skill positions (and why the Buckeyes offered James Onwualu)

James Onwualu got an offer from Ohio State yesterday which I didn't give too much consideration until I looked at his rankings.  Scout has him ranked as a 3 star and 33rd best wide receiver.  Rivals doesn't have a rank and 247 has him ranked as a 3 star and 50th best wideout.

That made me wonder - Why would Ohio State offer a kid ranked that low?

He currently has offers from Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Stanford which is a good sign but after looking into it the love is coming from an Underarmor camp he attended in December.

He got the 2nd highest score at the camp which led to the influx of offers.  Over the weekend he narrowed his list to Notre Dame, Michigan, Stanford, and Minnesota and that forced Ohio State to make an offer.  It wasn't said but I'd guess this was a conditional offer based on Onwualu attending the Ohio State camp over the summer so the coaches can see him up close before making it official.

A post about this on the Ozone forum that was thankful that they were going after him because the Buckeyes need depth got me thinking about the 2013 recruiting strategy at wide receiver.  Here's the current depth chart at wide receiver.

Corey Brown JR
Verlon Reed SO
Chris Fields JR
TY Williams SO
Devin Smith SO
Even Spencer SO
Frank Epitropoulous FR
Ricquan Southward FR
Mike Thomas FR

Note there isn't 1 senior on the team and we currently have 9 scholarship players at wide receiver.  When you consider that Ohio State is serving a 3 scholarship reduction due to Tatgate and the fact they recruited 3 players on special teams, they only have 79 scholarships to give in 2013.  That means without adding a single recruit, wide receivers will take up 11.3% (9/79) percent of the scholarships next year.  In a conventional offense you normally only have 2 wide receivers which means you'd expect wide receivers to have about 9% (2/22) in total but many spread offenses have 3 on the field which would bump that to 13.6% (3/22).  Using that figure instead you get 10.7 so I'd expect the Buckeyes to take 1-2 wide receivers for the 2013 season.

One caveat to this is Ohio State fans are used to recruiting a bunch of running backs for their historical brand of smashmouth football.  If we recruit 3 wide receivers we will need to account for this with fewer running backs.  Here's the depth chart at running back.

Zach Boren SR
Jordan Hall SR
Adam Homan SR
Carlos Hyde JR
Rod Smith SO
Warren Ball FR
Bri'onte Dunn FR

With 3 players graduating it would seem this would be an area of great need but the change in offensive philosophy will probably lessen the demand.  The move to more 1 back offense means we can expect to have about 1.5 recruits out of the 22 on the field or 6.8%.  For the 79 open scholarships this means we should have 5.3 players in this area.  Considering that the Buckeyes already have 4 players on scholarship, this will mean the Buckeyes will take 1-2 running backs at most for 2013.  That also assumes we won't replace either of our graduating fullbacks but my guess is we've seen the last of fullback recruits and they will train their tight ends to move into that spot as needed.

The bottom line is between wide receiver and running back the Buckeyes will probably take 3 wide receivers or running backs.  They could take 4 but at some point it starts cutting into other positions which leads to the situation we saw at offensive line throughout the Tressel regime.

At this point you may be asking yourself what does all this mean when the original question was about a scholarship offer to an unknown kid from Minnesota.  Despite the Ozone poster's concerns, the Buckeyes will be fine at wideout in the next few years as Verlon Reed and Devin Smith are excellent receivers with good hands.  What we don't have is a true running back/wide receiver hybrid and from all indications, James Onwualu excels at both.

Urban Meyer was hoping to get a player like that last year but it didn't work out.  This year I expect 2 of his 3 offensive skill position recruits to fit that mold.  He is scouring the national lists and is trying to get the top recruits into Columbus this summer where he will run them in drills against one another to finalize his priority list.  The problem is Michigan has already gotten many kids to verbally commit and using that fact to pressure other kids into doing the same thing.  The offer from Urban was a preventative measure to slow down Onwualu's decision process so he will at least visit Ohio State before making a final decision.  Let's hope it works.