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Link: Yet another highly-ranked Buckeye in the transfer portal...

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4Q Basket Case

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I don’t know why he’s finished his third season in Columbus, but had only two on the field — obviously, it was a redshirt. But was it because of injury or simply not being able to crack the playing rotation? The SDS article didn’t mention injury, but I have little faith in what passes for journalism these days to get the full story and get it right.

Still, optics aren’t promising — 5 star talent, #2 safety in the country coming out of HS, in the OSU system for 3 years, plays in two of them, appears in just 11 games, and makes only marginal contribution.

Was he overrated? Or is there another reason that he didn’t live up to billing?

Beyond the individual case at hand, this is a great example of why I don’t think the transfer portal will transform many playing careers or many destination teams.
 
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buckeyeFB_

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4Q Basket Case said:
I don’t know why he’s finished his third season in Columbus, but had only two on the field — obviously, it was a redshirt. But was it because of injury or simply not being able to crack the playing rotation? The SDS article didn’t mention injury, but I have little faith in what passes for journalism these days to get the full story and get it right.

Still, optics aren’t promising — 5 star talent, #2 safety in the country coming out of HS, in the OSU system for 3 years, plays in two of them, appears in just 11 games, and makes only marginal contribution.

Was he overrated? Or is there another reason that he didn’t live up to billing?

Beyond the individual case at hand, this is a great example of why I don’t think the transfer portal will transform many playing careers or many destination teams.
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I'd say this is a case of somebody being overrated by recruiting sites/not able to transition to the next level.

Our secondary play last year was painful to watch at times, and one of our original starters (Cam Brown) got hurt in just our 2nd game against Penn State, but Tyreke Johnson still wasn't able to get any meaningful playing time -- he played just 77 total snaps (and 50 of those snaps came in a blowout against Rutgers).

I was holding on to some help that he'd be one of those late bloomers who suddenly becomes a great player/starter for us in the last season of his career like we saw with Damon Arnette when he was a RS-Senior in 2019. Nonetheless, I still hope Tyreke Johnson makes that jump even though it'll be for a different team. I wish him nothing but success moving forward.
 
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crimsonaudio

crimsonaudio

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Bama_N_Va said:
Normally I am too. But, in this case, if the guy couldn't get the job done at OSU, I have the upmost confidence he will succeed at getting the job NOT done for the Viles. Its a win for us...
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I dunno, sometimes people just don't click. And the Buckeye secondary wasn't exactly a blanket last season - maybe the staff isn't where they need to be.
 
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B1GTide

B1GTide

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crimsonaudio said:
I dunno, sometimes people just don't click. And the Buckeye secondary wasn't exactly a blanket last season - maybe the staff isn't where they need to be.
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The staff concern is legit, though I didn't see technique as the problem last year - more lack of talent. But time will tell.

OSU has sent many DBs to the NFL over the last 4-5 years. But Matt Barnes took over the secondary in 2019 and the results have been unspectacular.
 
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buckeyeFB_

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B1GTide said:
The staff concern is legit, though I didn't see technique as the problem last year - more lack of talent. But time will tell.

OSU has sent many DBs to the NFL over the last 4-5 years. But Matt Barnes took over the secondary in 2019 and the results have been unspectacular.
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In 2019, Jeff Hafley was the secondary coach and Matt Barnes' title was "assistant secondary coach". Both of our starting corners in 2019 were drafted in the first round, and our pass defense was #1 in the country in YPG that season.

I attribute the issues with our pass defense in 2020 primarily to a lack of experience. In addition to having 3 new starters in the secondary, we lost the 2 returning corners on the roster that played the most in 2019 (besides Wade obviously) and they both would've been starters in 2020 -- Amir Riep was arrested before the season and kicked off the team, and Cam Brown was injured in our 2nd game against Penn State.

It also didn't help that we went to playoff with just 6 games under our belt. I would've been interested to see how the secondary progressed in a normal, full-length season without all of the cancellations.

We may not full agree on this matter, but I personally think it's a little early for staff concern. I was also pretty encouraged by the spring game, as it seems the switch to a 4-2-5 base defense is for real and not just speculation.
 
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B1GTide

B1GTide

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buckeyeFB_ said:
We may not full agree on this matter, but I personally think it's a little early for staff concern. I was also pretty encouraged by the spring game, as it seems the switch to a 4-2-5 base defense is for real and not just speculation.
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I consider it a concern, but not one that I am losing sleep over. As I said, time will tell. We need to give Matt a chance, and the players seemed to play with solid technique last year. They were just a little slow to react. My hope is that this is just inexperience.
 
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buckeyeFB_

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B1GTide said:
I consider it a concern, but not one that I am losing sleep over. As I said, time will tell. We need to give Matt a chance, and the players seemed to play with solid technique last year. They were just a little slow to react. My hope is that this is just inexperience.
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I think inexperience was a lot of it.

I don't expect next year's secondary to be like 2016 (Lattimore, Conley, Hooker) or 2019 (Okudah, Arnette, Fuller) where we had three guys who would've started anywhere in the country. But I do think it'll be similar to 2014 or 2015, where we had no glaring weaknesses, plenty of talent, and definitely met the standard of being "good enough" in pass defense (our pass defense finished #28 and #16 in YPG in 2014 and 2015, respectively).
 
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