For those of you who don't spend your days obsessing over the inner thought processes of 17 and 18-year-old kids, I figured I'd do a quick holiday rakrootin' update. In truth, I don't follow recruiting much, though that never stopped me from typing up wordy updates in the past. I figured that, given the relative doldrums between relevant basketball and the Rose Bowl, now would be a good time to get a bead on exactly how this recruiting class is shaping up.

There hasn't been much in the way of news since the season started; after August, the Buckeyes received commitments from Verlon Reed, a QB/S tweener who may act as an emergency quarterback if injuries become an issue, and WR Corey Brown (not that Corey Brown).

As of right now, the class has just 15 commits, and is rated the 21st best in the country by Scout and a middling 27th by Rivals. No, it's not PANIC MODE! time, even though the yokels at Scout are predictably wailing. This is a small class, and both recruiting services tend to reward larger recruiting classes with higher rankings; the top 8 classes on Rivals all have 20 or more commitments while the top 18 on Scout have 19 or more. Since the staff can only sign roughly 20 players given scholarship limits, we can consider ourselves roughly on schedule.  If you're still worried about the rankings, sort by average star/player on either site, and the Buckeyes wind up in the top 10 or 12. Insert "quality over quantity" cliché here.

The Buckeyes' recruiting numbers are also hurt by the fact that they're waiting on commits from a couple key guys who'd be some of the higher-ranked prospects in this class: Christian Bryant, Sharrif Floyd, Latwan Anderson, Seantrel Henderson, and Jordan Hicks could all easily end up Buckeyes, but the staff faces heavy competition with Henderson and Hicks from the likes of USC, Texas and Florida, so there is still plenty or work to do. There are still "eh, it could happen" guys like Chaz Green, Jonathon Hankins and Matt James. James was enamored with Brian Kelly and is a Cincy kid. He held off on a commitment, presumably because he didn't want to actually play for a team whose stadium seats fewer people than a Canyonero. Now that Kelly is actually at a place with respectable facilities, James is looking less and less like a Buckeye. Green had been considered a silent Gator commit for an awfully long time but never pulled the trigger; thus, people think other teams are still in the hunt for his services. Those "other teams" appear to be Tennessee and USC, however.  Hankins is interesting; he's a three-star prospect to both sites with offers from the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, and Oklahoma. I hate to break out the "sleeper" talk again, but when there's that kind of disparity between offers and rating, something's up. Hankins would be a nice get for this class; while DT is a loaded position on this team, it's also an aging one.

So what are realistic expectations for the rest of this class? Anderson and Bryant are assumed to be silent commits in most recruiting circles, and if we can pick off any two of Floyd, Hankins, Henderson and Hicks, this will be a very solid "down year" class. I'd also expect a last-minute offer to another "diamond-in-the-rough" Kenny Guiton, Jermil Martin-type to fill the void left by a non-commit from one of those four if that position needs an infusion of depth. That, along with Carlos Hyde coming over from prep school, would give Ohio State 20 commits, right around the class size JT wants for this year.