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"Just the coaches are great," he said about OSU. "Me and the coaches have a great chemistry together. They’re easy to talk to. I got a chance to hang out with the players and that was all I needed. That about sealed it."

What does it mean?

Well, with the commitment of Smith, I'd say Ohio State is essentially set at running back, but I'm not sure the staff would agree. Offers are still out to Spencer Ware, Corey Brown, and newcomer Storm Johnson, who's reportedly a heavy LSU lean. Smith has been an assumed Buckeye for months, but if he gave the staff a silent verbal before, they didn't stop offering other backs. They're probably not done. As far as Smith, the inevitable comparisons to Beanie Wells seem apt; he's ginormous, he reportedly has an excellent blend of size and speed, and he's got an Mjolnir stiff-arm that should be tossing hapless DBs into the third row of Ohio Stadium as early as his freshman year. Prepare to hear a lot of "Thunder and Lightning"/ "Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside" clichés in the booth, as sometime in the near future Carlos Hyde and Smith will probably come to complement smaller backs Jaamal Berry and Jordan Hall in a marked change from Jim Tressel's prior philosophy of feeding one guy the rock until his legs explode. In this system, you can simply never have too many excellent running backs.