National Pryor Day

I know this happened yesterday, and that today is the start of the NCAA Tournament, but I needed to post this before I forgot.

On Wednesday, the most coveted recruit in the nation finally signed his National Letter of Intent to join The Ohio State University. It has been a highly publicized and criticized process thus far for Terrelle Pryor, but I think this kid has shown throughout the ordeal that he not only has the athleticism, but also the mental toughness to make smart decisions and succedd at the next level.

When the football season ended and his Jeanette Jayhawks won the Pennsylvannia State Title, he immediately jumped into basketball season. This is something many of us did when we were in high school, jump from one sport or activity to the next. What the entire nation, including the national media, seemed to forget about on signing day was that Pryor, unlike many of the other football recruits, never had time to officially visit campuses that he was interested in. He was one of the star players on a basketball team that was competing for, and eventually won, the state championship as well. So, while many people were claiming he was selfish and just wanted the limelight, he appears to have not been so selfish afterall. He said that he didn't want to interupt his season and hurt his team's chances and he also wanted the proper time to focus and evaluate the different schools before choosing.

Going further, he was being pulled in a number of different directions by the people that were closest to him and he had a tough call to make. His father went so far as to publicly say that he wanted his son to go play for Joe Paterno at Penn State.

He had also been recruited since he was a Freshman to play for West Virginia, whose coaching staff has since moved to the University of Michigan to take over for the retired Lllllloyd Carr. At Michigan, he would have been the starter from day one. The savior of a traditional football power that has struggled in recent years to win bowl games, defeat their arch-rival and is now in the process of breaking in a new coach, with a new offensive system and they are almost certainly not prepared to contend for championships right away. While going there would have been comfortable for Pryor with the familiar schemes and coaches, ultimately he didn't think that was best for his future.

At Ohio State, Terrelle won't be the starter right away. He will be stepping into the headset as the backup to Todd Boeckman and an offense that is geared up to head back to the BCS National Championship game for a third consecutive year. Pryor will learn the offense slowly, in bits and pieces, and won't be thrown to the wolves and set up to fail. He will also learn how to become a passer. Not in the mold of Boeckman, but more like Troy Smith or Vince Young. This will help him to mature into a better NFL prospect in the future then the Pat Whites and Shaun Kings that Rich Rodriguez produced at West Virginia. We all know Terrelle Pryor can run, but how far did that get Michael Vick (dog-fighting aside?) As a Buckeye, he'll learn to take snaps under center, he'll learn footwork, he'll learn how to throw and he'll learn what it takes to win consistently.

You can knock Ohio State for getting blown out in back-to-back title games all you want, but you also can't forget that they only lost one regular season game in two years. And the officiating in that game was sketchy at best and the crew that worked it is still under investigation by the Big Ten and the NCAA. Sure, the schedule was weak last year, but don't forget the year before the Buckeyes took down two #2 teams in the regular season, one of them the defending national champion Texas Longhorns on their own field. This year, Ohio State heads down to USC in week three. Next year the Trojans come to the Horseshoe. In the few years after that Jim Tressel has put the Miami Hurricanes and Oklahoma Sooners on the schedule.

Overall, I'd say this was the perfect place for Pryor to play and succeed. Now that this is behind us, let's move onto some bigger things and win the BCS title again. It's been six years and I've already forgotten what it feels like.