Recruiting Roundtable: Impact of Clemson game, Singletary, Ewers' return

The biggest game of the season is right around the corner for The Ohio State Buckeyes. For the second year in a row, the football team will take on Clemson for a shot at making it to the College Football Playoff National Championship.

With this matchup rapidly approaching, BuckeyeGrove's Andy Anders and Joseph Hastings share their thoughts on what the recruiting implications will be if Ohio State wins on Friday. In this edition of "Recruiting Roundtable," they also share their thoughts on the Buckeyes potentially landing five-star Jaheim Singletary and assess Quinn Ewers' performance in the playoffs last week.

Anders: Beating an opponent you contend with for recruits always helps to some extent, but I think it’s overrated in the long run.

Ask any coach or top analyst and they’ll tell you the No. 1 factor in any prospect’s recruitment is still relationships. Ability to compete for championships, NFL potential, campus life and in some cases distance from home are typically more important to players than head-to-head results.

Why? Because most players realize it’s a decision that affects the remainder of their lives on and off the field, so one game, again in most cases, isn’t going to make or break anyone’s decision.

All that being said -- it would be a nice boost.

There’s no doubt the Buckeyes and Tigers battle over the nation’s top players. In last year’s class, Clemson landed five five-star prospects while Ohio State landed three.

Ohio State and Clemson aren’t really battling over anyone left in 2021, with both viewed as outside shots to land five-star offensive tackle Tristan Leigh.

What it would do is gather more momentum in the Buckeyes’ surging 2022 class. Commits have been forecasting another Boom on the horizon across social media. A playoff run and potential national title could have huge implications.

Hastings: I am in the mindset that Friday's game against Clemson can only help Ohio State when it comes to recruiting, not hurt them.

The Buckeyes have not made an appearance in a national championship game in over half a decade, but that hasn't prevented the program from putting together elite recruiting classes. Ryan Day and company are going to wind up with the No. 2 overall class in the 2021 cycle, and they're positioning themselves to earn the top class in next year's class.

With a win, however, Ohio State gets to build upon that momentum they've established on the trail and use that in their messages to junior prospects and current underclassmen. They can say they beat a program that has made it to the national championship game in four of the previous five seasons, and defeated a quarterback who will be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.

This victory could also give the Buckeyes an edge over some recruits that are considering them and Clemson. Five-stars Domani Jackson and Denver Harris are evaluating both schools, as well as borderline Rivals100 OL and in-state junior Blake Miller, who committed to the Tigers in October.

One game won't change the trajectory of any of these players' recruitments, but it definitely will be something that may weigh on their minds when considering these two schools.

The one final thing I'll note here is that Ohio State getting to, and potentially winning, the big game, in this season in particular, will be an accomplishment that cannot be understated. They went through back-and-forth weeks of potentially not having a season, then being limited to eight regular season games, having three of those matchups canceled and lost some key players for the Big Ten Championship.

I imagine a recruiting pitch to some targets would be that if they can overcome all the hurdles they went through in 2020, imagine what the future holds in store for them when things are back to normal.

Anders: How many synonyms of big can you think of? It would be huge, gargantuan, ginormous even.

I’m only exaggerating a little bit. Outside potent pass rushers to mature under defensive line coach Larry Johnson, the most important piece of a successful defense under coordinator Kerry Coombs is a great man-to-man, bump-and-run cornerback.

Not only is Singletary a five-star graded as the No. 3 corner in the class of 2022, he’s a prototypical Coombs corner. 6-foot-1 with long arms and great speed. A fluid and agile cutter who can mirror routes with the best. He’s instinctual, tremendous at high-pointing footballs and shows plenty of skill in zone and off-man coverage.

As for the question of whether Singletary will commit to Ohio State, I think the Buckeyes have a legitimate shot. They’re no stranger to pulling recruits out of Florida and even though they only offered Singletary in November, the two sides have communicated nearly every day since.

Singletary has even referred to Ohio State as a “dream school.”

The FutureCast currently places six predictions with the Buckeyes and three with in-state Florida, including my own selection for Ohio State. Florida has the benefit of time but the fact Singletary announced his decision date within a month of the Ohio State offer is too good in terms of timing for me.

We’ll know for sure Jan. 2.

Hastings: I'll go out on a limb here and say that Jaheim Singletary would be a massive get for Ohio State if he commits to the school on Jan. 2.

I've seen Singletary in person, and he has all the tools you want from a cornerback at the next level. He's got good height at 6-foot-1, is lengthy and rangy enough to cause deflections when in the vicinity of a pass, is fast enough to keep up with speedy wideouts and is a solid tackler. There's no real major issues I have with his game from what I've seen.

On top of what he will bring to the table in college, landing Singletary would be an important victory in a state that is a hotbed of talent on a yearly basis. It becomes even more impressive when you consider that Florida, which had its best season in several years, had been viewed as the favorite for the five-star DB for most of 2020.

A commitment from Singletary would also continue the pipeline Ohio State is building from Jacksonville to Columbus. Current Buckeyes Shaun Wade, Marcus Crowley and Tyreke Johnson all hail from the city, which produces an elite player or two every recruiting cycle.

Finally, getting Singletary on board this early just takes Ohio States' 2022 class to another level. They already hold commitments from a pair of five-stars, have an average star rating of 4.11 and are over 600 points ahead of LSU with only two more pledges than the Tigers.

Singletary joining would give the Buckeyes a jaw-dropping 1,726 total points with only 10 commitments. It would also give them their third five-star pledge of the cycle; for reference, every other program in the country has just three 2022 five-stars committed combined.

Anders: Ewers is the No. 1 recruit in the country for a reason folks.

Returning from a two-month injury to sling the rock for 251 yards and three touchdowns in a pivotal playoff game is the type of performance one expects from a recruit rated so high.

What’s always impressed me on film about Ewers is his ability to make every throw asked of him, and that ability was made apparent against 10-1 Martin. Ewers’ Southlake Carroll team needed every completion too, scratching out a 30-26 win to advance to regional finals.

The Buckeyes have an incredible talent arriving in Columbus in a year and change.

Hastings: What Ewers did last Thursday was nothing short of spectacular.

To miss nearly two months and come back to the field in a big playoff game to lead his team to a victory just goes to show how special of a player Ewers is. The injury was not specified, but Ewers had no problem maneuvering his way in and out of the pocket, and his velocity was not affected either.

Watching the highlights from the game, I came away impressed by how easy Ewers makes things look. He is comfortable tossing the ball with weird arm angles, can easily fire darts in tight windows, and his deep ball is as good as it gets at the high school level.

There was one play I wasn't too high on, and that is when Ewers threw off of his back foot and let the ball hang in the air a little bit too long. In my opinion, just as is the case with Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes, Ryan Day and the staff will let Ewers play the game with as much freedom as he wants and there may be some head-scratchers, but his upside is too high to try to suppress his talent in any way.

Ewers and his teammates at Southlake Carroll will take on Trinity in the quarterfinals this upcoming Saturday.

Stay tuned to BuckeyeGrove.