Pryor Commitment
Posted by Obiora, March 24, 2008 - 9:14 pm
Amid the Madness of March, one of the top headlines in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was the college commitment of Terrelle Pryor, the do-everything football player from Jeannette High School. One of the most ballyhooed prep stars in recent memory, Pryor’s saga was long, winding and somewhat annoying.
I’m all for a recruit taking his time to find the right place and if Pryor didn’t want to make a commitment on Signing Day, all the more power to him. But such was the unbelievable media coverage of this story, that Pryor actually made an announcement on Monday that he would make his college announcement on Wednesday. If that’s not ridiculous, I don’t know anything.
Pryor’s final four schools were Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State. Each presented interesting possibilities for a player of Pryor’s talents. At Michigan, he would play a huge role early as Rich Rodriguez is in desperate need of an athletic QB in the mold of Pat White. However, Michigan will be in its first year under Rodriguez so it will be a bumpy couple years while the system comes on-board. At Oregon, he would play in a more established version of the spread offense. But it’s rare for a kid to head that far west, so he might not have wanted to go that far from home. At Penn State, he would be playing for one of the greatest college coaches of all-time. But JoePa might have moved him to linebacker after a few games and has an awful track record developing quarterbacks for the next level. The uncertainty of a successor to Paterno weighed heavily in Pryor’s decision.
Pryor didn’t choose Penn State, Oregon or Michigan. He chose Ohio State over Michigan. I think this might be his best option. At OSU, he won’t be playing in a spread offense but that’s a good thing. Given Ohio State’s depth, he might not start right off the bat. But that’s not a bad thing either. At OSU, he will have opportunities to play right away but will not be viewed as the savior of a program as he might’ve been at Michigan. That very same depth will give him the leeway to develop, to grow into his body, to adjust to college life, classes and all the pressures of college football. He can learn to be a more complete quarterback, not just an athlete who runs and occasionally throws. But such is his perceived status that ESPN/Scouts Inc moved OSU’s 2008 recruiting class up one spot to #7 just because of this lone, late commitment.
One of the players to whom Pryor is often compared, Vince Young, didn’t grow into a great quarterback until his junior year. Choosing the program that Young beat on his way to winning a national title might someday enable Pryor to follow in Young’s footsteps.
Photo Credit: Lake Fong/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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