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WR Ellijah Gardiner (Official Thread)

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Welcome to the Buckeye Family, Elijah!!

Def still stings not to have that killer slot that we desperately needed in this class, but impressed with this kid. High fiving Kevin Wilson for this one, as IU was in on Elijah, and had to be the one that gave our staff the heads-up on him
 
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Buckeye Football Notebook: 'There was no deception, no hiding'

They ended up in Kemp, Texas, where Elijah Gardiner would soon offer up his verbal commitment to the Buckeyes. How important was it to land one final receiver in the 2017 class?

"We felt it was fairly important, obviously, to do the search that we did," Pantoni said. "We play a lot of receivers, as you guys know, so we wanted to be able to have the depth and practice to be able to practice and give these guys the rest that they need in between practice reps. We thought it was very important. So to bring a guy in who we know may be a little bit developmental, but who is a big, strong, fast guy to give us some depth at that position here for the future, like a guy like Bin Victor did last year. We knew he was a guy who needed to be developed, but he came on a lot faster than we thought."

Gardiner was one of three receivers the Buckeyes signed in 2017 that stand at least 6-foot-4, which would make you think Urban Meyer and his coaching staff were targeting taller pass catchers this time around.

According to Meyer, however, that's not really how things happened.

"I don't know that," he said. "I know we go out and try -- it's the top 15 receivers in America, and you don't say, 'But they have to be 6-3' because that also limits your pool. And all of a sudden out of the top tall receivers in the country, six are from California, one from Arizona, two from Texas, that's not in our backyard. It happens Jaylen Harris, we had one in Cleveland, Ohio. Trevon Grimes, that's kind of now one of our schools that we have a very close relationship with, and it just worked out very well.

"The young man in Texas was just simply our staff found him, we loved him when we met him, we watched him. So it wasn't -- it's not a philosophical shift. I think that's what people are asking. Not at all.

"Next year we're going to go try to find the biggest, fastest receiver we can and hopefully we can get involved with him. Unfortunately, even next year they're not real close to here."

Entire article: http://theozone.net/Ohio-State/Foot...all-Notebook-There-was-no-deception-no-hiding
 
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Buckeye Football Freshman Focus: Wide Receiver Ellijah Gardiner

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Ellijah Gardiner wasn’t supposed to be an Ohio State Buckeye, Tyjon Lindsey was. Lindsey, a 4-star speedster out of Las Vegas, committed to Ohio State in August, but waited until January to decommit and head to Nebraska. This left the Buckeye football program scrambling for another wide receiver to fill out their class.

Urban Meyer’s staff went through (virtual) stacks of tapes looking for someone to fill Lindsey’s vacated spot. They landed upon Ellijah Gardiner, who was committed to Missouri at the time.

“What happens is you lose a couple guys to the NFL Draft, maybe have a decommitment, maybe have a guy that’s going to transfer, that’s got some stuff going on and you put the APB out,” Meyer explained on signing day. “And we have a recruiting staff that keeps a file of players available for us, because you can’t watch 60 receivers until all of a sudden something — we’re getting ready to play bowl games and all this, boom, we start hearing there is a transition maybe to the NFL. And we have a staff put together things and they said, okay, here’s the top 10 guys. We go evaluate them. I get on a plane, we go see them and that’s what happens, and it’s fast.”

Gardiner (6-4 200) is from Kemp, Texas, which is about 45 minutes southeast of Dallas, and about 15 minutes northwest of Gun Barrel City. Kemp has a population of around 1,200, so it’s easy to see why Gardiner may have been a bit under the radar.

A 3-star prospect, Gardiner was rated the No. 115 receiver in the nation per the 247Sports Composite.

So Meyer made the trip out to Kemp and the staff liked him even more after meeting him.

“That’s a guy that after I really studied him and our staff really studied him and got to meet him and spend time with him, look what he’s going to be like, that’s a project type body, but big and fast,” Meyer said. “If you miss on a player, make sure you miss fast and miss big, and they usually turn into something. But once you get to know him and his family and find out he’s a tough guy, very impressed with him.”

Entire article: http://theozone.net/2017/07/buckeye-football-focus-ellijah-gardiner/
 
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THIRD-YEAR RESET: ELLIJAH GARDINER BATTLING TOUGH COMPETITION ON OHIO STATE'S WIDE RECEIVER DEPTH CHART

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Ohio State’s recruiting class of 2017 is entering a pivotal season.

Those Buckeyes are entering their third season in Columbus, which means they’re expected to be ready to play significant roles for Ohio State if they haven’t already. Each of them now have two years as Ohio State players under their belts, and by the end of the upcoming season, all of them will be on the back end of their careers while some of them will have decisions to make about whether it’s time to go to the NFL.

With that in mind, Eleven Warriors is taking an individual look this offseason at each of Ohio State’s third-year scholarship players – in descending order of their 247Sports composite recruiting rankings – and the expectations that preceded their Ohio State careers, how they have performed in their first two seasons as Buckeyes and the outlook for the remainder of their careers.

In the final position player installment in the Third-Year Reset, we take a look at Ellijah Gardiner, who is still looking to earn his first significant playing time in Ohio State’s wide receiver rotation – a challenge that might not get any easier with the talent the Buckeyes currently have at the position and will soon have coming in.

BEFORE HE BECAME A BUCKEYE
Gardiner played a wide variety of positions at Kemp High School in the small city of Kemp, Texas, including quarterback and cornerback, but played primarily at wide receiver for his final two seasons with the Yellowjackets, earning all-district honors as a senior.

He was a three-sport star at Kemp, also standing out on the basketball court and in track and field, where he set the school record in the triple jump (44 feet, 9 inches) and also posted top marks of 22.6 seconds in the 200-meter dash, 49.8 seconds in the 400-meter dash and 22 feet, 11.5 inches in the long jump.

A late bloomer in the recruiting process, Gardiner did not have any offers from Football Bowl Subdivision schools entering his senior year. He originally committed to Missouri in November 2016, just weeks after receiving an offer from the Tigers.

Ohio State made a late pursuit of Gardiner, however, after Tyjon Lindsey decommitted from the Buckeyes in January 2017, just weeks before National Signing Day. After making an official visit to Ohio State on the weekend before National Signing Day, Gardiner announced his commitment to the Buckeyes on January 30 and signed with them just two days later.

He became one of five prospects from Texas in Ohio State’s recruiting class of 2017, along with Jeffrey Okudah, Baron Browning, J.K. Dobbins and Kendall Sheffield.

Ranked as the No. 796 overall prospect in the class, Gardiner was the only prospect ranked outside the top 300 among the 20 scholarship position players in Ohio State’s recruiting class of 2017.

Despite his low ranking, Ohio State decided to take a chance on Gardiner because of his 6-foot-4 frame and his athleticism.

“After I really studied him and our staff really studied him and got to meet him and spend time with him, look what he's going to be like, that's a project-type body, but big and fast,” former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer said. “Kind of if you miss on a player, make sure you miss fast and miss big, and they usually turn into something.”

Entire article: https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio...tion-on-ohio-states-wide-receiver-depth-chart
 
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