Elyria junior Chase Farris must have felt like he was drowning in a sea of scholarship offers over the past few weeks. But instead of testing the waters, the defensive end decided to orally commit to Ohio State.

“I started off with my first offer from Duke,” said Farris, who confirmed his decision Wednesday. “About two weeks later I got one from Indiana, and the same day I got one from Buffalo. My fourth one was Toledo, and after that I waited about three weeks with no offers.

“Then that fourth week came and so did Ohio State, then Michigan State and they just started flooding in. For like two weeks I got an offer every day. It was overwhelming and I felt like I was the big man on campus for once.”

Farris is the big man on Elyria’s campus.

With still a year-plus to grow, the 6-foot-6, 265-pound lineman was pulled from under the radar and into the spotlight. As of Wednesday, he had 23 offers from Division I programs — including Notre Dame, Michigan, Boston College and California — but chose the Buckeyes after a visit to the campus two weeks ago.

“It was good,” he said. “They showed me the dorms and the buildings where I’d be attending classes — because I’d be attending school for business. I got to tour the Woody Hayes Center.”

The football team’s training facility is impressive. Built two years ago, the Woody Hayes Center sports the latest and greatest in training equipment, a full-wall display — complete with a countdown clock — detailing the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry and another wall display with all 32 NFL helmets and a list of the Ohio State players who went on to play for each team.

“That’s really impressive,” Farris said. “Everyone wants to get through college, get their degree and then go to the NFL. (The Buckeyes) have put plenty of people into the NFL. I don’t think you can get any better than that.”

Farris is a versatile athlete with a great mixture of strength and speed — he benches over 300 pounds and runs the 40-yard dash in 4.9 seconds. Ohio State recruited him as a defensive end, although it may want him to add some weight and move inside to defensive tackle.

“He looks like he has a tremendous amount of versatility, he looks really good off the edge and has good speed to get outside,” said Kevin Noon, publisher of BuckeyeGrove.com and a regular contributor for Rivals.com. “But he also looks like he has a frame that if you hang a little more weight on him he can move inside and have the strength to bull rush his way through.

“He’s got very solid speed, but he has quickness as well. Straight-line speed is one thing, but he has the quickness and instincts on the line to be able to see ball, get ball.”

The need to move Farris into the interior of the defensive line could happen, because the Buckeyes already have three defensive ends listed among their 2011 recruiting class and Farris is the biggest of the three. The others are Canton McKinley’s Steve Miller (6-4, 205 pounds) and Toledo Whitmer’s Kenny Hayes (6-5, 240).

Pioneers coach Steve Hamilton already planned on giving Farris looks at both positions next season.
“He’s going to be playing our defensive end position because we’re going to be doing a little bit of multiple fronts in a 3-4, and he’s going to be that defensive end with the long arms that gets in on that pass rush,” Hamilton said. “We might use him as a three-technique tackle, too.

“On offense, he’s probably going to be our left tackle with Isaiah Byler (who will play at Bowling Green next year) graduated.”

Ohio State football scholarships to Lorain County athletes have not been a common occurrence. The last went to Avon Lake resident and St. Ignatius standout Anthony Gonzalez — now with the Indianapolis Colts — and the one before went to Avon Lake High’s Mike D’Andrea.

The Buckeyes also recruited Elyria West’s Steve Tovar and Elyria Catholic’s Matt Wilhelm, but the last Elyria High athlete to receive a football scholarship was John Husband in 1970. Pioneer Brett Daly started his recent Buckeye career as a walk-on.

Farris said it’s nice to be part of an elite group of Elyria High athletes, which also includes Jack Marsh and Heisman Trophy winner Vic Janowicz, to earn scholarships from Ohio State.

“It’s very gratifying for me because we’ve done a lot of work as a staff, taking these kids to camps and getting them out there and getting their names noticed,” Hamilton said. “It’s starting to pay off because every year we’ve had a scholarship player, and this year we had three. Getting an offer from Ohio State is not only outstanding for Chase, it’s great for our program.”

With all the attention he received from so many top-tier programs, Farris admits it wasn’t easy making a decision so quickly.

“I didn’t want to commit right away, but I also didn’t want to wait and wait and wait … and then they go offer someone else and my spot is gone,” he said. “It ultimately comes down to trust. If you can trust the coaches, then you really should give them that commitment.”

Contact Shaun Bennett at 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com.

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