Ohio State Football Recruiting: Urban Meyer Must Dominate Recruiting in Ohio

The state of Ohio is easily one the very best when it comes to high school football. Year in and year out, the Buckeye State produces top-tier talent at an enormous rate and fills out countless college programs' depth charts. In fact, between Ohio State and Michigan's nine combined Heisman Trophy winners, only two of them didn't play high school ball in Ohio. There is a reason why recruiting in Ohio is so fierce and competitive.

Coaches in the Big Ten understand the talent that lies in the Buckeye State and rely on prospects from this state to help fill out their depth charts and win ballgames. Each year the top talent in Ohio is recruited tenaciously by the Big Ten programs. However, the state of Ohio isn't a secret only known by the Big Ten, considering top prospects like Cam Burrows were extremely interested in SEC powers like LSU and Alabama (per Rivals).

Ohio State has lived and died by the high school talent in their state and in order to win national championships, Urban Meyer must dominate his home state.

Throughout his tenure, Jim Tressel did a superb job of putting a recruiting fence around Ohio as he reeled in top prospects from the state each year. So far, Meyer has also done an excellent job recruiting in the Buckeye State but this has to continue and Meyer is well aware of this.

With the exception of Everett Withers and Bill Sheridan, the rest of Meyer's coaching staff are all Ohio natives and this is not by accident. Meyer purposely searched for coaches with backgrounds in the state of Ohio because he understands how vital recruiting in his home state is to the success of the program. He wanted his staff to know the ins and outs of Ohio and its high school programs.

Since Meyer's hiring in November, Ohio State has landed three top prospects from the Buckeye State in the 2012 class and one in the 2013 class. Along with these commits, he has been able to maintain wavering recruits like De'van Bogard and Bri'onte Dunn, both Ohio natives. While this is a solid start, Meyer must continue this success.

The new head coach in Columbus has been steadfastly working on other Ohio recruits like Kyle Dodson, Bam Bradley and Jalin Marshall and it will be interesting to see how Meyer fares with these prospects. Dodson plans to announce his decision on national signing day and Jalin Marshall of the 2013 class will make his choice on January 31.

With these first two classes, Meyer must set the tone for recruiting in Ohio so keep a close eye on prospects like Dodson, Marshall and Bradley.

Recruiting in other ares of the nation is extremely important of course, but dominating Ohio must be Meyer's absolute first priority. If he is able to execute this, great things will be coming to Columbus.