Before the Buckeyes begin their June slate in Columbus, they spend Friday night at Rutgers in Piscataway, N.J., with Ohio State among 60-plus schools set to work for the Scarlet Knights’ East Coast Elite football camp.
The event at HighPoint.com Stadium and the Marco Battaglia Practice Complex includes OSU with Army, Buffalo, Coastal Carolina, Connecticut, Kent State, Massachusetts, Northern Illinois, Temple and Western Michigan as RU’s guests from the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) level.
Ohio State’s coaching staff will reportedly at least include co-defensive coordinator/secondary coach Jeff Hafley and special teams coordinator/assistant secondary coach Matt Barnes in attendance.
The Buckeyes’ decision to work with Rutgers marks the third summer in four years that the two Big Ten East programs have done so on the camp circuit, leading to recruiting advantages in scouting prospects from the Garden State and northeast region.
Former head coach Urban Meyer (2012-18) and Scarlet Knights head coach Chris Ash, who worked as OSU’s co-defensive coordinator/safeties coach for the 2014 and ’15 seasons, collaborated on camps in 2016 and ’18.
The first came June 8, 2016, when Meyer and Ash countered Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh’s event at Paramus (N.J.) Catholic with one roughly 30 miles south at Fairleigh Dickinson-Madison.
The Buckeyes combined forces with RU again June 1, 2018, with Meyer and most of the coaching staff on campus in New Jersey for Ash’s East Coast Elite camp.
After a two-day youth camp June 3-4 at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center in which OSU returns to Columbus and mentors students entering grades five through eight, head coach Ryan Day and the coaching staff host high schoolers for four events over the rest of the month.
Ohio State’s camps span June 6 (big man/skill), 12-13 (fundamental), 15 (one-day position) and 17 (7 on 7).
The Buckeyes previously held three one-day position camps in 2018, making the overnight fundamental event and the 7-on-7 tournament new additions to the slate.
Friday Night Lights, which annually takes place each June inside Ohio Stadium but last year moved to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center because of weather concerns, has not yet been announced.
