Center Grove senior Caden Curry (91) celebrates a touchdown during his team’s Class 6A state championship win. On Tuesday, Curry verbally committed to play college football at Ohio State beginning in January.
Caden Curry would like to play in the National Football League someday.
Ohio State football happens to have a strong track record with sending defensive linemen to the NFL in recent years — and that pipeline proved too much for Curry to pass up.
The Center Grove senior, one of the most sought-after recruits in the country, verbally committed to Ohio State in a nationally televised announcement on Tuesday afternoon. He chose the Buckeyes over Indiana University and Alabama.
Curry said that he knew the Buckeyes were the right fit after attending their home game against Penn State on Oct. 30, a wild nighttime affair that saw OSU pull out a 33-24 victory.
“I felt like I finally fell in love with the place,” Curry said of that weekend. “Just seeing all the fans out there kind of set it all in for me.”
The atmosphere certainly helped matters, but perhaps more importantly, Ohio State provided Curry with an opportunity to play at a school that has been churning out pro defensive ends with alarming regularity of late. Several of the NFL’s top young pass rushers, including Nick Bosa, Joey Bosa, Sam Hubbard and Dre’Mont Jones, all came through the program under the tutelage of OSU defensive line coach Larry Johnson.
“I felt from the get-go that Caden felt really comfortable with them,” Center Grove coach Eric Moore said of Johnson and OSU head coach Ryan Day. “I could just feel it in his home visits and stuff, how they interacted.
“Larry Johnson’s hard to say no to, when you’re probably the best defensive line coach in the history of college football.”
Curry will graduate from Center Grove at the end of next week. He’s set to travel to San Antonio for the All-American Bowl during the first week of January, then head off to Columbus for the spring semester.
A four-year starter on the defensive line for the Trojans, Curry finished his career with 290 tackles and 28 quarterback sacks. He is the school’s all-time leader in tackles for loss with 83.5.
Though he says he’ll miss being able to play baseball for the Trojans this spring — he was an All-County player last season — Curry is eager to immerse himself in football and try to work himself onto the Buckeyes’ depth chart as soon as possible.
The 6-foot-5, 245-pounder is, however, also realistic about the situation he’s heading into.
“I’m not going to have high expectations,” Curry said. “I know I’m going into a big program, and I know I’m going to have to work really hard. Just try to show up, show out in spring ball, and just keep lifting, get bigger and get as big as I can.”
