COLUMBUS – The phone calls just kept coming.
As Huber Heights Wayne went deeper in to the state football playoffs in 2014, every coach who had competed against the Warriors seemed to get on the phone and tell Ohio State’s coaches they should look at defensive lineman Robert Landers.
Landers wasn’t a highly recruited player and was rated a 3-star prospect by the scouting services. At 6-foot, 1-inch and 285 pounds, he didn’t fit the profile of a defensive lineman at the highest level of college football.
Too short, the experts said. There might be some issues with grades, others whispered.
But, either on his own or because of those calls from high school coaches, OSU co-defensive coordinator Luke Fickell decided to take a look at Landers. He liked what he saw and told coach Urban Meyer the Buckeyes should offer him a scholarship.
Landers had already committed to West Virginia, the only high-profile school to offer him a scholarship. But a few days after getting the OSU offer, he changed course and committed to the Buckeyes.
The coach most responsible for getting him to Ohio State, though, was defensive line coach Larry Johnson.
“Coach Johnson really made me gravitate towards him just from the simple fact that he’s a real guy. When we first met we didn’t talk football at all. We talked about me, we talked about him. We didn’t talk football at all my whole recruiting process,” Landers said.
“One thing that really got me was he was consistent. He stayed true to who he was. He’s a God-fearing man, he doesn’t cuss, he doesn’t drink. You don’t really find too many college coaches who will not cuss you out. The fact that he is true to who he is and he sticks to his morals. He’s not going to yell at you, but he hits you with the ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.’ That hurts way more.”
After redshirting last season, Landers has played a bigger role than expected this fall after starting defensive lineman Tracy Sprinkle was lost for the season in the opener against Bowling Green. As part of the rotation on the defensive line he has played in every game and has 7.5 tackles for losses, fourth on the team behind Tyquan Lewis, Jerome Baker and Jalyn Holmes.
“Going into this season my expectations for myself were to contribute to the team the best that I can and somehow become a factor to make the game easier for the team as a whole. I didn’t really expect to have the season that I’ve had, but I’m blessed to have it and I try to take full advantage of it,” Landers said.
Landers, whose brother Trey is a freshman on the University of Dayton’s men’s basketball team, said he likes being viewed as an underdog or as an unconventional player for a defensive lineman.
“It plays to my advantage at times. Being the underdog, in my opinion, is probably the best position to be in because people do kind of overlook you. I’ve felt that at times when I’ve been overlooked it’s allowed me to focus onto my skill set and produce to my best ability,” he said.
While coaches have stopped saying Landers is too short, he says he still hears it from opposing players.
“They’ll say, ‘You’re a little too short,’ or ‘You might want to go back to the sidelines, little dude.’ I just smile at them and think, ‘I got you, we’ll see how this goes,’ ” he said.
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