By Joe Scalzo

BOARDMAN — As he prepared for a stint on WFMJ’s high school recruiting show Wednesday night, ScoutingOhio.com’s Mark Porter picked up a DVD set that contained highlights of the top 200 players in the state for the Class of 2010.

National Signing Day wasn’t over yet but he’d already started thinking about next year.

“Tonight, we kind of put this year to bed,” Porter said. “But I’ve always got one foot in the door.

“Now I can work on next year with no regret.”

He pointed to the box set and said, “I’ve been working on these for the last few weeks. Ohio State’s recruiting coordinator told me this is the first thing they watch.”

Porter charges $1,000 for the set and schools like Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Notre Dame and West Virginia are happy to pay it.

It’s a good value for them and it helps Porter keep his site free for high school athletes.

“We never wanted to charge the kids,” said Porter, who started the site in January 2006 and has since partnered with Ohio High Magazine to create the state’s premier recruiting site. “Once we got enough kids that were Division I quality, we used that [DVD set] and advertising to fund the site.”

ScoutingOhio.com recently updated its site and now works with social networking sites such as Facebook. Athletes can upload videos themselves, which allows more players to participate.

About 5,000 athletes are expected to use the site next year.

“It’s really gonna change high school recruiting,” Porter said. “These kids are using technology they learned in the third or fourth grade to upload videos and it’s all searchable for the colleges.”

Players post their measurables (height, weight, bench press, 40-yard dash time, etc.) alongside their grade point averages, and recruiters can narrow their search to players who fit their criteria.

The site’s biggest advantage is that it creates an even playing field. In the past, athletes sometimes got overlooked if they played at a smaller school or if their high school coach wasn’t diligent about sending out film.

But the site doesn’t just serve coaches and players. A lot of the traffic comes from fans (both of the players’ high school teams and their future college programs) and from high school football junkies who like to keep track of the state’s best players.

With a couple clicks, you can see highlights of this year’s Mr. Football, Erick Howard of North Canton Hoover, or you can watch videos of 2010 Ohio State recruits Jamel Turner (Ursuline) and J.T. Moore (Boardman).

You can also see classic videos of players like Maurice Clarett and Ted Bell.

Turner and Moore are part of another talented class from the Mahoning Valley, joining guys such as Mooney’s Braylon Heard, Warren Harding’s O’Neal Brown and Mike Dorsey, Hubbard’s Andre Givens and Kurtis Drummond, and Fitch’s Jon Ballard who are getting looks from Division I programs.

“These guys haven’t even hit the weight room and the camp circuit yet and they’re already drawing a lot of interest,” Porter said. “The Valley is loaded again.”

scalzo@vindy.com