With national signing day just around the corner, defensive end Darryl Baldwin of Solon High School took some time to talk about his future at Ohio State.

“It’s pretty exciting and I’m kind of nervous,” said Baldwin, who went on to explain his reason for having any such anxiety. “It’s just that I’ll officially be a Buckeye and everything is finally done now.”

Although basketball was his first love, Baldwin earned a scholarship to Ohio State for his exploits on the gridiron as a Comet.

“I just can’t wait to start playing football again,” said Baldwin, whose football Comets were eliminated in the Regional Finals by Glenville, 28-27. “It feels like it’s been forever since I played and I just really want to play again.”

Of course excitement and anticipation go hand-in-hand with those feelings of nervousness and anxiety for Baldwin with regard to him becoming a Buckeye.

“I think once I get down there it’ll feel pretty comfortable since I’m from Ohio and I’ve been around some of these people my whole life,” Baldwin said. “And I just expect it to be absolutely crazy on game days because I’ve been down there a couple of games and every single time I go down there I can’t even hear myself talk to the person next to me. I can’t wait.”

Baldwin is certain now that he made the right decision when he officially committed to Ohio State back in July.

“It wasn’t really an easy decision,” he said, “but I just eventually thought they were the best choice and I just went with it.”

And everything was pretty much confirmed in Baldwin’s mind that he indeed made the right decision when he went on his official visit to Ohio State on the second recruiting weekend in December. Baldwin got some of the same vibes at Ohio State that he experienced during his time at Solon.

“When I went down there on my official visit I felt pretty much at home there,” said Baldwin, who was hosted by 2009 signee Melvin Fellows on his visit. “I felt really comfortable around Melvin and the rest of the players.”

According to Solon head coach Jim McQuaide, team unity and camaraderie are especially important to Baldwin.

“His classmates are as important to him as his family,” the coach said. “He really has an extreme attachment to his classmates, his senior class, the guys he’s gone through school with since middle school.”

The same guys who helped Baldwin become one of the more highly-regarded football prospects in all of Ohio for the Class of 2010.

“I think his football future is totally ahead of him,” McQuaide said. “He’s getting bigger. He’s a 6-7, 265-pound guy that’s grown in the last year. He can be a force on both sides of the ball, which he was for us, and now it’s up to Coach Tressel, and they know what they’re doing, to decide where he’s going to play at Ohio State. I think he’s on the verge of having a great career there.”

Although some people think he could become a good tight end or even offensive tackle at the next level , Baldwin is likely to play his entire career on the defensive side of the ball at Ohio State.

“He really likes playing defense and for someone his size he runs very well,” McQuaide said. “So when he’s playing defensive end and he’s an edge rusher, someone that size who is able to run, with his athletic ability makes him very dangerous out there.”

Because of his rather imposing size, Baldwin is probably a bit underrated as far as his athletic ability is concerned.

“He’s a very skilled athlete,” McQuaide said. “His ball skills are outstanding. He catches the ball very well. And he’ll be a three-year starter on the basketball team and I think that has helped him a great deal. He can catch the ball, he can run with the ball, but he wants to be a defensive end in college.

“A lot of people have also talked to him about being a tight end in college but he’s going to do whatever Coach Tressel and the staff at Ohio State asks him to do. But he has that ability where he was productive on both sides of the ball with the athletic skills that he has.”

As a senior, Baldwin tallied 63 tackles, including 25 tackles-for-loss, and had one fumble recovery on defense. He also had seven catches for 142 yards and two touchdowns on offense.

The defensive end situation at Ohio State is in a state of flux. The Buckeyes lost one starter (Thaddeus Gibson) early to the NFL and will lose the other (Cameron Heyward) after the upcoming season. Baldwin clearly envisions himself solely as a defensive player at this time.

“Right now I see myself always as a defensive player,” he said. “I haven’t thought about playing offense there at all. But maybe it could be a possibility.”

McQuaide certainly thinks Baldwin can be a tremendous defensive player at the next level if that’s the role he ends up playing throughout his years at Ohio State.

“He was a very good defensive player for us,” the coach said. “His ability to run when the ball is away from him is outstanding. You could scheme to run the ball away from him for sure because he’s playing on one side of the ball, unlike a Mike linebacker in the middle. But his ability to run and run people down and rush the passer, those are skills that a lot of guys don’t have. Especially someone that big.

“And when he’s rushing the passer and his arms are up on the edge there, I couldn’t see anything standing behind our quarterbacks in practice. That presence is really unique for someone that big.”

Size has always been a part of the equation with Baldwin and it has served him well in both sports during his athletic career.

“He’s always been a tall guy. He was a tall guy in middle school. He wasn’t real aggressive but he was a taller guy,” McQuaide said. “He’s been a bigger guy throughout his career which has helped him adjust to his size.

“It wasn’t like he just, over a year or over a summer, grew three or four inches. He kind of grew into his size throughout his career and it was a little easier adjusting to that which I think has helped him because his skill level is very high for someone as big as he is.”

And Baldwin’s toughness is just as prodigious as both his size and skill level.

“He sprained his ankle in our first playoff game against Euclid and our doctor, our doctor is a team doctor for the Browns, after the game when he sprained his ankle in the first half and he was not able to play in the second half of the game, our doctor said, ‘Coach I don’t really see any way that he’s going to play in the next game.’ It was as bad an ankle sprain as I’ve seen,” McQuaide said.

“But whenever you asked him about it that whole week all he ever said was, ‘It’s getting better.’ He never once said it was bad or it hurt or anything like that. And he worked as hard as any guy I’ve been around to come back. And he played very well against Mayfield, which we won, and then we played Glenville in the regional final. So his toughness and his heart, that’s just a perfect example of his commitment to his teammates and his class and his school.”

But football is definitely his sport going forward and he uses some of his gridiron ability to his advantage on the hardwood.

“I’m a pretty physical player,” Baldwin said. “(Basketball) is not really a huge part of my life now anymore but I still like it. Basketball is my first love and then I just grew into loving football.”

And he’s still growing into his personality as well. All of the attention hasn’t changed him a bit as far as his laid-back personality is concerned.

“He’s a real quiet guy. He’s not a talker. He’s a quiet guy,” McQuaide said. “But when he knows you and he’s a part of the group then you definitely know that he’s a part of the group. He’s done a phenomenal job for us and we’re very proud of him. We’re going to miss him, there’s no doubt about it, but we’re also looking forward to following his career at Ohio State and hopefully beyond that.”

Those are not just hollow words coming from McQuaide either. He coached a young guy named Rodney Bailey who was a captain for St. Edward, a captain at Ohio State and he played in the NFL for seven years. Bailey played for Pittsburgh, New England, Seattle and Arizona and he has a Super Bowl ring. Bailey came to Solon last spring and spent some time with Baldwin and the entire Comet football team.

“They’re very similar personality-wise. Those two guys are very, very similar personality wise,” McQuaide said. “They’re very good people, down to earth, genuinely nice guys. Guys that you would be proud of if they were never football players, on how they act and how they treat people in school and outside of school. There are a lot of similarities between Darryl and Rodney.

“The biggest difference is that Darryl is about three inches taller than Rodney is. But Rodney’s done it. He was a captain at Ohio State and he was an NFL player for seven years. So Darryl’s got a lot to do. But they know each other and they’ve talked and been together at times.”

Baldwin shared some of the wisdom that Bailey gave to him during the recruiting process.

“He gave me good advice like don’t ever feel pressured by what people say or anything,” Baldwin said. “And it’s my decision and it’s up to me.”

Bailey came across as an all-around good guy and mentor for Baldwin.

“I felt like I could ask him about anything and he would know since he’s already been through everything,” Baldwin said. “I felt like I could go to him for anything.”

McQuaide noted the main physical similarities and differences between the two from his perspective.

“Rodney had a very high motor, it was always running, and Darryl is the same way,” the coach said. “But they’re a little different body types so they played a little differently. Rodney was more of a plugger inside and then he even got moved inside some when he was in the NFL, playing inside as well as defensive end, too.”

There obviously is a lot of mutual respect between Baldwin and McQuaide.

“Playing for Coach McQuaide, he like really cares about his players,” Baldwin said. “So it was nice having somebody just like me (Bailey) going through it with Coach McQuaide like I did.”

Baldwin can see himself developing a similar kinship with Jim Tressel at Ohio State.

“I’ve heard great things about Coach Tressel and I’ve seen them actually as well,” he said. “So it’s just going to be great.”

And he looks forward to having a similar overall experience with his new teammates at Ohio State that he’s had at Solon.

“I believe it can be,” said Baldwin who is slated to play in the Ohio’s North-South All-Star Game before he enrolls at Ohio State. “Talking to Coach Tressel it seems like they’re together all the time and it just seems like it’s not going to be any different than these last three years (on the varsity) have been.”

But Baldwin will always be a Comet.

“I love being a Solon Comet,” he said. “I just feel like we had the best coaching staff ever. We’re all just a huge family. None of us ever wanted to leave when practice was over and we just always wanted to stay together. It’s just been an amazing experience the past four years at Solon.”

McQuaide obviously has high expectations for Baldwin at Ohio State.

“I think his future is totally ahead of him,” the coach said. “When he gets on the program down there, the strength program - he’s on the basketball team, the track team, he’s a 3.6 (3.55 GPA) student, he does a ton of things at Solon High School – and he can concentrate on one thing, just his academics and his football career, I think his future is just unlimited.”

According to McQuaide, Baldwin is at least as good, on the gridiron, if not better than any other player he’s ever coached at the high school level.

“I think there are about seven guys that I have coached that have played in the NFL and he’s the biggest (physically) by far. It’s not even close,” he said. “So with the God-given size, he has it over a lot of other guys that I’ve been around that have made it. But like we told him all along you have to play for Solon first before you can play somewhere in college and he did that to a fantastic level. And now I think he’ll do the same thing for Ohio State. He’s going to work his tail off for Ohio State and not think of doing anything else, before he does what he’s suppose to do at Ohio State.”

It’s pretty safe to say that McQuaide thinks Baldwin, who plans to become an engineer, is destined to become a great Buckeye.

“He’s all in. He’s a Buckeye,” McQuaide said. “He was 100 percent Comet and he’s going to be 100 percent Buckeye. It’s all about what he can right then and there to make Ohio State better. He put every ounce of his effort into the Solon Comets and he’ll do the same thing for the Ohio State Buckeyes when he’s there. He’ll be a great teammate and a great representative of the school and program.”

The Darryl Baldwin File

* School: Solon, Ohio

* Height, Weight: 6-7, 265

* 40-Yard Time: 4.7

* Vital Statistics: As a senior, Baldwin was a third-team All-Ohio selection in Division I. He had 63 tackles with 25 tackles-for-loss on defense and had seven catches for 142 yards and two touchdowns on offense. Baldwin played both defensive end and tight end during his junior season. He had seven sacks, caught eight passes and scored three times. He has been selected for the Ohio All-Star Classic April 23 at Ohio Stadium.

* Rankings: He is rated as the No. 5 overall senior prospect in Ohio, according to Ohio High magazine/JJHuddle.com. Also rated as the No. 5 overall prospect in the state, according to The Ohio Football Recruiting News. Baldwin is rated as a national top-150 prospect by ESPN Scouts Inc. That site ranks him as the nation’s No. 131 prospect overall and also as the nation’s 13th-best defensive end. SuperPrep considers Baldwin as an All-American, ranking him as the 19th-best prospect in the Midwest and the nation’s No. 46 defensive end.

* College Choices: Baldwin verbaled to Ohio State on July 19, picking the Buckeyes over Michigan State, Notre Dame, Illinois, Michigan and Michigan State.

* Academics: Holds a 3.4 GPA and scored a 25 on the ACT.