COLUMBUS — When the majority of college football's elite programs were hosting recruiting BBQs full of cornhole and horseshoes, Ohio State was thinking about its first game in the Horseshoe.
It was a calculated decision for the Buckeyes.
Recruiting is, even in the new world of Name, Image and Likeness influence, still primarily about relationships. Ohio State tends to avoid these huge game-weekend parties on the recruiting trail because the Buckeyes coaches are busy trying to win a big game. This year, with a handful of key matchups taking place at Ohio Stadium, the perspective has been forced to shift a bit.
If the atmosphere at Ohio State during a big game can help in recruiting at all, there's not going to be a better example of that than this Saturday night. Not every recruit will get a ton of attention from the Buckeyes coaches, but it's something that Ryan Day has tried to prepare recruits and their parents for.
Every visit has a different vibe. This weekend? The vibe is 105,000 fans inside the stadium and another 200,000 outside it serving as the center of the sports universe.
"I say all the time," Ryan Day said during a Tuesday press conference. "Every time you come to visit, it's a different experience. This one is about watching the atmosphere and watching the game at Ohio State."
This weekend the Buckeyes are counting on fans to do the recruiting work that the coaches won't get to. That's what makes these visits -- and it's looking like Ohio State will host close to 75 prospects and their families -- different. Day and his staff go out of their way to connect personally with recruits during offseason visits, and that's just not possible this time around.
"You know when they come in in the spring or the winter, we get to spend more one-on-one time," Day said. "That's typically the focus but this [weekend] focus is about seeing the environment, watching the atmosphere and then visualizing yourself on the field playing for the Buckeyes."
Prioritizing game preparations and last-minute Notre Dame scheming should be a bigger focus for Ohio State than dealing with recruits. That said, it's not a particularly good strategy for landing the best players. Everyone wants to get loved on by the coaches they travel across the country to see. Knowing this game against the Fighting Irish was a night game played a role in the decision to go crazy this weekend rather than hosting the late-summer recruiting bonanza. Day and his staff know that there's a lot of hoops being jumped through to get to Central Ohio from who-knows-where, USA.
"We have a great recruiting staff that's going to do everything they can to make sure they put on a great show and be great hosts for our recruits," Day said. "But time will be limited.
"Maybe after the game on Sunday, then we'll have some time to catch up. But we got to focus on Notre Dame. We have a lot of people flying in from different parts of the country that play on Friday night, and they're able to come in on Saturday because it's a night game. So this is unique in that way. We do have big numbers."
Beyond winning the football game, a successful recruiting weekend isn't easily defined. It's not about commitments, though that helps. It's about balancing relationships with a big season-opening win.
The energy around Ohio Stadium has to be electric and the fans have to be louder than they've ever been in Columbus. The Buckeyes defense has to turn heads to show Ryan Day has fixed that issue.
Everything Ohio State has done on the recruiting front since July has been leading up to this weekend. We're a couple of days away from knowing whether or not it paid off.
