Recruiting fans always will remember the players that their favorite team landed but will also remember the ones who got away, sometimes even more vividly than team successes.
No matter how good the recruiter is, be it Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer or Ryan Day, there are going to be kids who get away, or at least it appears that they got away.
But with only one signing period for much of the run of this series (the first year of the December signing period went into place for the class of 2018), how do you really say that you “had someone” who may or may not have given you a verbal commitment.
It got us to thinking about some of the names out there that still bother fans, the ones who flipped, the ones who never answered the call and ultimately ended up somewhere else.
As the month of July draws close, let’s take a walk down memory lane and talk about a few of these names from the class of 2006 through the class of 2018. The jury is still out on classes from 2019 and beyond and my first year with the site was 2006, so that seems to be a good starting point.
Setting the scene
The Buckeyes pulled in the No. 12 class in the nation according to Rivals.com with a 20-man class. The top players in this class would be a pair of five-stars with running back Chris ‘Beanie’ Wells and defensive end Robert Rose. Neither of them would go on to have the biggest NFL career however, that honor would go to Kurt Coleman who would stick around the league for a decade.
More than a dozen players from this class would see extended playing time during their Ohio State careers, some would be famous for just as much off-the-field action as on it and as with any class, some players would not have their number called and would end up just fading away.
If only…
Navorro Bowman
The Buckeyes would lose the battle but win the war on this one as Bowman would end up at Penn State, recruited by none other than Larry Johnson. Ohio State now has Larry Johnson on staff and is winning plenty of battles in the DMV (D.C., Maryland, Virginia) area and recruits, from coast-to-coast recognize Johnson as one of the best positional coaches in the entire game.
Ohio State, Virginia Tech and Penn State received the three official visits on this one and while it never really seemed as if the Buckeyes were in a dominating position to land Bowman, it was still disappointing, not landing a R250 caliber linebacker, worst of all, to a conference rival.
Bowman would tally 215 career tackles in three years with Penn State, eight sacks and three interceptions. He would go on to an eight-year NFL career after his playing days at Penn State were completed.
Justin Boren
Okay, this one got away, but only for a moment. The Rivals100 offensive lineman was from Pickerington (Ohio) and made his way to his father’s alma mater of Michigan. It was a big loss in terms of losing a major in-state, and in-area, prospect to the biggest rival, and really not even getting a sniff with him.
Things changed of course, Boren ended up transferring to Ohio State after the departure of Lloyd Carr and hiring of Rich Rodriguez in Ann Arbor (Mich.). There was no one-time transfer rule at this point, Boren had to sit a year and could not be on scholarship, but that did not matter as he came home and that led to the eventual commitments of younger brothers Zach and Jacoby. The eldest Boren would go on to be named All-B1G twice during his Ohio State career.
Demetrius Jones
Ohio State never received a visit from the Rivals100 quarterback out of Chicago Morgan Park high school, but the Buckeyes were quite infatuated with the 6-foot-3, 192-pounder who ended up committing to Notre Dame. Ohio State’s missing out here led to the late visit and commitment of quarterback Antonio Henton, a player who was known more for an off-field incident just off campus more than his brief playing career with the Buckeyes. Ohio State only had three QB offers that were known in the class of 2006, and in a year that saw quarterbacks like Matthew Stafford, Mitch Mustain, Tim Tebow, Jake Locker and Isiah Williams all in the Rivals100, you just have to wonder why a wider net was not cast that year.
