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 we now are into the month of July, 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.

2006 | 2007 | 2008

This is one of Ohio State’s largest classes with 25 signed and it ranks as the No. 3 class of the year. Coming off of a five-star loaded class the previous season, Ohio State had two in this class but neither Dorian Bell nor Corey ‘Pittsburgh’ Brown would go on to have five-star career with the Buckeyes with Bell transferring out and Brown seeing playing time but never quite living up to that status that was put on him with that fifth star. Guys like Corey Linsley, Carlos Hyde and John Simon would carry the NFL banner from this class, a class that had a lot of depth but also would have some notable hits and misses.

Tajh Boyd

Where to begin with this one? Ohio State was in love with Boyd. So was Oregon. So was Clemson. Ohio State, Oregon and Clemson all felt that they were going to land Boyd, as the story goes, Boyd told all three schools he was coming, but we know that it does not work that way and Clemson ended up with Boyd’s signature on National Signing Day. This was one was a bitter pill for Ohio State fans as they were first being introduced to the national brand of Clemson, and while it would not be until the Orange Bowl of 2013 that the two teams would really re-introduce themselves to one another since the ’78 Gator Bowl, this recruitment was a certain opening salvo. Ohio State would land Kenny Guiton at the last second in this class, Guiton would be known as ‘Kenny G’ and would have a few big moments of his own in the scarlet and gray, but nobody who was following recruiting 10-plus years ago is soon to forget about this one.

Ra’shede Hageman

Yes, we are back to another tight end on our list and we know as much as anyone that tight ends are not likely to put up huge numbers in the Ohio State offense but Hageman was another player to visit Ohio State during the process and under Jim Tressel, Ohio State would not spray offers around, if you had an offer, made an official visit, it was a good indication that you had a better chance than not of ending up at Ohio State. Now, losing a Minnesota player to the home-state school is not the biggest slap in the face, but it was still a loss that bothered people at the time. Ohio State would not be without in this class landing Reid Fragel but as we know, he would end up moving to the offensive line before his Ohio State career would draw to a conclusion.

Justin Turner

This is another one that would hurt at the time because of who Ohio State lost an Ohio product to, more than what Turner would end up doing in college. The nation’s No. 35 player would end up picking Michigan very early in the process, so there was no “late sting” in this one as Turner was set to end up with Michigan from the word go, but Ohio State fans were still tired of losing Ohio players to TTUN. At this point of the cycle, we are getting to the end of Michigan coming into Ohio and taking top players, so there is that.

Justin Green

Ohio State does not normally lose players to Illinois, outside of players from within the state. Justin Green was different as a player from Kentucky, Louisville to be exact who would end up passing up the Buckeyes as well as Clemson and Kentucky to sign with the Illini. Ohio State would get that first visit, which often times can be a good thing but just couldn’t close the deal here as this Rivals100 member would go on to hold some major offers from across the nation before opting to land with the Illini. Ohio State’s four-man DB class would find itself thin quickly as Dominic Clarke would leave the program, Jamie Wood would deal with injuries throughout his career and as mentioned before, Pittsburgh Brown never lived up to his ranking.