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 are now 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.
It is time to move into the Urban Meyer-era and while the 2012 season was a transitional one as he inherited a class that was started by Jim Tressel, added on to by Luke Fickell and then it was up to Meyer to close the deal with many top kids. There were plenty of hits in this class, but you have to wonder what a full-year would have meant for this class.
Setting the scene
Even with all the change, it still ended up being a 25-man class, No., 4 in the nation with a pair of five-stars on the defensive line to top things out with Adolphus Washington and Noah Spence. We are now well within the window of players who meant a lot towards the national championship team of 2014. As expected with a first class, the attrition was pretty high with this group, some players disappearing quickly, others taking a little more time and even one player medically retiring, only to show up again at Michigan State as a member of their football team (Frank Epitropoulos). Hindsight will show a lot of misses with many in this group, but it is just part of the game as a team was welcoming its third coach in as many years and recruiting being such a relationship business, something that Meyer had to make up in a hurry.
If only…
Stefon Diggs
This is a scary thought, what Urban Meyer may have been able to do with Diggs in the offense. Granted, he was also coming out of a year where he called the receivers output a “clown show” as 14 receptions was good to lead the team and the Ohio State passing game only had 1,651 yards of offense and just 18 touchdowns over 13 games. Sure, things were going to be different under Meyer and they were, but was that too much for Diggs to overcome to spurn the hometown team and head to Ohio State? This whole recruitment is largely forgotten by many, as the Meyer hire took all of the oxygen out of the room, but going back and looking at classes and how they shaped up, could the rebuilding of the Ohio State offense moved quicker with Diggs in the fold? We will never know.
Kyle Kalis
Kalis committed to the Buckeyes when Jim Tressel was the head coach but the turmoil that followed drove the Ohioan away from the Buckeyes and into the arms of their biggest rival, that team up north. Once Kalis got entrenched with the Wolverines, he promised that “There will be blood on the field” but it would end up being from the Maize and Blue as Michigan would go 0-5 against the Buckeyes over the course of Kalis’ career. Ohio State would sign five offensive linemen from that class with Pat Elflein and Taylor Decker both going on to successful NFL careers while Jacoby Boren celebrated many victories over his fathers’ alma mater. Joey O’Connor and Kyle Dodson would end up with shorter Ohio State careers. The thing to remember is, what does the addition (or keeping) of Kalis mean as Ohio State got involved late with someone like Decker? Sometimes things work out for a reason.
Dwayne Stanford
Ohio State went into Cincinnati Taft high school and landed Adolphus Washington but there were two high-major prospects there, with receiver Dwayne Stanford there for the taking. Stanford was different than most of the receivers on the roster, checking in at 6-foot-5, 185-pounds and Ohio State was certainly interested, with the tall receiver taking a visit to Ohio State in late October, along with Washington. The Oregon Ducks were able to swoop in however and lure the receiver out west, and fans thought that might be the last time that they heard from the Taft star. Fate would intervene and when Ohio State played in the CFP Championship Game, it was against none other than Oregon. Stanford would have four catches for 61 yards but it was a bad drop that would have moved the chains that Ohio State fans will remember.
