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 start 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.
We now move into classes that had Urban Meyer and Mark Pantoni’s fingerprints all over them. Ohio State went from being a really strong recruiting team to being one of the nation’s best. But sometimes that also means that as you are flipping commits, you have a few flipped away from you as well. Was that in play for this class?
Setting the scene
It did not take Meyer long to get a No. 2 class with the Ohio State brand behind him. Ohio State would sign 24 players and secure that national runner-up class for 2013 and did that with a pair of five-stars, defensive back Vonn Bell and linebacker Mike Mitchell. Mitchell would never work out with the Buckeyes and would transfer out after a year, Bell would go on to win a title, and a successful NFL career. As with any other class, there were some highs and lows to this class, obviously the Mitchell miss is notable but Ohio State’s lowest rated player, Chris Worley would go on and have a solid Ohio State career. Of course, this is the class that had names like Zeke Elliott and Joey Bosa, so with so many future stars in this class, where did Ohio State have guys get away?
If only…
James Quick
Obviously Ohio State did very well in this class and to say that there were any misses is a matter of being subjective, but the loss of Quick is one that comes to mind, just because the Buckeyes may be used to losing out on kids to schools like Alabama, UGA and Texas, more than Louisville. Granted, Quick was from Louisville, during a time where the city generally had some pretty solid talent. The then 6-foot-1, 180-pounder officially visited Ohio State and well as Louisville and while he also had Kentucky, Missouri and Oregon in his top-five, it was a two-team race and people were guessing up until the moment that he made the call for the Cards. Ohio State would sign two commits this cycle, Corey Smith would come from East Mississippi JUCO (made famous by Last Chance U) and James Clark would come from the high school ranks, and Clark would eventually transfer to Virginia Tech. Clark was a late add to the class as Ohio State kicked the tires on Shelton Gibson and Taivon Jacobs along the way.
Alex Anzalone
The Wyomissing (Pa.) product would commit early to Ohio State but the Buckeyes were unable to hold on to him. It all started to unravel two weeks after Ohio State’s spring game and many feel that an overzealous fan that turned out to be a convicted sex offender attempts to hang around the team gave Anzalone the sign that he should move on and decommit from the Buckeyes. Ohio State’s compliance department took quick action to distance itself from Charles Eric Waugh but doubts about Ohio State that were already there coupled with the negative press likely led to this divorce. Anzalone would go on and play four years with the Gators, racking up 75 tackles, three sacks and five TFLs during the 18 games he took part in. Worley and Darron Lee would end up playing linebacker from the class of signed prospects.
Derrick Green
This is a case where it was more of a sting for Green than it was for the Buckeyes. Nobody was quite sure how good Zeke Elliott was going to end up being, but the staff had its inclinations that he was going to be pretty good. Green was a former lineman who morphed his body and made himself into a running back and a five-star back at that. He was responsible for recruiting five-star linebacker Curtis Grant to Ohio State, despite Grant being his elder by one-year and wore No. 27 because of his affinity for Eddie George. There were plenty of debates among Ohio State fans if it should be Elliott or Green but the staff knew the direction it wanted to go in. Green would end up at Michigan and would struggle becoming a Big Ten back as he battled keeping his weight down and finding much success in the Wolverine scheme.
