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.
We are now firmly into the month of July and 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
Another Meyer class and another top-five class with this 23-man class finishing No. 3 in the team rankings. Ohio State would do all of this with only one five-star, but with six additional players finding themselves son the top end of the Rivals100, it was a class with no shortage of star power. Certainly, positions did not stick to script, at least to how the staff saw commits landing on the board and it forced the coaches to fill a few key spots with just a few weeks left in the recruiting cycle.
If only…
Lawrence Marshall
Ohio State had a couple of decommits this class with Lonnie Johnson bouncing around between Western Michigan and ending up at Kentucky and then defensive end Lawrence Marshall committing to Ohio State in February and by May being part of the Michigan commitment class. This is a lesson of sometimes getting that early commitment for an out-of-state player is not always the best thing, even if that is a neighboring state. The good news is that the decommitment happened so early, Ohio State had its opportunity to hit the board and got a good one with Jalyn Holmes by June. Ohio State would add Dylan Thompson and Darius Slade to the class, but it was Holmes that made an impact during his Ohio State career.
Deshaun Watson/Kyle Allen
This really is mostly about Watson but you have to loop Allen in here as well when you look at the big picture. And we are just talking about recruitments and not anything ripped from social media or news reports today.
Ohio State was very much in love with the idea of landing Watson, despite the fact that the Gainesville (Ga.) quarterback committed to Clemson very, very early in the process. If Ohio State would have pressed for Kyle Allen with any sort of urgency earlier in the process, the Buckeyes likely would have landed the then No. 1 pro-style quarterback in the Rivals.com rankings. For whatever reason, Ohio State could not come off of the idea of flipping Watson, Meyer has been an expert flipper in the recruiting world and why would this be any different?
Right? Wrong.
Watson never came off of the commitment, once Ohio State realized that, it was too late to land Allen, other targets had come off the board and Ohio State would ultimately sign Stephen Collier. The Leesburg (Ga.) QB proved to be a great locker room guy and GPA guy but never did much in terms of on-field actions.
Watson certainly did not get away, Ohio State never had him. Ohio State could have had Allen and never pursued him, until it was too late.
Damian Prince
Ohio State did not finish second or third here but certainly was enamored with the five-star lineman out of Bishop McNamara high school in Maryland. Again, this one was not a shock as a lot of players from the area would stay home but Ohio State certainly was looking for a big-time tackle to lock things down. Ohio State would sign four to the line but with Marcelys Jones being a project (and ultimate transfer) and several others appearing to be destined to play inside, there was not that sure-fire tackle prospect to really round out this recruiting class. Jamarco Jones would have a stellar collegiate career and go on to the NFL but Ohio State would have to wait another year before landing its mammoth Maryland line product.
