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 in the midst of the long month of July so 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.

Urban Meyer has been in Columbus for a couple of seasons, has the recruiting machine humming. That does not mean that they land everyone they want, even if Big Ten foes feel that Ohio State does in fact land everyone.

2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014

This class is a bit of an anomaly, Ohio State signs a huge class of 27 players but only checks in as the No. 9 class in the nation according to the team rankings. There are no five-stars in this class, there are not even any RR 6.0 (high four-stars) in the class. But with that, there are several first-round NFL picks and close to 10 players from this class have played in the NFL. When you have players like Joe Burrow, Denzel Ward and Damon Arnette making the first-round grade, Ohio State’s talent evaluators did something right, even if Burrow really saw his meteoric rise happen elsewhere after transferring to LSU.

Carlton Davis

Davis was not the only decommit of the class but he was the biggest of the three as the Miami Norland star made it almost through the whole cycle as an Ohio State commit but there was a feeling as time went on that he was never going to sign with the Buckeyes and that ended up becoming the reality when he committed to Auburn in the final days of the cycle and subsequently signed with the Tigers. Ohio State was able to hold off a December visit by the hometown Canes but Auburn was able to sway the four-star Rivals250 corner into their column. Davis has played the last three seasons with the Tampa Bay Bucs, so he did eventually play for the Bucks, just the wrong ones.

Jamel Dean

Dean did sign with Ohio State but got away when he was not able to pass his physicals and was medically disqualified by Ohio State. Dean was not going to accept that fate and also ended up playing his college ball for Auburn. Dean has played two years for the same Tampa Bay Bucs and certainly could have been someone to step in and fill some needs in the BIA (Best In America) corps if it were determined that his knees would pass the muster. Apparently they did and Ohio State lost out on a tremendous player.

Drew Richmond

This is a tough recruitment to wrap your arms around, as Ohio State was the one-time favorite, the Buckeyes seemed to fade, then Richmond wanted to reconnect with Ohio State and it seemed as if the Buckeyes were not as interested.

Or at least that is how we remember it.

Richmond was a massive offensive tackle out of Memphis and made all the visits, participated at Friday Night Lights and kind of fell off the table, and we will never be exactly sure where the disconnect happened. Ohio State would end up with Isaiah Prince, so when one door closes, another door opens, but Richmond seemed to be determined to end up at Ohio State at one point or another during his recruitment.

Porter Gustin

Sometimes a player ends up on the radar late and becomes the focal point of everyone who watches recruiting. Gustin was that guy for Ohio State in the class of 2015. It was not like he was unknown as a five-star, but the Salem (Utah) linebacker started picking up interest in the Buckeyes down the stretch and Ohio State would get a final official visit in the last weekend of the cycle. USC just had made too much progress there but if memory serves, the Buckeyes made it very close. Ohio State would sign a three-man LB class with Nick Conner, Justin Hilliard and Jerome Baker, but Gustin also had the potential of moving down to play rush end, something that a team can never have enough of.