COLUMBUS, Ohio - The COVID-19 pandemic forced individuals to make adjustments on the fly with little to no time to prepare.

Whether it was learning to work remotely, businesses implementing new guidelines for their stores, or countless other changes, the past 14 months put creativity to the test for people across the globe.

One of the plethora of impacts as a result of the pandemic can be seen in the world of recruiting. Since March 2020, college campus visits have not been allowed, coaches have been unable to evaluate prospects in person, and the reliance on technology is greater than it's ever been.

With things set to resume back to some sense of normalcy next week, Ohio State's Mark Pantoni says the program is ready to show recruits what they've been advertising over the past year.

"But, obviously, when you're constantly doing Zoom, you're kind of limited on what you creatively can kind of come up with," Pantoni told the media on Friday. "So, I think I told you guys this analogy before from Brian Hartline, it's cool when you see the commercial of the nice, flashy car, but you don't really know until you test drive it how cool it really is. So, that's what we're about to do. These kids are about to test drive the car, finally, after seeing the commercial for so many months."

Besides being limited creatively in certain areas, Pantoni also discussed how difficult it was not having the chance to evaluate recruits in person. That will change as the Buckeyes are slated to host six one-day camps next month, with Pantoni saying these events will be crucial for him and the coaching staff.

"Yeah, it's definitely tough," Pantoni said. "I think at the end of the day, the film always holds the biggest amount of weight. Coming to camp and working out kind of either affirms or shows you something that the film doesn't show. So, again, it's just another piece of evaluation toolbox, I guess. But we're trying to get as many as we can just because guys, their bodies developed.

"And so, especially with linemen, there may be kids who played at 255 pounds that are now 285, 290 going into their senior year. So, that will definitely play a piece of it."

There are definitely some challenges when it comes to relying solely on film to dissect a prospect's game and what they bring to the table. This is especially true when a recruit missed an entire season as a result of state guidelines preventing them from playing football.

Pantoni acknowledged that while there are some difficulties with this type of scouting, the process has stayed the same for Ohio State.

"The evaluation process has still been the same," Pantoni said. "Most of the kids did play; there's only a few that did not, which makes it really hard if there's no film on a guy. Especially, like sophomores in high school, if they don't have any sophomore film, and you see them getting all these offers, it's kind of crazy. But we just do things our way. Try to ignore the noise and social media and everything else."

Interestingly enough, the pandemic did provide Pantoni and Company a little bit of a relief in comparison to normal years. Instead of watching film from all prospects during one season, postponed seasons to the spring allowed them to not be so overwhelmed in the fall.

"It was actually kind of cool in a way because like North Carolina, California, they didn't play until the spring," Pantoni said. "So, in a way, it did spread things out to where in the fall, we didn't have to watch the same volume of games because it carried over to the spring. And it was kind of cool in the way that it gave us something to do in the spring of watching fresh film. So, that was kind of exciting as well."

Receiving the luxury of spacing out watching film as a result of postponed seasons won't be the case going forward. What will last, however, are the new recruiting skills that had to be learned when everything took place virtually.

Erin Dunston, the Buckeyes' director of on-campus recruiting, opened up about this toward the end of Friday's presser with the media. With the increased use of Zoom and recruiting in a way that's never been done before on an every day basis, Dunston says the program will be able to transfer some of those tools to a post-pandemic world.

"I think honestly, with Zoom.... it's not that in person, face to face. It's learning to communicate in different ways, right?" Dunston said. "So, those skills and those transferable skills of doing that, I think we'll take with us. And, as I mentioned before, maybe as we start in recruiting and we have some kids that are in California, we can do a lot of things virtually so that when they get on campus, they're a little bit more familiar.

"They're meeting the professors directly, they're getting in with the head coach quicker, we're able to show them campus and they kind of have a landing point because we've done it on Zoom," Dunston added. "So, taking those things that we've had to do during this pandemic time and taking those skills and transferring them to when they are on campus."

One other point worth noting is that there will not be too many COVID-19 restrictions, outside of university protocol, that the staff has to follow next month. This includes not being required to test visitors, but Pantoni noted that camps will have to be done in pods of 25.

Stay tuned to BuckeyeGrove.