LYNCHBURG, Va. - With over a year left until his recruitment officially wraps up, Zach Rice possesses an offer sheet that features nearly three dozen programs.

Given this expansive group of coaching staffs that have dished out offers to him, Rice opted to narrow down his recruitment to eight colleges back on Saturday. The five-star offensive tackle’s list of top schools is, in alphabetical order, Florida, LSU, Miami, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Virginia.

Looking at the Buckeyes specifically, the program dipped into his recruitment in late April, and has been high on them ever since that offer transpired. While doing an interview with BuckeyeGrove, Rice opened up about what led up to Ohio State making the cut for him last week.

“Every Saturday of the summer, me and Ohio State – Coach Stud and Coach Cook – we would do these Zooms, basically,” Rice said. “We would just look at his 2017 team, all of them are in the NFL right now. We basically chopped up film for an hour. We’d wake up at 7 o’clock in the morning and chop up film.

“One thing I see from them is that you got to wake up early in the morning. It’s not about lifting all the time and grinding and those factors; it’s about getting better mentally, too, and that’s what I respect about them.”