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Ohio State Football Recruiting: 2025 OL Jake Cook Commits To Buckeyes · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to buck Eyes Tomorrow morning for Monday, June twenty fourth. I'm your
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  host Tom Moore. The Akron game in sixty eight days, the game against
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  Michigan in one hundred and fifty nine days. We have some breaking news for
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  you coming out of a very busy recruiting weekend for the Buckeyes. Offensive line
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  prospect Jake Cook for twenty twenty five just committed to Ohio State. This is
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  one of these feel good stories, you know. The commitment is always kind
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  of a culmination of a life of working very very hard at football and putting
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  in a lot of hours in the weight room and on the field and on
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  the practices and all that kind of stuff. But this one feels like it
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  might even be a little bit more impactful on that kind on that side of
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  the side of the story. I'm gonna bring in Kevin Newt if bucke Huddle
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  dot com to talk about it. Kevin, you know, of all the
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  guys who we have seen earn Ohio Sted offers at camps over the last few
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  years, I can't think of too many who have worked harder for that offer
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  and for the opportunity to commit than Jake Cook has. Over the last few
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  years, absolutely local player out of out of Westerfold North High School. We're
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  seeing fewer and fewer situations of where a player is able to earn that camp
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  offer for the current cycle, the cycle that's on that is front and center
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  being twenty twenty five. In this case, I mean, we can obviously
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  go back and talk about Garry McLaurin. You know, Darren Lee had to
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  work for his offer. There were a lot of situations where that happened,
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  but it always just kind of felt like does Let's not forget that Jake Cook
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  was committed to Louisville before decommitting after after working out like a second time at
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  Ohio State and it looked like things might be moving moving along a little bit
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  there. But you know, he is somebody who certainly is one of that
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  Ohio State offer. There are a lot of central Ohio players that would like
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  to get that Ohio State offer and you know, may may not be in
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  the cards. But but for Jake Cook, he was able to to show
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  justin Fry, he was able to show Chip Kelly, Ryan Day all the
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  offensive coaches that they needed to take take a chance with them. And you
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  know, you got to like that kind of story because that's where recruiting used
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  to be. Now it's a point of where you already have seventy five ninety
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  one hundred and ten offers already out for the next class twenty twenty six,
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  and that opportunity to earn the offer isn't there. And I don't think it's
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  a matter of that. The coaches, particularly like the accelerated timetable they're on.
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  It's just a matter of you got to keep up with Joneses and if
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  everybody else has got these offers out, then what are you going to do.
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  This is the way it used to work. You come out, you
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  camp in the summer or in the late spring, You camp, then you
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  earn the offer, and then you go forward. So this is really kind
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  of a throwback, and I don't think we're going to see a lot of
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  these moving forward. Yeah, you're this is definitely not the norm now.
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  I mean, we saw offers getting going out to twenty twenty eight prospects during
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  the during camp this month, So yeah, a twenty twenty five offer coming
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  out, that's a pretty notable one. We're going to talk about another one
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  of those in just a few minutes. But did want to kind of touch
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  a little more on Jake Cook's story and his development. He is someone who
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  we talk a lot about tav and Saint Clair in the physical transformation he had,
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  Jake Cook has kind of remade himself as well. You can tell spent
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  a lot of time in the weight room, a lot of time conditioning over
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  the last couple of years to go from not offered to offered for Ohio State.
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  Do you have a sense, Kevin for where he potentially fits on the
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  offensive line at the next level. He's listed in a lot of the databases
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  as interior offensive line and I see him as a center. And I think
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  last year we saw how important the center position is. And that's not taking
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  anything away from Carson Hinsman, but Carson Hinsman was a guard and they had
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  to teach him to play center. Jake Cook will be coming in as a
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  center, and whether or not, you know, I don't know what Westerville
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  North is going to do with him this season. Sure I know what Ohio
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  State would like for him to be snapping the ball, but you know,
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  they it's the job of the Westernville North coaches to win games. And if
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  they have to play him at tackle, then they're going to play him at
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  tackle. But I think it's important to bring in somebody who's immediately earmarked for
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  a certain position like that, not a well, you could play any of
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  the five positions. Now he I think he's going to be a center,
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  and I think that's important because you couple him with Carter Lowe already in this
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  class, who is a surefire tackle, you know what he is. They
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  still need to put a couple more players into the class, but you know,
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  I think with with Jake Cook, you know what he's going to be,
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  and he's going to be a good sized center. I mean it's he's
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  not going to be Jacoby Boran, who is very much like a sowd Off
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  undersized type of center. He's going to be, you know, a big
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  body, and I think, you know, a good a good part of
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  the foundation of what the offensive line is going to look like for years to
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  come. It's interesting that you mentioned where Jake Cook might be playing in high
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  school this year and it might not be the same spot he's playing in college
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  a couple of years from, you know, next year. And we just
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  had that conversation about Boddan Miller as well, who committed as a wide receiver,
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  but he is playing quarterback for his high school team. And if you
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  are committed, you know, if you're committing to Ohio State or if you
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  were an Ohio State caliber player, guess what, you are probably the most
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  gifted athlete on your high school team, and they're going to put you where
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  they need you and then you'll figure out what you're playing in the college level
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  next. So that's, you know, sort of a common theme of the
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  weekend of the two commitments so far for the Buckeyes this weekend, you mentioned
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  the rest of the offensive line class. There, Hard Lowe obviously already in,
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  has been in for a while now, Jake Cook, So you get
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  one tackle, one guy on the edge. David Sanders, a number one
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  tackle in the class, is visiting this weekend. By all accounts and by
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  some of the video that has come out from Devin Sanchez and other guys,
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  it seems like David Sanders is having a good time. But that is going
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  to be a very very competitive recruitment until he announces his decision later on in
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  the year. Where else. I mean, this is a class where they're
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  going to have to bring in probably five offensive linemen, you'd think where else
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  are there still you know, where else are there still irons in the fire
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  there on the offensive side of the ball, the offensive line side. In
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  the twenty twenty five cycle, yeah, we've seen the class start or the
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  board start to dwindle because people are starting to commit to other places. You
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  still have Josh Petty, an offensive tackle out of Roswell, Georgia, as
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  you mentioned obviously, David Sanders, the number one offensive tackle out of Charlotte
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  who's on campus for his official visit over this past weekend. I think if
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  you keep kind of looking through as well, Javon McFadden out of Upper Marlboro,
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  Maryland is an important name. Andrew Stardgel out of Roswell, Georgia as
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  well, Caden Straehorn out of Bradenton, IMG. He's up at the team
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  up north this weekend. I think that that might be the direction that one
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  goes there. You know. So there are several names, But with that
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  being said, there's I think a lot of people who do have their concerns
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  about why Ohio State has not been able to put together more consistent offensive line
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  classes. And I think that we're going to see that in twenty twenty six,
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  when so much of the talent comes out of the state of Ohio,
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  but you Ohio state goes and gets two of the top linemen from the state
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  of Ohio with Carter with Jake Cook. You know, maybe there's some other
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  options, maybe they kick some tires around the state of Ohio. But I
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  don't want to say, you know, I don't want to say this class
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  hinges on landing David Sanders because he's not somebody from the state of Ohio.
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  But that's pretty pretty darn important. I almost used a no no word there.
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  It's pretty darn important for them to land David Sanders. So time will
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  tell. Yeah, that's definitely one where if you get two guys Carter Low
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  kind of a borderline high four five star guy depending on the source you want
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  to look at, David Sanders a clear cut five star, high five star,
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  top of the top of the board for just about everyone. If you
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  land David Sanders, boy, that makes that class look a lot more solid
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  than if you've got Carter Low and Jake Cook and a couple other guys in
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  you know, a couple other three star type guys as you said twenty twenty
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  six, is a very very big year for in state recruiting on the offensive
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  line, and so that's a year when the Buckeyes could potentially really load up.
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  But boy, if you add a couple really high, four star,
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  five star type tackles this year, boy, that feels like it answers several
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  questions for a number of years to come for the buck Eyes. I said
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  earlier, wanted to talk about another twenty twenty five guy who just got an
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  offer this weekend from the Buckeyes, in state prospect Preston Bowman out of Pickerington,
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  North. He is someone who we saw at a camp a few weeks
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  ago, and boy was he impressive. I almost never post about just you
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  know, random guys at camp who don't have Ohio State offers. He just
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  every time you looked up, he was beating someone in those one on ones.
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  Just absolutely dominant performance. And he had quite a busy weekend. He
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  committed to Kentucky on Saturday and then got an Ohio State offer on Sunday or
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  Friday, and Saturday one or the other it was. You know, boy,
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  that was quite a busy weekend for him. And you know, he
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  is still publicly pledged to Kentucky, but it feels like that might be an
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  interesting one to watch for the Buckeyes moving forward. As of the time that
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  we're recording this, he's you know, still locked in with Kentucky. That's
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  the messaging out there. But this is really kind of a can't lose for
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  Ohio State. And here's why Bowman is going to have that afterglow of committing
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  to Kentucky for a little bit of time. That lets Ohio State to get
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  through the final days of this June July recruiting window and then just that offer
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  is there, they can continue to communicate with him. He's probably not going
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  to make a change, you know, in the next day or two or
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  three, you know, hashtag freezing cold takes But you what happens in twelve
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  weeks? What happens We're, you know, as you said at the top
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  of the show, sixty eight days away from the Akron Games. So what
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  happens in ninety eight days? You're a couple weeks into the season. Ohio
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  State doesn't necessarily have its receiver class full. You've been communicating, maybe Kentucky
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  isn't necessarily light in the world on fire, It's still there and if he
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  decides a Preston Bowman and I don't like talking like this, but a Preston
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  Bowman decides one hundred days from now that he wants to commit to Ohio State,
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  and Ohio State's full highest state could say it was a committable offer on
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  the day we offered you, two weeks after we offered you, six weeks
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  after we offered you. But we're full now, so you're not going to
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  really burn any bridges per se with Pickerington North, which is obviously a program
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  that produces a lot of division one A talent, excuse me. So I
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  think that this is good to get in there, because you're kind of getting
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  in inside this bubble of the again, as I said, the afterglow of
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  committing to Kentucky, it's not likely that he's already thinking about flipping, and
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  you have a chair and a chip on the table, as I kind of
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  talk about in the poker world, you're still competing for him down the line,
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  and then you can make a decision and revisit that later. So we'll
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  see how the wide receiver class continues to take shape for Brian Hartline and the
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  Buckeyes, and how the offensive line class continues to take shape for Justin Frye
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  and the Buckeyes, and we'll be following all those different things, different groups,
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  probably more commitments potentially on the horizon for the Buckeyes in the wake of
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  the very very busy official visit weekend for the Buckeyes. We'll be following all
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  of that for you at bucke huddle dot com. That's where Tony Kevin and
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  I cover the team, Mark covers recruiting, what our whole team of ex's,
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  and nose guruz making you smarter football fan all at bucke huddle dot com.
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  We hope to see you there. Let alloo it for today. Thank
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  you guys all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow