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Ohio State Recruiting Insider: Scouting The Buckeyes' Top Targets · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes Tomorrow morning for Tuesday, April twenty ninth,
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  Speaker 1: I'm your host, tom Or the Texas game in one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty three days the game against Michigan in
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  Speaker 1: two hundred and fourteen days. If you're planning your next event,
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  Speaker 1: make it unforgettable with Grateful Griddle, o Columbus's favorite fruit
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  Speaker 1: truck serving up smashburgers, gourmet sandwiches and good vibes. Book
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  Speaker 1: your catering today at gratefulgriddleoh dot com. I know Kevinnoon
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  Speaker 1: of Buckeyehuddle dot com is planning his next event. By
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  Speaker 1: the time you watch this, he may actually already be
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  Speaker 1: in the car on the way to his next event.
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  Speaker 1: And that event is Southern Swing. It is an annual
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  Speaker 1: tradition Kevin and Mark Kevler have been doing for quite
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  Speaker 1: a while. And Kevin, I know it involves a lot
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  Speaker 1: of driving. But besides spending quality time in the car
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  Speaker 1: with Mark, what is Southern Swing all about?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Southern Swing is an opportunity to get out on
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  Speaker 2: the road and see players out at their high schools.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, we do not have full fledged spring football
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  Speaker 2: in Ohio, so instead of in Ohio, lamenting the fact
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  Speaker 2: that we don't have full fledged spring football. We go
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  Speaker 2: to places where they do, and with Ohio State recruiting nationally,
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  Speaker 2: we decided, well, let's go somewhere where the talent is,
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  Speaker 2: and that's generally the Southeast. So through the development of
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  Speaker 2: Southern Swing. And I really have no idea how many
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  Speaker 2: years it's been going on, at least twelve thirteen. If
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  Speaker 2: you told me fifteen, I wouldn't disagree. I used to
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  Speaker 2: be really good about keeping charts and how many miles
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  Speaker 2: we've driven, and you know that hasn't necessarily been the
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  Speaker 2: case at this point. But we you know, we'll go
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  Speaker 2: out and we'll see players, whether or not it's at
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  Speaker 2: their practice or at their school or whatever the case
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  Speaker 2: may be, and get great interviews. And instead of relying
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  Speaker 2: on national interviews like back when I was working for
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  Speaker 2: a network where a kid is looking at fourteen schools
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  Speaker 2: and you might get quotes on six of them, we
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  Speaker 2: can go and talk to them at length about Ohio State,
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  Speaker 2: impressions and things like that. So it's something that's still
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  Speaker 2: pretty unique in terms of what's going on in the
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  Speaker 2: in the in the space, and it's a labor of
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  Speaker 2: love because there's a lot of labor in it too.
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  Speaker 1: There is a lot of labor. And as you know,
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  Speaker 1: thinking back to the college football playoff run that Ohio
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  Speaker 1: State went on, it was like, boy, this is a
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  Speaker 1: lot of time in hotels. You guys are about to
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  Speaker 1: do that as well. This is not a three day thing.
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  Speaker 1: This is not a one week thing. I know that
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  Speaker 1: you don't have a specific itinerary set because a lot
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  Speaker 1: of this is very fluid depending on when people are
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  Speaker 1: available and where you are, so you don't know yet,
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  Speaker 1: Hey on who's you know, next Tuesday we're gonna be
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  Speaker 1: here and we're gonna be talking to this player, or
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  Speaker 1: the tuesday after that or whatever it is. But just
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  Speaker 1: to give people a sense for what these trips are like,
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  Speaker 1: can you just sort of run us through just some
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  Speaker 1: of the basics. I don't need like a day to
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  Speaker 1: day on this day, we're in North Carolina on this day,
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  Speaker 1: but just a basic route of where you guys went
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  Speaker 1: and some of the guys you maybe to last year,
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  Speaker 1: just to get a sense for what this year might.
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  Speaker 2: Be like well, and and to go back into the
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  Speaker 2: into the way back machine. It started as a one
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  Speaker 2: week trip, and it started that we would just hit
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  Speaker 2: North Carolina and Georgia, and then we expanded to Florida,
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  Speaker 2: and I mean we've gone as far out as Arizona.
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  Speaker 2: Now we did fly to Arizona from Texas. We we
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  Speaker 2: will drive to Texas. But yeah, I mean we've you know,
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  Speaker 2: we hit a good part of the Eastern Seaboard and
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  Speaker 2: we'll hit the Gulf Coast and we'll get into the
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  Speaker 2: state of Texas. And you know, I've seen Jeremiah Smith,
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  Speaker 2: I've seen the Bosa Brothers, I've you know, I've any
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  Speaker 2: any player largely out of the state of Florida that
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  Speaker 2: Ohio State has landed or been heavily involved in had
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  Speaker 2: the opportunity to see. Have gone through Texas. I you know,
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  Speaker 2: seen Jeffrey Okuda, I've seen you know, guys like Baron Browning. Uh.
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  Speaker 2: You know last year we saw Devin Sanchez. I mean
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  Speaker 2: that was you know, that was a big get to
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  Speaker 2: be able to do that. We saw Zion Grady in
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  Speaker 2: the state of Alabama. He was the first player that
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  Speaker 2: we'd ever stopped to see in the state of Alabama.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, we've gone through all of these states
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  Speaker 2: and you know, it's kind of funny because there are
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  Speaker 2: like drive through states, but as of Ohio states, net
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  Speaker 2: gets wider and wider, and they're recruiting Alabama and Louisiana
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  Speaker 2: and Mississippi. Those are no longer drive through states, so
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  Speaker 2: you know, we are stopping and getting players there, And yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it's certainly kind of crazy with all that happens. I
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  Speaker 2: know that the trip is long enough that I'm not
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  Speaker 2: necessarily wanting to make it longer and go out to California,
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  Speaker 2: but you know, they do recruit California. It'd be nice
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  Speaker 2: to go see Chris Henry Junior, but I've not been
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  Speaker 2: able to convince anybody to fly out to Orange County, California,
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  Speaker 2: my old stomping grounds.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and I think people are probably right now saying, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: sure you're going and doing the interviews, and that's great.
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  Speaker 1: You could do that over zoom. We all learned that
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  Speaker 1: over COVID, Like you can do a bunch of stuff
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  Speaker 1: over zoom. There's a lot of stuff that are benefits
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  Speaker 1: to this that are long term benefits of especially that
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  Speaker 1: you can't get over zoom meeting people in person. But
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  Speaker 1: also I'm guessing you're talking to coaches, you're talking to teachers,
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  Speaker 1: you're talking to people who know these players on a
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  Speaker 1: personal level. Bus you meet someone in person, that kind
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  Speaker 1: of changes that, you know, makes it a little bit
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  Speaker 1: more of a real sort of interpersonal relationship and probably
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  Speaker 1: ends up with some better information down the line.
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  Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing. It's about meeting people, about meeting
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  Speaker 2: the player. When you sit there, especially, a lot of
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  Speaker 2: people are going to look at Southern Swinging and be like, well,
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  Speaker 2: how many classes twenty six guys are going to talk
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  Speaker 2: to And that's going to be a good number because
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  Speaker 2: the class has not necessarily come together yet. But it's
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  Speaker 2: also important for twenty seven and twenty eight be able
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  Speaker 2: to get these relationships with these younger players. I've been
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  Speaker 2: seeing Jeremiah Smith for several years prior to getting to
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  Speaker 2: Ohio State. And while Jeremiah isn't exactly somebody who's going
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  Speaker 2: to reach out to the media to say hey, I'm
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  Speaker 2: doing this or I'm doing that, it didn't hurt to
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  Speaker 2: have that to have that relationship with this coach at
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  Speaker 2: at Shamda Madonna, which turns out a ton of talent.
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  Speaker 2: So it is that that personal touch talking to coaches,
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  Speaker 2: showing these players that you know, there's something about oh Hey,
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  Speaker 2: hit me back on Twitter because they're not following you
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  Speaker 2: and you can't DM them or whatever versus coming out
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  Speaker 2: to your school and talking to you and everything else.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, well, I haven't necessarily had any direct
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  Speaker 2: conversations with Ohio State about this. I'm sure they don't
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  Speaker 2: mind that we're going out there and doing all this
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  Speaker 2: and showing just the level of interest in how you know,
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  Speaker 2: how much people want to know about you in terms
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  Speaker 2: of Ohio State. And I'm not saying that's ever changed
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  Speaker 2: or recruitment or anything, but you know, we are heroes.
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  Speaker 2: We just don't wear capes.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't want to wear a cape that's going
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  Speaker 1: to get all wrinkly. You have to iron it on
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  Speaker 1: that hotel ironing board. That's that's too much trouble. So people,
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  Speaker 1: i'm sure are now going, Okay, this sounds interesting. What
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  Speaker 1: does it look like from the perspective of someone who's
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  Speaker 1: just sort of following this or where where is this
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  Speaker 1: that's going to be? What are you planning on doing
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  Speaker 1: in terms of interviews and podcasts and that kind of stuff,
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  Speaker 1: and what's going to be on the message board at
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  Speaker 1: bucke huddle dot com. What what is this going to
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  Speaker 1: look like, potentially from the viewers perspective.
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  Speaker 2: There's going to be a lot of opportunities. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: obviously the brucks of this is going and getting these
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  Speaker 2: extended video interviews eight nine, ten minutes sometimes four. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: it just we're going during school in most cases, and
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  Speaker 2: you know, everybody's got a study hall period or lunch
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  Speaker 2: or whatever, so we try to get you before school
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  Speaker 2: or whatever. But we're going to have written content. We
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  Speaker 2: know not everybody. Again, you're watching this podcast, you probably
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  Speaker 2: like podcasts, but some people don't. So we're going to
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  Speaker 2: be written stories. We're going to have goal sessions from
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  Speaker 2: Mark Givler, which is, you know, kind of what you
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  Speaker 2: need to know to follow recruitments. It's kind of the
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  Speaker 2: real inside look at what's going on. You know. We
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  Speaker 2: will have Hungry Hungry huddles, which are are our food segments.
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  Speaker 2: I mean a lot of times that's dictated by how
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  Speaker 2: much time we have, especially if we have time to eat,
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  Speaker 2: which is not always in the books. With all of this,
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  Speaker 2: we'll have some fun, little one off type of things.
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  Speaker 2: And then of course on the message board, now we
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  Speaker 2: will we don't release our entire schedule. Why largely because
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  Speaker 2: we don't know exactly where we're going to go because
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  Speaker 2: we are dealing with schools, we're dealing with coaches, we're
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  Speaker 2: dealing with administrators there. So sometimes we have to reverse
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  Speaker 2: the order of how we're going to hit kids on
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  Speaker 2: a specific day to work the schedule out. But we
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  Speaker 2: will post where we are, We'll post little tidbits. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: there are going to be a lot of things that
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  Speaker 2: we are going to make sure are unique to our subscribers,
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  Speaker 2: people who are members of Buckeye Huddle dot com, because
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  Speaker 2: ultimately you are the guys that make this s gals,
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  Speaker 2: you know, and no offense to Meka got to sit
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  Speaker 2: third to say hi to Meeka, Hannah, You're the ones
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  Speaker 2: who make all this possible with your interest in your
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  Speaker 2: your membership to Buckeye Huddle. So you know, we really
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  Speaker 2: try to hit this from six or seven different sides,
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  Speaker 2: and every year we go in with a lot of
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  Speaker 2: different ideas and we generally execute on most of them.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that trip will start on Tuesday, going to have
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  Speaker 1: plenty of stuff coming to you for at least a
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  Speaker 1: couple of weeks, maybe more, not always at a set
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  Speaker 1: end date on these things either, as they're sort of
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  Speaker 1: working things out as they're on the road, so you
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  Speaker 1: can follow along through the entire Southern Swing at Buckeyhuddle
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  Speaker 1: dot com. As Kevin said, we generally will post a
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  Speaker 1: lot more detailed information there than we will share necessarily
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  Speaker 1: on some of our podcasts or YouTube channels. But we'll
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  Speaker 1: have a bunch of those interviews coming up on YouTube
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  Speaker 1: as well as well as all of your podcasts, so
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  Speaker 1: you can look forward to lots of recruiting content, unique,
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  Speaker 1: very different, very special, one of a kind recruiting content
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  Speaker 1: coming up all May. The reason they do Southern Swing
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  Speaker 1: in May is May is usually kind of a quiet
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  Speaker 1: month in college football with a lot of coaches will
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  Speaker 1: go on vacation that during this time. We don't go
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  Speaker 1: on vacation. It is just in Kevin Mark and the
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  Speaker 1: family Truckster holding it down and getting you all sorts
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  Speaker 1: of fun, different, unique coverage all at Buckeye huddle dot com.
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  Speaker 1: Sign up today get access to our huddle Board presented
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  Speaker 1: by Jeff Ruby's Columbus. A really exciting May there and
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  Speaker 1: then headed to camp season in June, and then July
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  Speaker 1: will be big ten media days and then on to
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  Speaker 1: fall camp in August and then all of a sudden,
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  Speaker 1: the football season has started. A football season never really stops.
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  Speaker 1: There at Buckeye Huddle dot com. That's where Tony, Kevin
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  Speaker 1: and I cover the team, Mark covers recruiting, and we
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  Speaker 1: do have our whole team effects in those gurus there
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  Speaker 1: as well, all to make you a smarter football fan,
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  Speaker 1: all at Buckeyehuddle dot com. That'll do it for today.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you guys all for joining us. Have a great day.
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  Speaker 1: We'll talk to you tomorrow.