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Ohio State Recruiting Insider: 3 Elite Prospects Who Could Be Buckeyes · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Saturday, February seventeenth, I'm your host,
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  tom Or the Akron game in one hundred and ninety six days, the game
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  akats Michigan in two hundred and eighty seven days. As we're waiting for spring
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  football to kick off in just under just over two weeks, at this point,
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  we're getting getting close. This is the prime time for some recruiting camps,
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  high school camps, to get a first hand look at some of the
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  future potential stars of the college football world. Mark Kivler has been doing just
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  that, of course, from Buckeye Huddle dot com. He was just down
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  at the under Armor Regional camp down in Florida last week, had a bunch
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  of really interesting updates for our subscribers at buckey Huddle dot com. And now
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  we're gonna be talking about some of that information here. Mark, Let's start
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  with what's the position everyone always has questions about on recruiting offensive line. They
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  oh, well, they always get they oh, you gotta get more offensive
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  lineman, They got to get better. Offer you getting more out of state
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  offensive lineman. Whatever it is, you got to start with the offensive line.
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  So let's start with the twenty twenty six offensive lineman Champsmith on the top
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  offensive lineman in his class, and one that sounds like you were impressed with
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  and that he may be impressed with Ohio State. Yeah, he has already
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  visited twice and he, first of all, was outstanding at the camp.
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  I mean, he played right tackle, right guard. Was one of the
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  best guys there was, I think again, I think the thing I liked
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  about him, beyond just his physical abilities, is that, you know,
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  you're kind of fighting for reps out there, and and a lot of the
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  young guys will go out there and they might lose a rep and then they
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  kind of, you know, do the what is it the the Homer Simpson
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  back and into the bushes and kind of take a little break for a few
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  minutes. And that was not how he handled things at all. He took
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  a lot of reps. He kept going out there. He won almost all
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  of his reps. But even when he didn't, he was he jumped right
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  back out there and I was getting the many reps as he could against guys
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  who were, you know, mostly a year older than him. So super
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  impressed with him. As I said before, he camped with Ohio State last
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  summer, and then he visited for a game in the fall. I believe
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  it was Penn State. And he's got three more kind of tentative visits set
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  up to Ohio State between now and the end of November. So he's going
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  to come up for the spring game in April, he's planning to get to
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  one of the camps in June at Ohio State to work with Justin Fry again.
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  And then he and his family have the Michigan game scheduled for November already.
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  They've got that penciled in. They don't want to miss that one.
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  So I would say five visits in about eighteen months is a pretty good indication
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  that that Ohio State is a very serious player here. Well, and this
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  is not a guy who's coming up from Chillicothe to make those five visits in
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  eighteen months either, And so that's one of these watch what they do,
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  not what they say kind of situations. Feels like what he's doing is certainly
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  pointing in one direction. He's also, you, as you wrote on our
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  board, developing, you know, a pretty decent friendship with another current offensive
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  line commitment for Ohio State. Yeah, so Carter Lowe. Of course,
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  we'll committed to Ohio State a few weeks ago. Their latest offensive line commit
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  was at Ohio State the same day that champ was last June. So they
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  camped together last June and got to work together and worked with coach Frye together,
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  and so they kind of, you know, got to talking at that
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  camp and they've kept in touch and now they're talking quite often. And obviously
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  Carter low has been even more aggressive since officially committed to Ohio State, So
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  he's he's trying to get him up there, and it's an interesting dynamic.
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  He's also the teammate of twenty twenty five linebacker TJ. Alford, who is
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  going to commit somewhere here at the end of March, and Ohio State's on
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  the shortlist. There so a lot going on at Vero Beach right now,
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  and that's going to be an important school for Ohio State here over the next
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  few months for sure. All Right, let's take a little quick digression to
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  TJ. Offered just because just because you brought him up, how big is
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  it in terms of recruiting for Ohio State to have made Brian Hart not Brian
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  Hartline, Sorry, James Laureniitis, the other guy who used to play football
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  at Ohio State who's pretty good at recruiting other than Tim Walton. The third
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  guy, you know, the other one, James lauren Iidis. How big
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  is it to have him on the staff in terms of you know, DJ
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  Offerd and and you know, just linebacker recruiting in general. Yeah, I
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  think it's'd be great for linebacker recruiting in general. I mean, they've got
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  a they've got a great list of targets right now, and they're definitely in
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  the mix for for you know, three or four of them. And they've
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  got Eli Lee obviously committed already from Ohio. But they've got some some big
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  national names they're trying to get. And I think this provides some clarity to
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  all of them. But I asked, I asked TJ's you know, got
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  right to the point with TJ said, Look, you know your decisions coming
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  up here at the end of March. You have a visit schedule to Ohio
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  State a week before that. How important was James Lorniis's status in terms of
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  how you view Ohio State And then you know, how you weigh Ohio State
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  and all of this and he said it was huge. He said, you
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  know, if he does end up choosing Ohio State, he would want James
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  Lourniis to be there and be his coach. So they've got a great relationship.
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  And I think again, I think that's a big boost for Ohio State
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  to have some long term stability and clarity there for a kid who's going to
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  visit in about a month and then decide a week after that. All Right,
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  So from one former Buck guye who is starting to really make a name
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  for himself on the recruiting trail, to another former Buckeye whose name is well
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  known throughout the land, that is Brian Hartline, heathy wide receiver's coach.
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  And everyone just stood up at this point assumes, Okay, which two to
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  three five star wide receivers are going to get in this in this class.
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  They just brought in two five stars in twenty twenty four class. We got
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  to talk about the twenty twenty six class five star wide receiver, Aaron Gregory.
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  He's another guy you saw down in Florida at that camp. What did
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  you see out of him and how are things looking with he and the Buckeyes.
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  Yeah, super early with Aaron. So you don't want to get too
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  far ahead of yourself in terms of like, well, Ohio State's you know,
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  gonna win this, or high seats in front or anything like that.
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  But they've made a very good early impression on Aaron and his family. He
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  also visited for a game in the fog to spend some time with Heartline.
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  On that visit, He's trying to get back here for the for a spring
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  practice or spring game some point in the spring. He's working on scheduling that
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  right now. Brian Hartline is one of his better early relationships. This is
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  going to be quite a battle again, early five star kid from the South,
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  all the Florida schools, Georgia, I'm sure Alabama once they get things
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  stabilized. I mean, this is going to be a slugfest. But Brian
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  Hartline has proven that he is capable of winning his fair share of those,
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  so this will be one to watch. And I thought Aaron was very very
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  special on Sunday. Just a unique talent. I mean six' three,
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  but can run routes kind of like a like a slot guy. Can can
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  go up and high point the ball, catches everything with his hands. He
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  told me he likes to kind of take things from Marvin Harrison's jun Marvin Harrison
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  Junior's game to kind of apply to his because they are of a similar build.
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  I mean, so he is a he is a Marvin Harrison justin Jefferson
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  type of receiver, and I fully believe that's what he's going to turn into
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  here in about three or four years. Yeah, those are those are not
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  bad comps. Those are if you if you are a wide receiver, those
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  are not bad names to have sort of in proximity to your own name.
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  So six So nothing, nothing imminent, probably and certainly not anyone you're gonna
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  see on the field that'll hire State the next couple site, next couple falls.
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  But that's okay. We sometimes get in on get in on guys early
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  and start talking about guys early. You know, the calendar keeps kind of
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  creeping up, so it moves seems to like it's going earlier and earlier every
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  cycle. So one last guy went to talk about and this is not someone
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  who is at the camp, but with you know, at offensive line being
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  a concern and you know, sort of cycle after cycle. At this point
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  for Ohio State, defensive line has kind of been in the same boat.
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  So that's why being in in a decent spot with a defensive end like London
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  merit and he Classic twenty twenty five pretty significant. Just let people know a
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  little bit about London and his game, and then what you wrote about on
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  the huddle board a Bucke huddle dot com. Yeah, London's obviously been one
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  of their very top defensive end targets for a long time now. They've been
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  recruiting him really hard for more than a year now, and he transferred to
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  IMG this offseason, so he's going to get an even bigger boost in terms
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  of the level of competition. He's already going against a good competition there in
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  the Atlanta area, but I'm going to go up even higher now at IMG.
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  I talked had a chance to talk to a couple of IMG guys at
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  the camp. Again, London was not there, but I talked for a
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  couple of IMG guys who said he's been doing great. He's been really been
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  quick to adjust and looking they think he's going to have a huge senior year,
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  but he know, he's not six five six six, he's more,
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  you know, six two and a half six three about you know, two
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  forty five He's kind of a kind of a hybrid edge rusher, strong as
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  an ox, great first step, and the guy who plays really, really
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  hard, really physical. So definitely a guy they're they're trying to make a
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  priority. I think Ohio State leeds right now. He's going to make an
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  official visit in the middle of June. It's like the fifteenth. I think
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  that weekend. He's gonna make an official visit in the middle of June.
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  But he's also working with Larry Johnson and his family on scheduling another spring visit,
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  either spring game or spring practice. It's already been to Ohio State in
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  multiple times. So this is a guy. You know, we're talking about
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  how good the Midwest is with defensive lineman in twenty five and that Ohio State's
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  not gonna need to go out there and get three or four guys from Florida,
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  California, Texas. But but there's still some guys nationally they've got a
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  shot at all. Right, well, we'll keep directing those guys for twenty
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  twenty five, and those guys for twenty twenty six, and we're probably gonna
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  start talking about twenty twenty seven guys at some point. I remember when Danny
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  Clark committed for the class of twenty seventeen back in twenty thirteen and thinking,
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  man, I'm at twenty seventeen. Oh man, hey, that's we're gonna
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  have flying cars and be living on Mars. And here we are talking about
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  people ten years after that. Oh boy, we're all getting old. That's
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  a big takeaway. That's one of the takeaways anyway. The other one is
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  you should probably consider becoming a member of Buckeyeheadle dot com because if you enjoyed
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  this show, enjoyed hearing Mark talk about recruiting, well guess what Mark does
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  a whole bunch for our members at Buckeyeadle dot com. Well, he talks
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  about recruiting, hosts a chat every Tuesday to answer pretty much questions about just
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  about anything. You'd want to want to ask him about Buck Guy's national recruiting,
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  you want to talk about the Blue Jackets, We'll talk about the Blue
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  Jackets with you. Deep sigh. But you can find him and all of
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  our team of insiders at Buckeyeadle dot com, where we cover the team,
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  cover recruiting, ever exs and nos. Mickey a smarter football fan. You
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  know what you're missing out on all at buckeyehuddle dot com. That will do
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  it for today. Thank you guys all for joining us. Have a great
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  day. We talk to you tomorrow