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Ohio State Recruiting: Are The Buckeyes Back In The Running For 2026's Top QB · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes Tomorrow Morning for Tuesday, February twentieth. I'm your host,
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  tom Or. The Acron game is in one hundred and ninety three days.
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  The game begets Michigan in two hundred and eighty four days. We are talking
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  about recruiting, and we're talking about everyone's favorite position in recruiting. We're talking
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  about quarterback recruiting. You generally only get one maybe two in a cycle if
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  things fall exactly right, like Ohio State did just this last cycle twenty twenty
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  four. But generally there's only one guy. They've already got their guys for
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  twenty twenty five. That is tav In Saint Clair out of Bell Fountain,
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  Ohio. And now we get to look ahead to twenty twenty six, and
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  boy, there are some big names on Ohio State's quarterback board for twenty twenty
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  six. There is a big name on our board for this show today as
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  well. It is Mark Gifler. He's the recruiting analyst at buckey Huddle dot
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  com. Mark, we got to start right at the top of the board
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  with Jared Curtis. He's out of Tennessee, a name that Ohio State fans
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  I think are probably at least a little bit familiar with at this point,
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  and someone who felt like at one point like, oh boy, he might
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  be trending towards a commitment kind of soon, and then there's a big dramatic
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  swing there and it felt like, oh boy, they might be in trouble.
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  Now, what is going on? What's the latest with Jared Curtis?
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  As the Days of Our Lives theme plays in the back of in the background
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  here. Yeah, I think the latest news on Jared Curtis is relatively positive
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  for Ohio State. I think there's gonna be people who maybe don't look at
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  it necessarily that way, just because it looked like about a month ago they
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  might be getting a commitment from Jared. But essentially, you know, he
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  was gonna visit Ohio State and then visit Georgia and then decide, and I
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  fully believe he was leaning toward Ohio State at that point. The Buckeyes have
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  their staff shake up, you know, with head coaches not really being able
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  to get out on the road very often, and they're you know, kind
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  of hard to talk to kids a couple of years early before they sign.
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  You know, Jared's best relationship was with Corey Dennis and not Ryan Day.
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  He hadn't really had much of a chance to get to know Ryan Day yet.
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  So Corey Dennis, we've seen kind of what's what's happened there. He
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  gets demoted and then obviously finds a landing spot there at Utah. But so
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  that I think spooked him a little bit. The Georgia visit, you know,
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  goes well, and it looks like maybe he's going to commit to Georgia
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  because he was telling everyone who was gonna commit. Right after those visits,
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  well, you know, Hive State has the Bill O'Brien thing happened, they
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  end up getting Chip Kelly in there, and just it's just been a little
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  bit of a chaotic month for everybody. And I talked to Jared recently and
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  he said, look, I'm slowing down. I'm not committing soon. I'm
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  going to take more visits. You know, I want to be sure,
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  very much sure decision, because he could have just said to him, I
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  said I was going to commit, so I need to commit, and he
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  didn't do that, and now he's evaluating some of his other options, but
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  continuing to really focus on Georgia and Ohio State as well. And he plans
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  to get up for a spring practice here at some point in March or April.
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  He'll he'll be up. Is it safe to say if he was going
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  to commit that they were going to be willing to potentially accept that commitment.
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  So therefore, am I correct? And assuming he's probably top of the board
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  for Ohio State in twenty twenty six right now, yeah, they absolutely would
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  have taken him. He is now that Julian Lewis has reclassified to twenty twenty
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  five. He is kind of the consensus number one quarterback in the country,
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  and there's people who think he's the number one or two player in the country.
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  So he's a big time talent. He's like six three sixty four,
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  almost got a little bit of that like late bloomer to him, where I
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  don't think he fully focused on quarterback, kind of like it as a little
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  leaguer. I think he kind of transitioned to quarterback maybe later on in like
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  middle school, early in high school. So he's kind of a little bit
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  of a work in progress. But you watch this film and you're like,
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  oh my god, that's Josh Allen. He's just a big athletic kid with
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  an absolute Palitzer. So he's a he's a take for just about everybody right
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  now and certainly a guy they're going to continue to push for, all right.
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  And a couple other names I did want to touch on because they're there's
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  a couple of guys that you just got to go watch in person at the
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  under Armoor camp down in Florida. A couple other quarterback names to know wherever
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  Jared Curtis ends up. The first is Will Griffin. He's had a Tampa
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  Jesuit high school and he I believe has an Ohio state offer correct for twenty
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  twenty six. Yes he does. He earned it a camp last summer,
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  had a tremendous camp performance. So what how does he stack up with Curtis?
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  Is he you know, what does he What does he look like as
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  a prospect? Is the dual threat guy? Is he? I mean,
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  Ryan Day has talked about really wanting to have that mobility. Does he have
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  the mobility? Does he have the arm strength? Does he have the accuracy?
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  What did you see out of him when you were down in New Orlando
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  last week? Yeah, my second time getting to watch him throw, So
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  I'm getting, you know, pretty good idea. What he's all about built
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  like a linebacker. He's just really sturty six three two twenty looks like a
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  linebacker. Just just one of the most physically imposing quarterbacks that you'll see,
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  and throws the ball about one hundred and fifty miles an hour. He's got
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  a great arm, the great zip, great spin on it. I thought
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  he would really good on Sunday, was continuing to improve his accuracy. And
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  this is a top one hundred talent. I mean, he's a really good
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  player. He's right in line with the type of talent they've recruited over the
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  years. And he's another big name. You know. Again, all the
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  turmoil with the Ohio State offensive coaching staff, who's gonna be quarterbacks coach,
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  who's gonna be offensive coordinator? Now that there's some clarity there, I think
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  they can move forward. And Griffin told me he also plans to come back
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  for spring ball. He's looking forward to meeting Chip Kelly. I talked to
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  all these guys we're going to talk about about Chip Kelly, and Griffin was
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  the one who kind of had the most to say about that. He seemed
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  really eager to get up here and see what Chip Kelly's all about what is
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  intriguing about Chip Kelly to someone like Will Griffin? Is it just sort of
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  the name? Is it the association with the Oregon thing, which is you
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  know, Will Griffin was probably I don't know if he's a twenty twenty six
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  quarterback. Don't make me do the math. Was he like three when Chip
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  Kelly was starting the Blur offense at Oregon? You know, what is it
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  that makes Chip Kelly, you know, an appealing name for someone like that?
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  Just his ability? You know, he's always had high powered offenses kind
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  of wherever he's went, they've always been very friendly to the quarterback. Even
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  if you look in the NFL, Nick Foles never in his life has played
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  football as well as he played football his one year with Chip Kelly, we
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  had two interceptions for an entire season. So, whether it's been Foles or
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  Marcus Mariota or Dennis Dixon, if you go back a little bit, he's
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  coached several different types of quarterbacks and they've all had a lot of success in
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  his offense. So I think he's just looked at as a very savvy offensive
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  mind who's going to put his guys in the best position to make plays regardless
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  of what their skill set is. Somehow I knew you'd get the Nick Foles
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  thing in there. Go very go birds to us, each and every one
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  had to next up Lake Mary's Noah Grubbs, another guy you got to see
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  at camp. And this is someone who does not yet have the ohighest hit
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  offer, but you know you were talking about him as someone who could potentially
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  be in the mix for twenty twenty six for the Buckeyes as well. Yeah,
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  so before Corey Dennis left, he had been down to Grubbs's school at
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  Late Lake Mary three or four times, so he had been checking on him
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  quite a bit. They they that was a guy who had really picked up
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  some interest here, especially this this winter. So now maybe a little bit
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  of a reset button there. He said he wants to get up and visit
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  in the spring as well. Ohio State would certainly. I'm sure we'll send
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  Chip Kelly out there in the spring to watch him throw. You know,
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  with with Griffin and Curtis having the offers and having been on campus, you
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  know, each each have been up to campus. I think Grubs, they're
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  probably a little bit behind the eight ball right now. Grubbs has a monster
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  offer list and he's got a ton of big offers, so they've got some
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  ground to make up if they throw their hat in the ring there. But
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  they it felt like they were trending that direction before Corey Dennis left, so
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  we'll have to see kind of where they pick up with things. I do
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  think a lot's going to depend on what they feel the trajectory of Jared Curtis's
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  recruitment is especially if he makes it up for a spring visit. But Grubbs
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  is definitely a guy they like, and again he was fantastic on Sunday too.
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  He's a really athletic kid who can. He's a little less physically imposing
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  than Curtis and Griffin. He's got a little more filling out to do,
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  but he's six four, really good arm and good feet. Well. At
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  the end of each of these shows, we always talk about all the reasons
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  you just give a member at bucke huddle dot com and all the great stuff.
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  We have. One thing we have that's free for anyone member or not
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  is profile pages. We have started putting together a database of profile pages of
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  all of these recruits, so you want to check out Will Griffin and see
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  where he ranks in all the different ranking systems and where he's been offered.
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  That's part of there. So what made you Mark want to put together something
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  like that because I have looked at that and said, wow, that looks
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  like a lot of work. I hope, sure, hope someone else wants
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  to do it, and other people have wanted to do it. Yeah,
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  I you know, it's it was kind of a membership request. Over the
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  years, I've kind of always picked people's brains like, hey, like,
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  you know, what could we maybe add to the site that would you know,
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  be meaningful to you as a as a member, as a as a
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  viewer. And I always I got a lot of like player profile stuff like
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  you know when the article when you write an article about a kid or whatever,
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  if you can just click on his name and you could like get some
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  information on him, you know, where he's from, you know, maybe
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  his film, his ranking, you know that type of thing that. So
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  it's just been a request, and you know, it's just been something we've
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  we've been thinking about for a while. And I finally figure out a system
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  to kind of implement it that you know, didn't take up half my time,
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  uh, to to get set up, so you know it's it's good
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  information. There again, we got his rankings, offers, highlight, film,
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  any video, if we've shot some good video of it, he'll be
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  it will be in there with with player, profi files, photo obviously and
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  just you know vitals, heightweight, you know, school, all that other
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  stuff. So and at the bottom this might be the best thing. At
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  the very bottom of the profiles. It's got its news feed. So like
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  if you want to go click on Jared Curtis's recruiting profile, it'll show every
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  at the bottom, you can check every story we've written that involves Jared Curtis,
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  and it automatically updates every time we post a new story about him.
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  So that's that's true for all of the profiles. So it's just a good
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  resource that you know, you don't have to click off the site and go
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  like open three more tabs to find what you're looking for. You can just
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  click on the name in the article, or if you're looking at the offers
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  board or the rankings list we have on the site, you can just click
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  on their names there and you get all the information you're looking for. And
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  if you want to find all that stuff that Mark was just talking about.
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  Just go to buckeyheddle dot com and the menu. There's sort of that toolbar
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  at the top with forums and football and football recruiting and all sorts of stuff
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  under football recruiting. There's commitment list and all the commitments they have for twenty
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  twenty five, twenty six offers for twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six.
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  Mark has his Ohio rankings for twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five, and
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  twenty twenty six, and on all those you'll see all those players named.
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  Just click on their names and that'll take you to the profile. All that
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  information all free for you at Buckeye huddle dot com. So make sure you
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  check that out. Lots of good information there, those Ohio rankings. That's
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  that's one of those things that I think is really really useful because these are
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  all guys. Mark sees a lot of these guys nationally, but the Ohio
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  guys, he sees a ton of them and has a very very good insight
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  into all of that. So and want to check those out all at Buckeyehuddle
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  dot com. That will do it for today. Thank you guys all for
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  joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.