The high-stakes game of big-time college football recruiting is here to stay it seems. Many of you may not remember these days, but it used to be that recruiting more or less happened behind the scenes unless something earth-shattering occurred. That’s clearly not the case today where everyone follows teenagers, and teenagers look to capitalize (and rightfully so) on their newfound fame.
Take the case of four-star Ohio State football verbal Tegra Tshabola. He has been committed to the Buckeyes since April of last year, but that seemed to be teetering a bit early this week. That’s because news surfaced that Tshabola was looking to take a visit to Kentucky because of some urging from his parents and academic questions.
Queue the smoke because there must be fire, right?
The Kentucky message boards lit up, infighting occurred on Twitter, and then people started making runs on gasoline (oh wait, wrong news item). The point is, it ended up being a bigger deal than what the world deserves these days. Okay, maybe not, after all, it is a brave new everything in the open universe we live in now.
But calm down folks. It now appears as though we can all stand down, stop the intravenous administration of energy drinks, and get some shut-eye. That’s because Tshabola came out and said he’s locked in as a Buckeye now and will no longer entertain visiting Kentucky.
I will not be visiting the university of Kentucky.
— Tegra Tshabola (@tshabola_tegra) May 10, 2021
I am 100% committed to THE Ohio State University‼️ #GoBucks
— Tegra Tshabola (@tshabola_tegra) May 10, 2021
OK. Now that we got that out of the way, in all honesty, this is pretty good news because Ohio State has lost a little momentum in the recruiting department, at least from a perception standpoint. The Buckeyes may have gotten two very underrated DBs to commit last week, but that doesn’t hit a home run in recruiting circles.
Georgia has caught the Buckeyes for the mythical top spot in the recruiting rankings, and OSU hasn’t landed a consensus four or five-star prospect since February. That seems like a long time when your measuring football practice facilities among friends.
OSU would really not like to deal with a defection to a kid that seems like about as hard of a commit to Ohio State as you can find.
We’ll keep our eyes on this, but right now, thankfully, there’s nothing to see. At least not any longer. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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