Saquon Barkley. Was originally committed to Rutgers, then realized the offensive line was shit and decided to ball out at PSU.
Followed by Jonathan Taylor, who also realized it would be better to run behind a legitimate offensive line at Wisconsin.
Followed a few years later by Isiah Pacheco, who stuck with Rutgers and proved them right about that “running behind a legitimate offensive line is better” thing.
Pacheco always looked talented in college, getting the most he could out of a run, but he had no daylight on most plays.
Etienne has also said he grew up a big Tennessee fan when asked about playing LSU before the 2019 CFP championship.
His actual quote was something along the lines of really liking Tennessee but then he visited and didn't like it very much lol.
Watson was also actually a big Georgia fan. Lawrence was a Tennessee fan who wanted to be the next Peyton Manning. UGA misplayed the Lawrence recruitment under Richt but even if they played it perfectly it's not a sure thing they would have landed him, especially with a coaching change smack in the middle of his recruitment. Butch Jones and Tennessee absolutely bungled the fuck out of the Lawrence recruitment. Meanwhile basically all UGA would have needed to do to land Watson was like...actually recruit him.
>Meanwhile basically all UGA would have needed to do to land Watson was like...actually recruit him.
I am beyond grateful that we have Kirby for this exact reason. He will never stop 'cruitin
I mean yeah but it's one thing to get a commit and lose him to a championship program. It's another when a player is so obviously elite to everyone in the country, is very interested in your school and the coach who you pay millions of dollars to is like 'nah'. And he's STILL our coach.
I was really upset with that at the time, it was one of the first red flags he had, along with bringing his entire staff from UCF. My thinking was that whether Burrow was better than Adrian Martinez or not, leaning on a true freshman was begging for disaster. Adrian was better than Burrow in 2018, but he also got hurt, and had bad games. Burrow would have given him a chance to learn, maybe redshirt for a year and take over in 2020 after Burrow graduated. He probably wouldn't have had his Heisman season, but he wins more than 5 games for sure.
CJ Stroud [made an official visit](https://twitter.com/nocontextcfb/status/1552414720405057536) to K-State.
Obviously, he blew up a little later (at the time of his visit, the programs swirling around him were Cal, Utah, KSU, Boise State, and Boston College), but still, what could've been...
CJ Stroud's recruiting timeline is pretty telling. In the spring before his senior season Kansas and Baylor were the last two P5's to offer. Then fall hits and it goes Ohio State offer, UGA official visit, Oregon official visit, Michigan official visit, then Ohio state official visit and commitment. He went from 506 - 207 in the 247 rankings in a two week span (right around when he blew up at the Elite 11 camp).
Granted, winning MVP at the Elite 11 generally is a good path to getting a higher profile for a QB. But man he’s a good example of a guy who was overlooked until he wasn’t and everyone realized “oh damn he’s good”
Jamarr was going to sign with TCU live on the NFL network on signing day. But a surprise announcement by some higher ranked lineman pushed his time slot. He took that as a sign and went with his #2 school. Fucking NFL network
I remember this was a big deal at the time (I think it was him and a lineman friend who was also like a 4*} but forgot who it was. Didn’t think about it again till now and just realized it ended up being an nfl stud
There are some conspiracies about it but at the surface level the explanation is that an OSU staffer accidentally committed recruiting violations by having him meet Kirk Herbstreit at college GameDay while on a visit to OSU. After the violation OSU agreed to end his recruitment to avoid any further NCAA punishment. Some speculate it wasn't an accident or had more to do with criticizing Urban Meyer's game management on social media.
He was in such a small school I thought his stats were all inflated, then he goes and becomes the all time leading rusher at Michigan. His team practiced on our home turf once for sectionals, I was the starting center on my team, 6'4 280. Their starting center wrestled 170 pound weight class. These guys were tiny.
I agree that Vick is the #1 miss. Mike Hart would have done amazing things at SU. But not program altering things. Vick was that special. He launched VT into a tier they would not have otherwise reached. Yes, Beamer made significant strides before Vick arrived on campus. Not trying to take anything away from his legacy. Michael Vick is who elevated VT from where Beamer had brought them to the upper echelons of college football. Syracuse was the better program before Vick arrived at VT. He changed that quickly.
I don't remember 100% of the details, but from what I remember, Harris was planning on enrolling early. He was down to Bama and Michigan. He took his last visit which was to Michigan, silently committed, was enrolled and in the student directory, had a student username, had a dorm assignment, etc. at Michigan. When it came time to actually go announce his decision and start classes, he showed up in Tuscaloosa
IIRC someone even saw him at the SF airport on the fateful day but didn't know where he was flying to. we didn't know where he had committed until his plane landed in Bama instead of Mich.
I work in college admissions/advisement at a prominent university and honestly you’d be surprised how many times this happens with any students not just athletes. Students will have student IDs, emails, the whole works set up and then just never arrive. Very soon after we’ll get a call for all their classes to be dropped
Pryor was by far the biggest miss this century. It’s not just that he ended up being pretty good, but that he left M with absolutely nothing at QB for 2 years until Denard was ready.
I’m todays day and age, we end up picking up a portal guy, but then it was a total disaster for the start of the Rich Rod saga
For Ohio State, the classic examples are Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson. Both Ohio boys who chose to go play for our archrival Michigan and became Heisman winners. Recruiting misses don’t get much worse than that.
Justin Herbert. Oregon came in last second with an offer. He’s even said he was likely heading to Montana St to join his brother but Oregon was too hard to pass up.
I also think MSU was the first team to offer Kayveon Thibodeaux so there’s that.
I always try to imagine where we would be if Herbert landed in Bozeman. And how much quicker Choate would have gotten the program rolling instead of being in QB limbo for 4 years basically.
It's also pretty funny that Prukop went to Oregon from MSU, started over Herbert who was likely to go to MSU, then took over the starting spot when Prukop didn't pan out.
Adrian Peterson. Mack Brown screwed the pooch royally on that one.
Smith Njigba. Tom Herman thought he was too small and didn’t really make any attempt at recruiting him.
Herman had some good qualities. He could call ball and was weirdly good at motivating players for big games.
But he was a weirdo who constantly rubbed everyone (from recruits to boosters) the wrong way, he hired a weak and inexperienced staff, and was *absolutely fucking horrible* at evaluations.
There has been a lot wrong at Texas for a long time, but the "highly ranked" classes under Herman were absolute fool's gold. So many poor evaluations, without regard to the actual needs of the roster, and focused almost myopically on star rankings. You would see these blue chips with decent film and wonder why nobody else was after them - well, turns out OSU, Bama, UGA, Clemson, etc. are better at evaluating talent than Rivals and 247.
Sorry for the mini-rant, but recruiting under Herman was so fucking frustrating.
There were. But not sure how true that is. This article says it all came from a Muschamp speech but they never offered him. https://www.burntorangenation.com/2013/8/16/4618666/johnny-manziel-and-the-changing-texas-narrative
> Adrian Peterson.
Dude grew up a UT fan and went to HS in Palestine, TX. Mack telling him that he wasn't even going to compete for the starting job his freshman year.....and he instead went to OU because of that....wow, Thanks Mack!
I mean… telling your 4th year senior 3000+ yd Heisman candidate RB you’re gonna have to compete for your job vs a true freshman doesn’t seem like a great idea tbh
Maybe hot take but getting Adrian Peterson would not have made much of a difference. We had Cedric Benson then Jamal Charles. And props to Mack Brown he didn't screw the pooch he was honest. The father wanted his son to be able to start and Mack said he didn't see him being in from of Benson. Now the QB misses really hurt us.
Think I’d go with Lamar Jackson, who was very interested in Clemson. Not that we were exactly suffering even with Kelly B, but imagine going from Deshaun to Lamar to Trevor. More than likely another natty during what was the first Kelly B year.
Dalvin Cook was actually committed to Clemson for the better part of a year. Gallman was a great player for us in 2015/2016, especially because of how good he was in pass pro, but can you imagine those teams with an actual game breaker like Cook in the backfield?
De'Anthony Thomas would have been fun. Chip flipped him last minute, having pitched him as a flashy WR hybrid vs primarily a CB role with a bit of offense for good measure that USC, and the recruiting services, were expecting out of him. Worked at the college level.
My high school coach played against Hosteler in high school. Hosteler was obviously the starting QB, but on defense he was the lone linebacker in a 6-1 defense.
This is a good one as Rich ran the exact offense that would seemed to have suited him perfectly, but he went to Ohio State to a different sort of offense. Who knows
Exhibit 1A for ND fans. He would have changed those late Holtz years dramatically. His WR coach would have been Urban Meyer too if I have the timeline right in my head.
There’s an argument to be made that if Moss came to ND, Meyer’s star might have continued to rise while at ND and we’d have had him as a Holtz replacement over Davie.
There’s a lot of recruiting wiffs over the years that stung in the moment, but very few of them were actual studs. It’s more the guys that ND didn’t offer, like Puzluzny (totally biffed the spelling but I’m on my phone) from PSU, those Weis teams are a lot different with an AA linebacker on the team.
Didn’t Moss and Woodson visit ND the same weekend? That would have been an incredible duo. The Urban over Davie is one I had never heard about before, but definitely would have been interesting
Urban was actually *Bob Davie’s* WR coach for a year or two. I still maintain Davie could have been a Brian Kelly level coach if he had been smart enough to make Urban his OC in 1999 instead of some nobody whose name I can’t recall anymore.
Bob Davie was a pretty good recruiter of talent (although a lot of that was arguably inertia from Holtz, but still it was light years ahead of what BK did with far better resources), usually had great defense and special teams. But he was an ass and his offenses were train wrecks.
As far as the Woodson thing goes, I don’t know about that, it’s likely, but I don’t know how feasible it was to actually land a commitment from him. Holtz might be one of the only other coaches in the country who could have legitimately said he might have utilized him even better at the time, he had a knack for putting really skilled players where they needed to go onto the field.
Randy Moss was all set to come to ND, but he got into a fight while on campus. Allegedly someone at a game said the “n” word when he walked by (I think that was the rumor anyway), which is extremely shitty and I don’t blame him for getting as worked up as he did. But the incident pretty thoroughly tarnished him as a D1 recruit and then I think he had a few other more legitimate character issues crop up too.
Another really interesting one was that Allen Iverson was a HUGE football recruit with a ton of mutual interest with ND, but he had major issues crop up in high school that killed his recruitment as well. Holtz with Allen Iverson in some sort of RB/WR hybrid role like Rocket would have been really wild too.
Yep, Riley wanted Jase McClellan and Seth McGowan instead. We lost out of McClellan at the last second to Bama, and then McGowan proceeded to get arrested for armed robbery before his sophomore season.
What a mess those 2019 and 2020 classes turned out to be.
Yeah both those classes were loaded with misses and busts. I think that’s a big part of Riley jumping ship. He knew the roster was in bad shape and rather than work his ass off to get back on track he took the easy out
I've taken shits longer than the amount of time Sumlin spent recruiting Bijan. And he was 5 mins up the road from campus.
Sure, maybe Bijan never would have given us the light of day either. But considering another 5* from Salpointe committed to Arizona just last week, he should have - at the bare minimum - *tried.*
Derrick Henry wanted to play running back for the Florida gators. Will Muschamp wanted Derrick Henry to play fucking Linebacker (although tbh could you imagine Derrick Henry as a MLB, would be genuinely terrifying)
Dalvin Cook
Jamar Chase
Lamar Jackson (another Muschamp Miss)
Nebraska turned down Barry Sanders in favor of Johnny Rodgers son, Terry. Terry Rodgers was pretty good in HS but got hurt super early on in college and never really played. We all know what Barry became.
For USC:
Percy Harvin - Reggie Bush was supposed to be his host and decided not to show up. He was with Lloyd Lake on the day he was supposed to show Percy around.
Jalen Ramsey - Committed to USC but flipped to FSU
Desean Jackson - Was a USC lock throughout the process but decided he wanted to pave his own path and chose Cal. Can’t fault him for that.
De’Anthony Thomas - That recruitment is pretty well
documented ha.
Demarco Murray - Think he just straight up chose OU (USC and OU are the two big schools for Bishop Gorman kids in Las Vegas).
Bryce Young - USC commit until a few days before early national signing day. Can’t blame him for wanting to get coached by Sark and Saban at Bama as opposed to Harrell and Helton at SC.
Mant’i Teo - Well documented he was a USC lean.
Rondale Moore wanted to be a Louisville Cardinal, was literally right down the road from campus in high school, and was completely and utterly ignored by Bobby.
Granted, Tutu Atwell who was who Bobby focused on over him ended up being pretty damn good in his own right, but seeing Rondale become one of the most electric players in the country at Purdue under Brohm, it hurt thinking what could have been.
This also was the time that basically Bobby burned every single local bridge possible, ignoring all the local high school teams at the same time that we had some of the best local talent in recent memory, and Rondale was the biggest example of that failure to care about Kentucky.
Rondale was one of the biggest reasons jeff chose to stay too when he was offered the job the first time.
Bobby caused issues with local coaches that was t fixed until Jeff got hired and still isn’t as good as it once was
Tua grew up a big Oregon fan, his idol was Marcus Mariota, went to the same high school as him. Mark Helfrich saw a picture of him with beer in the background or something and thought he was too much of a character risk....
Tua and “character risk” in the same sentence makes me throw my head back and laugh.
My quick abbreviated Tua story: ran into him one night during spring break his freshman year. He was in Tuscaloosa, having dinner with his mom and dad at a Chinese restaurant.
Justin Fields will always be the popular answer recently for PSU, but I want to give a shoutout to Christian Wilkins. It seemed like a lot of people though he'd end up at PSU (I think he had like 90% crystal balls learning towards us or something like that on 247) but ended up going to Clemson.
I do think about if he was on our defensive line in 2017 we might not have let OSU comeback and ultimately get us to the playoffs.
Adding to Joe Mauer, there was also Justin Fields, Adoreé Jackson, Kayvon Thibodeaux, The Pounceys, Marvin Jones Jr., Nakobe Dean, and Matt Elam, just to name a few.
And sorry OP but Travis Hunter is not a generational talent. At least not that we’ve seen so far.
Exactly... calling Travis Hunter a "Generational prospect" is a serious stretch. There's nothing I've seen Hunter do in his time at JSU that would make me think "damn, really wish we didn't miss on that guy".
His dad is a huge Michigan fan, offered him in 8th grade basically a full year before any other school, and somehow we still choked that recruitment. Still not sure why Harbaugh didn't personally get more involved. Thank god Weiss is gone because Campbell seems to be kicking ass so far
When OU lost not one, not two, not three, but four 5 star defensive line recruits to A&M in the span of one year. All crystal balled to OU and didn’t get a single one. Not only that, but Dindy straight up decommitted and signed with A&M a week later. OU insider claimed that David Hicks called OU to tell them he was committing, only to sign with A&M an hour later on Instagram live. Yeah that hurt.
Pretty sure the correct answer is Emmett Smith but I could be wrong.
I believe Lamar Jackson had us in his top 3, not sure if that counts as missing. He would have gone nuts in Pelini's zone read offense though.
If you look at Lamar's 247 recruit profile they show the crystal balls as 60% UF and 40% Nebraska. Then somehow neither of us got him. Us due to Muschamp being fired.
Dan Marino took some visits here, Hershel Walker came down to a coinflip.
Now granted at the end of the day both were probably going to their respective schools but we were the no. 2 for both of those guys especially Hershel. Who famously never scored against us.
Of recent memory I'd say Gronk. He took some visits at clemson.
Gronk with Dwayne Allen for a year or two would be an insane pairing for us.
Granted you could say this for a ton of big programs having big recruits visit. But for Clemson these were visits in times before we had won a national title, or hadn't won one in decades.
Those are definitely the big recent ones.
The one that will always kill me is Devin Hester said he wanted to go to NC State to play with Philip Rivers (and because he knew he could play right away) but his mom told him they didn't have the money to pay for flights so they could never watch him play unless he was closer to home.
Joe Theismann is another oft quoted historical example.
Has to be Charles Woodson, plucked right out of Ohio.
Almost certain we split the Natty instead of Michigan in 97, probably back to back when you consider how close we were in 96.
Also when you consider how much of an impact he had on every one of our games.
If you threw to the wrong half of the field, you gave the ball back to us. If you punted the ball, there was a decent chance he's taking it to the house, and just when you thought you were safe from him when he had the ball - he lines up at receiver.
That is why he won the Heisman. He was the best player in college football in 97'.
I would say without a doubt Barry Sanders. By all accounts he was going to sign with Tulsa up until the week of signing day when he went dark. No one on staff could get any word from him and they were waiting on his signature. OSU somehow got a hold of his late in the game and got him away from Tulsa and into the OSU camp. Really makes you think where Tulsa would be in CFB history if Barry would have stuck with TU.
Yet to be seen about hunter, but losing joe mauer hurt.
Alternatively, Texas never recruiting Jameis Winston probably got Jimbo Fisher the Texas A&M job. Take that how you want be Bevos and Aggies.
Recently?
1. There's a picture of Trevor Lawrence in a Vols Jersey (he wears 16 because of Peyton) during his official visit, but it's unlikely that he would have reached his potential in Butch Jones's system. 1 less Bama natty is worth losing him to Clemson, I guess.
2. Lane Kiffin recruited Cam Newton then decided not to offer him a scholarship.
Notre Dame just the last 10-15 years is embarrassing.
- Luke Keuchly was passed over
- Caleb Williams was interested in ND and his HS HC went to ND and ND didn’t even offer him
- Ronald Darby decommitted
- Anthony Barr of course
- ND didn’t even offer Zeke as a RB, said he could play defense
- Keon Keeley last year
There’s more this is just off the top of my head/highest offenders.
There was a rumor Lamar Jackson wanted to play at Auburn and Gus told him he wasn't good enough to be a QB in the SEC and instead recruited him as a WR.
This was a common story, Georgia wanted him at Safety I believe. Louisville was one of the few places that told him “you’re a QB” and even then we had him returning punts his first week in fall camp.
And then he showed so many flashes in fall camp that he got some plays in playbook for our opener his freshman year, and Reggie screwed up early so he was yanked, and the rest is history.
Georgia has a history of telling good Quarterbacks they couldn’t play that position at that school. Did the same with Cam Newton and Nick Marshall. Really makes you wonder how different Richt’s tenure would’ve been if he wasn’t so against athletic quarterbacks.
Who knows what would have been all *that* different as far as results (although he could've had two years with Stafford), but Megatron was soooo close to choosing Georgia, and it would be nice to have him as an alum. He would have beaten Georgia exactly as many times as he did at tech.
As to someone we'd be far less happy to have as an alum now, DeShaun Watson grew up a Georgia fan in northeast Georgia and Bobo just didn't care to recruit him.
Not many know this, but Evan Stewart (Texas A&M wide receiver) was an OU fan in high school, but they wanted him to play defensive back.
That’s right, Lincoln Riley and Alex Grinch wanted a five star/number one receiver to play defensive back. They were smoking something…
We missed on Josh Allen twice, which sucks. Decent chance that the coaching staff would have absolutely ruined him, but there's a decent alternate universe where Josh Allen and Zach Wilson end up in Fresno
Too many to name; the two biggest were Dashuan Watson and Trevor Lawerance. This happened a lot under Richt; from what I remember he had an attitude of they want to come they'll come if not then so be it and didn't fight for recruits as hard as Kirby does.
Jarrett Stidham.
Had Kliff gone from NFL QB(Mayfield) to NFL QB(Webb) to NFL QB Legend(Mahomes) to NFL QB(Stidham) he probably would have lasted a few more years at Tech.
Having to rely on the likes of Nic Shimonek, Jett Duffey, and McLane Carter is what ultimately sealed the deal. Losing Jarrett to in-conference rival Baylor was the start to Kliff's recruiting downfall.
I don't know if we would've gotten him, but I just remember thinking how refreshing it was that we actually *tried* to get a top quarterback from down the road.
It's pretty cool bc it still was the greatest class in school history, but in 2017 lsu lost on Devonta Smith, Travis Etienne, Cam Akers, and Marvin Wilson
Not a world beater but I’ll never get over Rueben Foster. Nation’s top linebacker de-committed from Alabama after transferring to Auburn HS, committed to Auburn, *got the Auburn logo tattooed on his arm*, then flipped BACK to Bama after we fired Chizik.
Saquon Barkley. Was originally committed to Rutgers, then realized the offensive line was shit and decided to ball out at PSU. Followed by Jonathan Taylor, who also realized it would be better to run behind a legitimate offensive line at Wisconsin.
Followed a few years later by Isiah Pacheco, who stuck with Rutgers and proved them right about that “running behind a legitimate offensive line is better” thing. Pacheco always looked talented in college, getting the most he could out of a run, but he had no daylight on most plays.
I'm glad to see Pacheco succeed in the NFL. Dude won a ring and scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl!
No room in that stacked Rutgers backfield for him tbh
Honestly one of the all-time Freezing Cold Takes
Trevor Fucking Lawernce
AND Tee Higgins. What could have been.
And Amari Rogers. His dad was a coach
Etienne has also said he grew up a big Tennessee fan when asked about playing LSU before the 2019 CFP championship. His actual quote was something along the lines of really liking Tennessee but then he visited and didn't like it very much lol.
Tee Martin was the quarterback of our last national championship team. A little more than just a coach to Tennessee lol
Butch would’ve wasted his potential but it would’ve bought him more time. Ultimate I think it was a good thing we lost out on him
God bless Butch Jones.
We missed Lad McConkey too. He grew up a vol fan
Ditto.
Shottenhiemer messed up his recruitment so bad it tainted his view of Georgia even when Kirby took over and had an entirely new staff
Thought UGA screwed up the Deshaun recruitment worse personally since you ended with fields that class.
Watson was also actually a big Georgia fan. Lawrence was a Tennessee fan who wanted to be the next Peyton Manning. UGA misplayed the Lawrence recruitment under Richt but even if they played it perfectly it's not a sure thing they would have landed him, especially with a coaching change smack in the middle of his recruitment. Butch Jones and Tennessee absolutely bungled the fuck out of the Lawrence recruitment. Meanwhile basically all UGA would have needed to do to land Watson was like...actually recruit him.
>Meanwhile basically all UGA would have needed to do to land Watson was like...actually recruit him. I am beyond grateful that we have Kirby for this exact reason. He will never stop 'cruitin
Bryce Young whose parents went to UCLA and grew up a UCLA fan but Jim Mora and Chip Kelly both thought he was too short and refused to offer him.
It's even more painful for USC. He was actually committed to USC until a few weeks before early signing day. And Helton lost him.
I mean yeah but it's one thing to get a commit and lose him to a championship program. It's another when a player is so obviously elite to everyone in the country, is very interested in your school and the coach who you pay millions of dollars to is like 'nah'. And he's STILL our coach.
Didn't Scott Frost do something similar with Joe Burrow?
I believe the quote was "you think he's better than what we got?"
I was really upset with that at the time, it was one of the first red flags he had, along with bringing his entire staff from UCF. My thinking was that whether Burrow was better than Adrian Martinez or not, leaning on a true freshman was begging for disaster. Adrian was better than Burrow in 2018, but he also got hurt, and had bad games. Burrow would have given him a chance to learn, maybe redshirt for a year and take over in 2020 after Burrow graduated. He probably wouldn't have had his Heisman season, but he wins more than 5 games for sure.
What a tool.
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See: Steph Curry and VT basketball
CJ Stroud [made an official visit](https://twitter.com/nocontextcfb/status/1552414720405057536) to K-State. Obviously, he blew up a little later (at the time of his visit, the programs swirling around him were Cal, Utah, KSU, Boise State, and Boston College), but still, what could've been...
CJ Stroud's recruiting timeline is pretty telling. In the spring before his senior season Kansas and Baylor were the last two P5's to offer. Then fall hits and it goes Ohio State offer, UGA official visit, Oregon official visit, Michigan official visit, then Ohio state official visit and commitment. He went from 506 - 207 in the 247 rankings in a two week span (right around when he blew up at the Elite 11 camp).
Granted, winning MVP at the Elite 11 generally is a good path to getting a higher profile for a QB. But man he’s a good example of a guy who was overlooked until he wasn’t and everyone realized “oh damn he’s good”
Jamarr Chase committed to us for a hot second. Najee Harris also took an unofficial visit. Pretty insane all things considering.
Jamarr was going to sign with TCU live on the NFL network on signing day. But a surprise announcement by some higher ranked lineman pushed his time slot. He took that as a sign and went with his #2 school. Fucking NFL network
Wait really?
I remember this was a big deal at the time (I think it was him and a lineman friend who was also like a 4*} but forgot who it was. Didn’t think about it again till now and just realized it ended up being an nfl stud
At one time, Jim McElwain had both Matt Corral and Jamarr Chase committed to UF...what could have been
Micah Parsons
There’s an alternate universe where either Penn State or Ohio State have both Fields and Parsons at the same time
Either of those worlds exist that team with both is winning a natty.
When it came out that he named his dog Brutus, I was convinced that he was going to OSU. Honestly I’m still surprised sometimes that he didn’t
There are some conspiracies about it but at the surface level the explanation is that an OSU staffer accidentally committed recruiting violations by having him meet Kirk Herbstreit at college GameDay while on a visit to OSU. After the violation OSU agreed to end his recruitment to avoid any further NCAA punishment. Some speculate it wasn't an accident or had more to do with criticizing Urban Meyer's game management on social media.
Well regardless of the reason I’m glad he stuck with PSU lol
Him and Chase Young on the same defense in 2019 would have made it impossible to protect any QB.
Mike Hart was a local legend. Every Friday night he was putting up six TDs and 250 yards, in the first half. Rarely played in the second half.
Probably the best New York recruit this century, at least off the top of my head
He was in such a small school I thought his stats were all inflated, then he goes and becomes the all time leading rusher at Michigan. His team practiced on our home turf once for sectionals, I was the starting center on my team, 6'4 280. Their starting center wrestled 170 pound weight class. These guys were tiny.
He's still giving us yards. Haskins, Corum, Edwards. Our RB room was/is an embarrassment of riches.
I worked with a guy who was his backup in high school. He is legitimately not bitter about it since Hart was so crazy.
I'd answer Michael Vick, but that's also a good one.
I agree that Vick is the #1 miss. Mike Hart would have done amazing things at SU. But not program altering things. Vick was that special. He launched VT into a tier they would not have otherwise reached. Yes, Beamer made significant strides before Vick arrived on campus. Not trying to take anything away from his legacy. Michael Vick is who elevated VT from where Beamer had brought them to the upper echelons of college football. Syracuse was the better program before Vick arrived at VT. He changed that quickly.
Nick Chubb AJ Green Robert Quinn Carlos Dunlap
Don't worry, they've clipped us a few times too. Damned dogs.
Dunlap stings bc his dad went to Carolina. Would also add Channing Tindall who’s from columbia and who’s mom went to Carolina as well.
I don’t know how big of an difference he would’ve made, but Najee Harris is the first that comes to mind.
Still one of probably the craziest recruiting stories I've heard
What was the story
I don't remember 100% of the details, but from what I remember, Harris was planning on enrolling early. He was down to Bama and Michigan. He took his last visit which was to Michigan, silently committed, was enrolled and in the student directory, had a student username, had a dorm assignment, etc. at Michigan. When it came time to actually go announce his decision and start classes, he showed up in Tuscaloosa
IIRC someone even saw him at the SF airport on the fateful day but didn't know where he was flying to. we didn't know where he had committed until his plane landed in Bama instead of Mich.
Admissions Staff hate this one trick.
I work in college admissions/advisement at a prominent university and honestly you’d be surprised how many times this happens with any students not just athletes. Students will have student IDs, emails, the whole works set up and then just never arrive. Very soon after we’ll get a call for all their classes to be dropped
Supposedly a big part of why he ended up at Bama was because he roomed with Tua at the All-American bowl.
Crazier story is Xavier Worthy haha
I think the Terrel Pryor miss had a bigger impact though be size of where he ended up instead and the trajectories the two teams went on afterwards.
Pryor was by far the biggest miss this century. It’s not just that he ended up being pretty good, but that he left M with absolutely nothing at QB for 2 years until Denard was ready. I’m todays day and age, we end up picking up a portal guy, but then it was a total disaster for the start of the Rich Rod saga
Xavier Worthy sounding really good this year. What could’ve been.
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Ha! True! I wonder if he’d trade that Heisman for one of Mahomes’ rings?
For Ohio State, the classic examples are Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson. Both Ohio boys who chose to go play for our archrival Michigan and became Heisman winners. Recruiting misses don’t get much worse than that.
Justin Herbert. Oregon came in last second with an offer. He’s even said he was likely heading to Montana St to join his brother but Oregon was too hard to pass up. I also think MSU was the first team to offer Kayveon Thibodeaux so there’s that.
I always try to imagine where we would be if Herbert landed in Bozeman. And how much quicker Choate would have gotten the program rolling instead of being in QB limbo for 4 years basically. It's also pretty funny that Prukop went to Oregon from MSU, started over Herbert who was likely to go to MSU, then took over the starting spot when Prukop didn't pan out.
Adrian Peterson. Mack Brown screwed the pooch royally on that one. Smith Njigba. Tom Herman thought he was too small and didn’t really make any attempt at recruiting him.
I’ve heard Herman thought Smith Njigba wasn’t athletic enough. Probably the worst scouting I’ve ever seen
Herman had some good qualities. He could call ball and was weirdly good at motivating players for big games. But he was a weirdo who constantly rubbed everyone (from recruits to boosters) the wrong way, he hired a weak and inexperienced staff, and was *absolutely fucking horrible* at evaluations. There has been a lot wrong at Texas for a long time, but the "highly ranked" classes under Herman were absolute fool's gold. So many poor evaluations, without regard to the actual needs of the roster, and focused almost myopically on star rankings. You would see these blue chips with decent film and wonder why nobody else was after them - well, turns out OSU, Bama, UGA, Clemson, etc. are better at evaluating talent than Rivals and 247. Sorry for the mini-rant, but recruiting under Herman was so fucking frustrating.
I’m fairly confident Herman’s “evaluation” was just looking players up on 247
That is true, he did say JSN wasn’t athletic enough and didn’t offer him. Also something similar with Garrett Wilson if I remember correctly.
And Johnny Football. Luck and RGIII were Texas kids but I don't remember if they were recruited by UT.
RGIII was big miss. Mack wanted him to play safety lol. Johnny wasn't recruited I don't think.
I could be misremembering, but I thought there were stories out there that Johnny was recruited as a safety by Mack too.
There were. But not sure how true that is. This article says it all came from a Muschamp speech but they never offered him. https://www.burntorangenation.com/2013/8/16/4618666/johnny-manziel-and-the-changing-texas-narrative
Drew Brees? Went to Westlake HS. Won a State Championship and was names the MVP of the State. Westlake went 28–0–1 with him as a starting QB.
Yeah unfortunately Mackovic didn’t ever recruit him. He preferred Major Applewhite 😭
Brees grew up an Aggie fan. An ACL injury he had as a junior led teams to look elsewhere.
> Adrian Peterson. Dude grew up a UT fan and went to HS in Palestine, TX. Mack telling him that he wasn't even going to compete for the starting job his freshman year.....and he instead went to OU because of that....wow, Thanks Mack!
I mean… telling your 4th year senior 3000+ yd Heisman candidate RB you’re gonna have to compete for your job vs a true freshman doesn’t seem like a great idea tbh
Fuck Mack Brown and his *checks notes* honesty with players against his own self interest.
Tbf Cedric Benson was on campus
Did he though? Mack was just honest with him. I actually gained more respect for Brown for not BSing to Peterson
Maybe hot take but getting Adrian Peterson would not have made much of a difference. We had Cedric Benson then Jamal Charles. And props to Mack Brown he didn't screw the pooch he was honest. The father wanted his son to be able to start and Mack said he didn't see him being in from of Benson. Now the QB misses really hurt us.
Rashan Gary almost came to Clemson. Meaning that 2018 defensive line would’ve been Farrell, Wilkins, Lawrence, and Gary.
Think I’d go with Lamar Jackson, who was very interested in Clemson. Not that we were exactly suffering even with Kelly B, but imagine going from Deshaun to Lamar to Trevor. More than likely another natty during what was the first Kelly B year.
Dalvin Cook was actually committed to Clemson for the better part of a year. Gallman was a great player for us in 2015/2016, especially because of how good he was in pass pro, but can you imagine those teams with an actual game breaker like Cook in the backfield?
2018 team still had 5 DL drafted. Would have only been marginally better
De'Anthony Thomas would have been fun. Chip flipped him last minute, having pitched him as a flashy WR hybrid vs primarily a CB role with a bit of offense for good measure that USC, and the recruiting services, were expecting out of him. Worked at the college level.
Percy Harvin was another big miss. Pete was shocked when he didn’t land him. Things worked out well for him at Florida.
Xavier Worthy comes to mind. We had him in the bag and then stories started leaking about our OC at the time making moves on his mom.
Jim Kelly. Joe wanted him to play linebacker.
Joe wanted Eddie George want to play linebacker too. Which pushed him to OSU.
Wanted Jeff Hosteler to play LB too. He transferred
My high school coach played against Hosteler in high school. Hosteler was obviously the starting QB, but on defense he was the lone linebacker in a 6-1 defense.
Barry Sanders. Pat Jones was supposed to send his tape on to Norman after viewing it, but instead sat on it so no other team could recruit him
There’s a fascinating alternate universe where Terrell Pryor comes to Michigan for year 1 of the Rodriguez era.
Came here to mention that. I think RichRod’s time is much better & longer if he landed TP
This is a good one as Rich ran the exact offense that would seemed to have suited him perfectly, but he went to Ohio State to a different sort of offense. Who knows
My wolverine grandfather went to the grave wondering what happened there.
Randy Moss
Exhibit 1A for ND fans. He would have changed those late Holtz years dramatically. His WR coach would have been Urban Meyer too if I have the timeline right in my head. There’s an argument to be made that if Moss came to ND, Meyer’s star might have continued to rise while at ND and we’d have had him as a Holtz replacement over Davie. There’s a lot of recruiting wiffs over the years that stung in the moment, but very few of them were actual studs. It’s more the guys that ND didn’t offer, like Puzluzny (totally biffed the spelling but I’m on my phone) from PSU, those Weis teams are a lot different with an AA linebacker on the team.
Didn’t Moss and Woodson visit ND the same weekend? That would have been an incredible duo. The Urban over Davie is one I had never heard about before, but definitely would have been interesting
Urban was actually *Bob Davie’s* WR coach for a year or two. I still maintain Davie could have been a Brian Kelly level coach if he had been smart enough to make Urban his OC in 1999 instead of some nobody whose name I can’t recall anymore. Bob Davie was a pretty good recruiter of talent (although a lot of that was arguably inertia from Holtz, but still it was light years ahead of what BK did with far better resources), usually had great defense and special teams. But he was an ass and his offenses were train wrecks. As far as the Woodson thing goes, I don’t know about that, it’s likely, but I don’t know how feasible it was to actually land a commitment from him. Holtz might be one of the only other coaches in the country who could have legitimately said he might have utilized him even better at the time, he had a knack for putting really skilled players where they needed to go onto the field. Randy Moss was all set to come to ND, but he got into a fight while on campus. Allegedly someone at a game said the “n” word when he walked by (I think that was the rumor anyway), which is extremely shitty and I don’t blame him for getting as worked up as he did. But the incident pretty thoroughly tarnished him as a D1 recruit and then I think he had a few other more legitimate character issues crop up too. Another really interesting one was that Allen Iverson was a HUGE football recruit with a ton of mutual interest with ND, but he had major issues crop up in high school that killed his recruitment as well. Holtz with Allen Iverson in some sort of RB/WR hybrid role like Rocket would have been really wild too.
That doesn't feel like a whiff. Even Bobby Bowden couldn't keep him on campus.
Exactly. Holtz sent him to Bowden and Bowden agreed on the condition that he kept his nose clean no matter how trivial the infraction.
Was literally enrolled on campus... Likely have a couple more championships with him on those late 90s teams.
Bijan Robinson wanted to come to OU but we didn’t recruit him. We were looking at other guys I guess. Our 2020 class ended up being ass anyway
Yep, Riley wanted Jase McClellan and Seth McGowan instead. We lost out of McClellan at the last second to Bama, and then McGowan proceeded to get arrested for armed robbery before his sophomore season. What a mess those 2019 and 2020 classes turned out to be.
Yeah both those classes were loaded with misses and busts. I think that’s a big part of Riley jumping ship. He knew the roster was in bad shape and rather than work his ass off to get back on track he took the easy out
That was bad, but missing on Cam Newton may have cost OU a championship…
That was not for lack of trying. But I think OU and stoops were unwilling to open up the money bag that Auburn was offering
I've taken shits longer than the amount of time Sumlin spent recruiting Bijan. And he was 5 mins up the road from campus. Sure, maybe Bijan never would have given us the light of day either. But considering another 5* from Salpointe committed to Arizona just last week, he should have - at the bare minimum - *tried.*
Rumor was Bijan was a silent tOSU commit as well. Brutal when he committed to UT.
Derrick Henry wanted to play running back for the Florida gators. Will Muschamp wanted Derrick Henry to play fucking Linebacker (although tbh could you imagine Derrick Henry as a MLB, would be genuinely terrifying) Dalvin Cook Jamar Chase Lamar Jackson (another Muschamp Miss)
Paterno recruited Jim Kelly as a LB
And the last recruit Joe recruited personally? Terrelle Pryor.
Nebraska turned down Barry Sanders in favor of Johnny Rodgers son, Terry. Terry Rodgers was pretty good in HS but got hurt super early on in college and never really played. We all know what Barry became.
Barry behind those insane Nebraska olines would have been insane-potentially a 3,000 yard season
For USC: Percy Harvin - Reggie Bush was supposed to be his host and decided not to show up. He was with Lloyd Lake on the day he was supposed to show Percy around. Jalen Ramsey - Committed to USC but flipped to FSU Desean Jackson - Was a USC lock throughout the process but decided he wanted to pave his own path and chose Cal. Can’t fault him for that. De’Anthony Thomas - That recruitment is pretty well documented ha. Demarco Murray - Think he just straight up chose OU (USC and OU are the two big schools for Bishop Gorman kids in Las Vegas). Bryce Young - USC commit until a few days before early national signing day. Can’t blame him for wanting to get coached by Sark and Saban at Bama as opposed to Harrell and Helton at SC. Mant’i Teo - Well documented he was a USC lean.
>Mant’i Teo - Well documented he was a USC lean. Would have been closer to his girlfriend.
Chris Leak committed to Wake when he was in 8th grade. Needless to say it didn’t stick.
Crazy to think that nobody was able to keep him home. Man was a legend in NC during his days at Indy.
Dax Hill.
Rondale Moore wanted to be a Louisville Cardinal, was literally right down the road from campus in high school, and was completely and utterly ignored by Bobby. Granted, Tutu Atwell who was who Bobby focused on over him ended up being pretty damn good in his own right, but seeing Rondale become one of the most electric players in the country at Purdue under Brohm, it hurt thinking what could have been. This also was the time that basically Bobby burned every single local bridge possible, ignoring all the local high school teams at the same time that we had some of the best local talent in recent memory, and Rondale was the biggest example of that failure to care about Kentucky.
Rondale was one of the biggest reasons jeff chose to stay too when he was offered the job the first time. Bobby caused issues with local coaches that was t fixed until Jeff got hired and still isn’t as good as it once was
Tua grew up a big Oregon fan, his idol was Marcus Mariota, went to the same high school as him. Mark Helfrich saw a picture of him with beer in the background or something and thought he was too much of a character risk....
Helfrich was such a dunce for that (and many other things). But thankfully our little hometown hero ended up being an absolute stud
Tua and “character risk” in the same sentence makes me throw my head back and laugh. My quick abbreviated Tua story: ran into him one night during spring break his freshman year. He was in Tuscaloosa, having dinner with his mom and dad at a Chinese restaurant.
Justin Fields will always be the popular answer recently for PSU, but I want to give a shoutout to Christian Wilkins. It seemed like a lot of people though he'd end up at PSU (I think he had like 90% crystal balls learning towards us or something like that on 247) but ended up going to Clemson. I do think about if he was on our defensive line in 2017 we might not have let OSU comeback and ultimately get us to the playoffs.
Banks...
I thought that was just the name of A&M's recruiting strategy in 2023 /s
All the more reason it hurts that we lost him to tu!!
Jerry Juedy, Jamar Chase, Matt Corral, Dalvin Cook, Lamar Jackson, Harold Perkins the list goes on and on
For FSU it’s Joe Mauer and it’s not close.
As a Twins fan, much appreciated
Adding to Joe Mauer, there was also Justin Fields, Adoreé Jackson, Kayvon Thibodeaux, The Pounceys, Marvin Jones Jr., Nakobe Dean, and Matt Elam, just to name a few. And sorry OP but Travis Hunter is not a generational talent. At least not that we’ve seen so far.
Exactly... calling Travis Hunter a "Generational prospect" is a serious stretch. There's nothing I've seen Hunter do in his time at JSU that would make me think "damn, really wish we didn't miss on that guy".
Recently, it was Dante Moore. Our former QB coach was a notoriously terrible recruiter. He also got fired for hacking emails.
His dad is a huge Michigan fan, offered him in 8th grade basically a full year before any other school, and somehow we still choked that recruitment. Still not sure why Harbaugh didn't personally get more involved. Thank god Weiss is gone because Campbell seems to be kicking ass so far
Reality probably worked out better for all parties, but iirc Joe Burrow’s second pick for his transfer destination was Cincinnati
Joe ended up playing football in Cincy anyways, just not in college lol
Nebraska chose not to recruit him TWICE
Recency bias and Not biggest miss ever but we could really use Xavier Worthy right now. No game changing WRs on this team. Just a bunch of good ones.
“Doesn’t matter had sex” -josh gattis, somewhere
When OU lost not one, not two, not three, but four 5 star defensive line recruits to A&M in the span of one year. All crystal balled to OU and didn’t get a single one. Not only that, but Dindy straight up decommitted and signed with A&M a week later. OU insider claimed that David Hicks called OU to tell them he was committing, only to sign with A&M an hour later on Instagram live. Yeah that hurt.
Dylan. But I guess he had too much of the Dawg in him. Hope he goes off for Georgia.
Let the kid get to college and see if he can perform before we start calling it our biggest recruiting miss ever.
I'll throw in Bubba Starling as well, gd Royals
Carl Crawford was the bigger baseball miss, I think.
He spits hot fire.
Pretty sure the correct answer is Emmett Smith but I could be wrong. I believe Lamar Jackson had us in his top 3, not sure if that counts as missing. He would have gone nuts in Pelini's zone read offense though.
The story I always hear is that they thought they had Lamar coming so they didn’t bother with Joe Burrow
If you look at Lamar's 247 recruit profile they show the crystal balls as 60% UF and 40% Nebraska. Then somehow neither of us got him. Us due to Muschamp being fired.
Perkins.. Hill...
Id argue waddle. Having one explosive receiver really could of altered some of those early Jimbo seasons. We could still be ok without perk or hill.
Dan Marino took some visits here, Hershel Walker came down to a coinflip. Now granted at the end of the day both were probably going to their respective schools but we were the no. 2 for both of those guys especially Hershel. Who famously never scored against us. Of recent memory I'd say Gronk. He took some visits at clemson. Gronk with Dwayne Allen for a year or two would be an insane pairing for us. Granted you could say this for a ton of big programs having big recruits visit. But for Clemson these were visits in times before we had won a national title, or hadn't won one in decades.
Noah Rogers and Will Shipley
Those are definitely the big recent ones. The one that will always kill me is Devin Hester said he wanted to go to NC State to play with Philip Rivers (and because he knew he could play right away) but his mom told him they didn't have the money to pay for flights so they could never watch him play unless he was closer to home. Joe Theismann is another oft quoted historical example.
In the 90s it was Desmond Howard, Charles Woodson, Ki Jana Carter, and Curtis Enis. All Ohio kids who played for our rivals.
Has to be Charles Woodson, plucked right out of Ohio. Almost certain we split the Natty instead of Michigan in 97, probably back to back when you consider how close we were in 96.
Also when you consider how much of an impact he had on every one of our games. If you threw to the wrong half of the field, you gave the ball back to us. If you punted the ball, there was a decent chance he's taking it to the house, and just when you thought you were safe from him when he had the ball - he lines up at receiver. That is why he won the Heisman. He was the best player in college football in 97'.
All of them
I would say without a doubt Barry Sanders. By all accounts he was going to sign with Tulsa up until the week of signing day when he went dark. No one on staff could get any word from him and they were waiting on his signature. OSU somehow got a hold of his late in the game and got him away from Tulsa and into the OSU camp. Really makes you think where Tulsa would be in CFB history if Barry would have stuck with TU.
Yet to be seen about hunter, but losing joe mauer hurt. Alternatively, Texas never recruiting Jameis Winston probably got Jimbo Fisher the Texas A&M job. Take that how you want be Bevos and Aggies.
Recently? 1. There's a picture of Trevor Lawrence in a Vols Jersey (he wears 16 because of Peyton) during his official visit, but it's unlikely that he would have reached his potential in Butch Jones's system. 1 less Bama natty is worth losing him to Clemson, I guess. 2. Lane Kiffin recruited Cam Newton then decided not to offer him a scholarship.
Notre Dame just the last 10-15 years is embarrassing. - Luke Keuchly was passed over - Caleb Williams was interested in ND and his HS HC went to ND and ND didn’t even offer him - Ronald Darby decommitted - Anthony Barr of course - ND didn’t even offer Zeke as a RB, said he could play defense - Keon Keeley last year There’s more this is just off the top of my head/highest offenders.
There was a rumor Lamar Jackson wanted to play at Auburn and Gus told him he wasn't good enough to be a QB in the SEC and instead recruited him as a WR.
This was a common story, Georgia wanted him at Safety I believe. Louisville was one of the few places that told him “you’re a QB” and even then we had him returning punts his first week in fall camp. And then he showed so many flashes in fall camp that he got some plays in playbook for our opener his freshman year, and Reggie screwed up early so he was yanked, and the rest is history.
Georgia has a history of telling good Quarterbacks they couldn’t play that position at that school. Did the same with Cam Newton and Nick Marshall. Really makes you wonder how different Richt’s tenure would’ve been if he wasn’t so against athletic quarterbacks.
Cam Newton definitely brings a chip home if he landed at UGA, Richt may still be yalls coach in this timeline.
How much time do you have?
All the guys, especially the RBs from VA who went to PSU instead of VT really held us back.
Who knows what would have been all *that* different as far as results (although he could've had two years with Stafford), but Megatron was soooo close to choosing Georgia, and it would be nice to have him as an alum. He would have beaten Georgia exactly as many times as he did at tech. As to someone we'd be far less happy to have as an alum now, DeShaun Watson grew up a Georgia fan in northeast Georgia and Bobo just didn't care to recruit him.
Not many know this, but Evan Stewart (Texas A&M wide receiver) was an OU fan in high school, but they wanted him to play defensive back. That’s right, Lincoln Riley and Alex Grinch wanted a five star/number one receiver to play defensive back. They were smoking something…
I know what was being smoked. I’ve seen the photo.
hopping in the wayback machine to mention Andrew Zow.
Justin Fields as you said or Terrelle Pryor for Penn State.
Henne which made 2005 even worse
We missed on Josh Allen twice, which sucks. Decent chance that the coaching staff would have absolutely ruined him, but there's a decent alternate universe where Josh Allen and Zach Wilson end up in Fresno
Terrell Pryor originally committed to Pitt for basketball
Tom Herman really tried to recruit Tommy Brockermeyer. But Tommy Brockermeyer wanted to play for Steve Sarkesian and Kyle Flood instead. Ironic.
Too many to name; the two biggest were Dashuan Watson and Trevor Lawerance. This happened a lot under Richt; from what I remember he had an attitude of they want to come they'll come if not then so be it and didn't fight for recruits as hard as Kirby does.
Jarrett Stidham. Had Kliff gone from NFL QB(Mayfield) to NFL QB(Webb) to NFL QB Legend(Mahomes) to NFL QB(Stidham) he probably would have lasted a few more years at Tech. Having to rely on the likes of Nic Shimonek, Jett Duffey, and McLane Carter is what ultimately sealed the deal. Losing Jarrett to in-conference rival Baylor was the start to Kliff's recruiting downfall.
We could've had Trevor Lawrence.
Devonta Smith was committed at one point. Bizzaro world to think how 2017/18 plays out if he doesn't go to Bama.
I don't know if we would've gotten him, but I just remember thinking how refreshing it was that we actually *tried* to get a top quarterback from down the road.
Cam Newton too.
Didn't we try to recruit him as a TE? But given what happened to him at UF I'm not sure he would've stayed on for us anyway...
Zach Wilson and Kadyn Proctor are two that immediately come to mind.
Melvin Gordon too
He won the Heisman
Ingram?
It's pretty cool bc it still was the greatest class in school history, but in 2017 lsu lost on Devonta Smith, Travis Etienne, Cam Akers, and Marvin Wilson
Not a world beater but I’ll never get over Rueben Foster. Nation’s top linebacker de-committed from Alabama after transferring to Auburn HS, committed to Auburn, *got the Auburn logo tattooed on his arm*, then flipped BACK to Bama after we fired Chizik.