When news hit Wednesday that Florida wide receiver James Louis had verballed to Ohio State, a resounding "wut?" went up across Buckeye Nation.
The fine folks at BuckeyePlanet, who make a business of documenting the movement of every recruit to even garner a sniff from the staff were dead silent on the guy for 19 days before the unexpected news hit.
Louis is one of the top receivers in the country (Rivals: 31, Scout: 26, ESPN 150) and his film is already evoking comparisons to Santonio (another Palm Beach County recruit) and Gamble:
ESPN has this to say about James:
This young man can flat out run. He possesses some of the best quickness and acceleration of any receiver in this class and he can be a dangerous weapon in all three phases of the passing game.
So how did he fall into Tressel's lap? Lucky for us, Vico is on the case and he turns up a fascinating backstory.
When he called Florida to inform the school that the Gators were his pick, the coaching staff was happy, but head coach Urban Meyer asked him not to talk about his decision with the media for a few days. Louis didn’t really think much about that comment, until this past week.
After being unable to attend Florida’s Friday Night Lights Camp, Louis started to see numerous stories popping up online about how Florida wasn’t going to accept his commitment and how he might have to wait until the staff saw who else ended up committing. That set off alarms in his head and he immediately began calling and e-mailing Meyer and his coaching staff.
After five or so days of silence from Florida’s end, Louis said to heck with it and called the Ohio State coaches to let them know he will be a Buckeye next year.
The prevailing opinion on just what spurred Florida's apparent change of heart on Louis is Chris Dunkley went in and impressed with his own FNL performance, possibly taking Louis' spot on the Gators.
Further, it appears as if Cris Carter was selling the Buckeyes to Louis and might have had a big hand in this most awesome of surprises.
The 2010 class might have lurched out to a slow start, but with the addition of Rod Smith, and now Louis, we could be in store for an unexpected and exciting stretch run.
Comments
"The 2010 class might have lurched out to a slow start, but with the addition of Rod Smith, and now Louis, we could be in store for an unexpected and exciting stretch run."
it's definitely got me excited!
Florida's loss is definitely OSU's gain.
Always room for another beastly receiver at tOSU.
These coaches are like used car salesman. They fill these kids heads with all kinds of BS, then screw them over. I mean I'm glad that Meyer fooled around and the kid said FU to Florida, but man when a kid pulls out of his commitment to a school and goes somewhere else his integrity is automatically in question. Shame we don't hold these coaches to the same standard
Cris Carter, all he does is help recruit studs. Thanks CC!!!!
i'm actually impressed with louis taking the initiative to check things out and make a decision based on the circumstances. he seems like a no nonsense type of kid. anyone know whether he's visited us yet? :-)
He has not visited OSU yet.
They sound more like abusive boyfriends to me - "OK, we can date, but don't tell anyone yet, I just want to keep 'us' to ourselves for now, OK?"
LOL.... LOL..... LOL.... LOL....LOL
Urban is proving to be an arrogant asswipe.... it is going to be interesting to see how well he does in the post Tebow era... if he starts losing it will also be intersting to see how much prodding it will take to get him to lose his cool. He is a good coach (gets way more credit than he deserves in my opinion) but has an arrogant air and can be a dick.
I want to see how he does in the post Percy Harvin era. I know their defense will be nasty, but Percy was the differenc in the Oklahoma game, and without him that offense was not the same.
haha..so please tell me this guy is joining the Buckeyes to specifically get back at Florida? that is completely awesome..i like this cat
we'll love it until he doesn't get the playing time he thinks he deserves and then defects to Michigan to get back at us!!
Ohio State was on his list, he probably just wanted to make sure he went to a school that had a spot for him. Sounds like Florida wanted him to put everything on hold in case this other dude wanted to play there,then they were going to screw over Louis. I'm glad he said F it and joined the Buckeyes instead.
Just a little side note...
for football being "king" in the south, did you notice how empty the seats are in that video?
My high school is lucky to win six games a year, and we get 4K to 5k fans every home game.