The off-season is almost over, but I'm still bored because the lack of football games to fill up my weekends. So, in my state of boredom I started thinking about our 2014 team. We had a lot of great players on the team (the obvious), but anyone who follows recruiting knows that we came very close to having a completely different team. A large number of our key players were very close (at least from an outside perspective) to not being buckeyes. We know Zeke was very close to switching his commitment to Mizzou in the midnight hour. But, even before signing day, Zeke was getting cold feet because he originally thought he would be the only running back in the class until Drayton told him we may have to take Derrick Green also. This prompted Zeke and his family to start looking around a bit more. Taylor Decker was under-recruited and committed to Notre Dame for a very long time. The 6'7" monster was a late offer and contemplated not taking visiting OSU. He took an official roughly 2 weeks before signing day de-committed from the Irish shortly after. Cardale was not only a late offer, but he was the underdog his entire career. He spent his entire OSU career living in the shadow of Braxton and served as the other guy in the class. He was even encouraged to transfer at one point. Mike Thomas was recruited as a result of being Cardale's teammate at Fork Union. Elflein was a Fickell offer and may have only been offered because Fick liked his wrestling background. Baldwin was a convert over from defensive line. We all know the Darron Lee story (camping 3 times before Fickell had to cajole Meyer into offering him). Tyvis Powell was a Fickell offer who probably wouldn't have been offered if Tress or Meyer were the coaches at the time. Vonn Bell's commitment was quite a surprise to everyone, including the coaching staff.  You can also look into the strange strange case of Corey Smith. Now, with all of that said, isn't it amazing how one of the greatest teams in Ohio State history almost never existed?