It goes without saying that schools have been looking to poach the cream of Oregon’s 2013 recruiting class since Chip Kelly bolted the Ducks for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Monday night, said poaching came to verbal fruition, at least in one case.
While nothing will become official until his Herbie Hancock is applied to a National Letter of Intent Wednesday, Dontre Wilson announced, to not much surprise, that he has verbally committed to Ohio State. The DeSoto, Tex., high schooler had also been considering Texas before ultimately opting for what could be a Percy Harvin-like role with the Buckeyes..
Wilson, a four-star recruit rated by Rivals.com as the No. 6 all-purpose running back in the country, had been verbally committed to the Ducks since last May. That was to Kelly’s Ducks, however.
The 5-10, 174-pound back made it very clear that he was not pleased with Kelly’s departure for the NFL. Specifically, Wilson was “hurt a little” that he and his family visited with Kelly face-to-face the day before he left for the Eagles and no mention was made of the possibility.
Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes were one of the first to pounce on the coaching change in Eugene, dispatching coaches to the West Coast to woo a handful of four-star UO commits on the same day Kelly left. While that paid off in the case of Wilson’s flip, it didn’t for another as four-star wide receiver Darren Carrington reaffirmed his verbal to the Ducks last night.
The crown jewel of UO’s 2013 recruiting class, five-star running back Thomas Tyner, remains firmly committed to a UO class that currently rates as the 36th-best in the country and just the seventh-best in the Pac-12.
The Buckeyes, on the other hand, added to what was already one of the top classes in the country. OSU is currently tied with Florida for No. 2 on Rivals’ team board, one point behind Alabama. OSU is also No. 2 according to 247Sports.com and Scout.com, behind the Tide in the former composite and Big Ten rival Michigan in the latter.