UK signee says Ohio State ‘treated me like a piece of meat’
Kentucky signee Landon Young doesn’t have a very fond opinion of Ohio State coach Urban Meyer.
Young, a five-star offensive lineman in the class of 2016 according to Rivals, did a question and answer with SEC Country in which he was asked the funniest thing any coach said to him during the recruiting process. Here’s his answer:
It may not be the best thing, but actually, I was at Ohio State having a private meeting with Urban Meyer. I had gone up to camp there, and they had treated me like a piece of meat, just treated me like crap. By that time, I was a four-star tackle. I weighed about 270 [pounds], and I was 6-7.
I wasn’t even on their radar. I came back up after they offered me. Four straight days, I got (offers from) the University of Cincinnati, Alabama, Auburn and then Ohio State. I went up and said, ‘Coach (Meyer), what was the reason that you all of a sudden offered me?’ He said, ‘We looked at your tape, and it was pretty good and I saw interest in that.’ I said, ‘Well coach, back when I was just committing to Kentucky and keeping my options open, I came up to a camp and sent you my film and everything, and you didn’t even reply. It seemed like y’all just deleted it.’
He said, ‘Well, if you look back at that time, you were how big?’ I said, ‘6-7, 270, just like I am now.’ He said, ‘Well, you were an insubstantial tackle, an insubstantial player,’ so he was saying I (didn’t) even amount to being able to be recruited by Ohio State as a four-star tackle. He said, ‘Now what offers did you have?’ I said, ‘I had my one from Kentucky,’ and he said, ‘Well, you were an insubstantial player with insubstantial offers from an insubstantial school.’
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Young, a native of Lexington, Kentucky, is listed as the top recruit in the state of Kentucky and the No. 3 offensive tackle in the class of 2016. His Rivals page lists the date of his Kentucky commitment as June 14, 2013, which means he committed the summer before his sophomore year.
It’s easy (and natural) to get upset at Meyer’s comments if you’re Young or a fan of Kentucky. Dissing other programs is a common recruiting tactic. But it’s also truly possible that Meyer believed at one point that Young wasn’t a player Ohio State wanted if he used “were” like Young said. We all know how players can mature and improve substantially over the course of one year in high school, let alone three.
Is that the case with Young and the way Meyer viewed him? We don’t know for sure. But what we do know is the world of recruiting is a nasty one.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
