Ohio State University did nothing untoward or illegal in pulling a football scholarship from a south Florida prospect less than a week before signing day, but the decision may end up creating ill will in a recruiting hotbed.
Da’Juan Morgan of Suncoast High School — a highly rated receiver as a junior who missed all of his senior season because of injuries suffered in a car wreck — made a commitment to the Buckeyes in November. With a 3.25 grade-point average in a challenging curriculum, he met the NCAA’s academic standards.
But OSU coaches reneged on their offer, telling Suncoast coach Jimmie Bell that Morgan was turned down by the school’s academic screening committee because he didn’t rank in the top half of his class.
But Bell didn’t buy that explanation and chastised OSU in the Palm Beach Post. Morgan and his mother, Margaret Edmond, lashed out publicly, too.
“I think they dropped the ball,” she said.
Sources say OSU coaches had a change of heart because they thought a commitment from a more coveted receiver — Dwayne Jarrett of New Jersey — was imminent and they were in danger of exceeding their scholarship limit. Jarrett, however, signed with Southern Cal.
OSU athletics director Andy Geiger conceded the staff botched the recruitment of Morgan and said the school doesn’t have a 50-percent minimum standard on class rank.
“It’s subjective,” he said of the admissions policy.
OSU president Karen Holbrook addressed the flap in an e-mail posted on OSU fan Web sites, noting that “we did not do a good job handling the recruitment of certain football prospects (and) will work with our coaches to be certain that lessons are learned ...”
But Division I-A programs routinely overextend themselves with scholarships — confident that natural attrition will occur through academic casualties or because players choose to go elsewhere — though it doesn’t always work out that way.
OSU coach Jim Tressel said NCAA rules prohibited him from discussing Morgan, who signed with North Carolina State. But others believe the Buckeyes’ decision to cut ties with the player could cost them in the long run.
“That’s a key school in a key area,” recruiting analyst Duane Long said. “If they don’t think this will have repercussions later, they’re kidding themselves.
“Don’t think those articles won’t be part of the traveling package of every college coach.”
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