What the dating world can teach us about Devyn Ford’s recruitment
This question is a reference to North Stafford (Va.) running back Devyn Ford, a 4-star prospect ranked as the No. 73 prospect overall in 2019 and the No. 6 running back in the class, per the 247Sports composite rankings. Ford was on campus at Ohio State on Thursday and Friday, making his fourth unofficial visit of the recruiting process to Columbus to check out the program.
Ford has informed Land of 10 that he’ll return just three weeks later, making official visits to his final three of Virginia Tech (April 14), Penn State (April 21), and Ohio State (April 28) before announcing a May 18 decision. He’s been to each of these programs four times or more a piece, many of them recently, which begs an interesting question — why return so soon? Or return at all?
I’m sure on some level the answer is “because he can.” You’re only a recruit once and that process only involves five official visits. Ford isn’t being flippant and taking visits to programs he doesn’t care about; he’s only using these three official visit opportunities because they’re the only three programs that have a serious chance to land him. Still, it seems bad to let them go to waste entirely, no? Ford will get three weekends of high-level college football programs rolling out the red carpet for him, paying for his meals and flights, and doing their best to shower him with positive attention and impress him. That seems really fun to me.
I don’t know that he’ll see anything all that different than what he’s already seen. He’s met the players at these programs, watched practices and games and seen the dormitories, campuses, and academic lives of student-athletes. You know that old advertising hook “What do you get the man who has everything?” Ford is pretty much in that boat already, telling Land of 10 that he’s already “pretty much seen it all.”
Every school on Ford’s list has shown him the ability to put him on a path to play in the pros or to set him up academically and professionally for the future if the NFL isn’t in the cards. Each will do their best to showcase a path to the field or a chance for early playing time, flex with their fancy new facilities or dorms, or tell the kid how many titles they’ve won. That’s not really what Ford needs to know about any more though, he’s to the point where relationships seem to take over.
“Right now, it’s just building relationships with coaches, seeing what I can take from offensive schemes and seeing which one is going to benefit me more in the future. It’s kind of hard knowing what it will be like until you actually get there, so it’s kind of like a blind date,” Ford recently told Land of 10.
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Ford is playing the field while he looks for the right fit, essentially. If previous unofficial visits were speed dates or a casual coffee, an official visit is like the first time you spend a weekend away out of town with your (potential?) significant other. It’s more time than you usually spend around one another in a confined area and sometimes you learn some things that you didn’t expect.
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I don’t know what kind of date Urban Meyer is, but I guess we’ll all find out when Ford announces his commitment on May 18.
Entire article:
https://www.landof10.com/ohio-state...ll-recruiting-devyn-ford-official-visits-2019
This is a major decision for the recruit and there is no reason why he shouldn't thoroughly check out each school that he is considering. If more recruits would do that we would probably have a lot fewer transfers.
