Class of 2020 getting help from inside
Recruit using a group chat on Twitter to help Buckeyes lure more talent.
COLUMBUS — Jake Wray wants to be John Elway.
Not a legendary quarterback. Wray is an offensive lineman, a good one committed to Ohio State in the Class of 2020. Plus, Wray wasn’t alive when Elway last played an NFL game in 1998.
Wray spent a chunk of his life in Denver. Grew up a Broncos fan. He surely has an appreciation for the man who brought his favorite team two Super Bowl titles as a quarterback. Though he might have more appreciation for the title Elway won as Denver’s general manager two years ago.
“My dad was always in the car business, selling,” Wray told The Plain Dealer last week. “He was a really good salesman, and the one thing he told me
is that it’s not really about what you do or what college you’ve gone to, it’s about who you know. It’s all about connections. If you’re a good connector, then you’ll have more influence in the end.
“I looked at John Elway and what he did. I’ve always been interested in the NFL, the business side of it. When you look at it, all of those teams are put in place years before players are signed. I just had a thought that I should try that.”
His goal, whenever his playing career is over, is to be a general manager like Elway. Wray wants to collect talent and win championships. Right now he’s functioning as a sort of assistant GM for Ohio State’s 2020 recruiting class with the same goal.
Mark Pantoni is OSU’s director of player personnel. He’s the real GM, finding players for Urban Meyer and overseeing the roster build. He has an army of recruiters, most of them the obvious ones you’d think off, coaches and support staff.
Then he has Wray, who’s using a group chat on Twitter filled with 30 or so of the best high school prospects in the country to lure talent to Ohio State in an effort to give Meyer his first No. 1 recruiting class in Columbus.
“I had this idea, what if our class could be more connected than any other class was at that stage? I’m committed to Ohio State. I’m the only commit. Let’s see what I can do,” Wray said. “I added a few people in there. There was a lot of buzz. It’s all guys that are heavy on Ohio State, who we have a chance of getting.”
This happened in stages. Wray got his first offer in August of his freshman year. Later that year he created a private message group on Twitter for other players in his class with scholarship offers. By that November, Wray had offers from Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and others. He was pretty well known, and had the clout to put that kind of group together.
The initial goal was just connecting, but Wray also knew pretty early that he wanted to go to Ohio State, so he was selling then too.
When he committed last April Wray made another group. It’s labeled “Ohio State” on his phone, with a big red circle emoji at the beginning and a nut emoji at the end. You’ve seen recruits use those emojis in social media posts announcing top schools lists, or commitments.
The group features OSU’s five commits in 2020: Wray, offensive tackle Paris Johnson Jr., center Luke Wypler, quarterback Jack Miller and cornerback Lejond Cavazos. It also features 25 to 30 of the top remaining targets — players Pantoni has identified to Wray, receivers Miller has identified as his top targets, other offensive linemen to join an already loaded group, defensive linemen for Larry Johnson, players to join Cavazos in the secondary.
Here’s a sampling: Fivestar defensive Bryan Bresee, five-star running back Kendall Milton, four-star receiver Rakim Jarrett, fourstar receiver Rashawn Williams, four-star linebacker Derek Wingo. Name a highly-ranked 2020 player with legitimate Ohio State interest, and he’s probably in the group.
“There’s a bunch of them,” said Bresee, the No. 1 overall player in the class. “Some of them just committed out of nowhere. Nobody was ready for that ... We all talk. They really like Ohio State, and they try to push it on everybody else and give us some good reasons.”
It’s a little more delicate than that though.
Think about it like trying to land a date. You can’t come out firing at the risk of being too aggressive. Of course selling Ohio State is woven through the fabric of the whole thing, but players The Plain Dealer talked to said it’s less about a hard sell and more about connecting in a way that makes the players want to play with each other, rather than play for a specific school. It just so happens that five of the players in the group are already committed.
Players take on different personalities. Wray is straightforward, and probably the most aggressive of the group. He prefers not to mince words.
“I don’t like to work around the edges,” he said. “I think that’s how problems are developed. I’d rather be straightforward about our decisions, develop a relationship first. The point for us is to get them interested enough to take a visit to Ohio State. That’s what we do. That’s our job. Then Ohio State takes it from there. We don’t need to sell Ohio State. It’s so great it sells itself.”
Coordinating visits is a big part of the chat. But mostly it’s sharing funny memes, highlight videos, stories from Barstool Sports and Bleacher Report. Normal things that teenagers everywhere would recognize.
It’s a way to express your personality. Some have more fun with it than others.
“Jake is the most serious person,” Johnson said. “Jake is very serious. I joke around sometimes, but I can be very serious. A lot of people from California and Florida, all they do is joke.”
How the commits are spread out geographically right now is interesting. Wray is in Marietta, Georgia after moving from Tennessee, and is a voice in the south. Johnson is in Ohio, the top player in the state. Miller is in Arizona with connections in the southwest and on the West Coast. Wypler is on the East Coast in New Jersey. Cavazos, originally from Texas, is in Florida at IMG Academy. Those are some unintended strong strategic footholds in the early stages of putting this class together.
These are players from different parts of the country with different perspectives on things, but there’s a good chance that one of the commits has some common ground with an uncommitted player because of how spread out they are.
“The bond we have between people who are committed is very strong,” Johnson said. “For people in Georgia, Ohio, Florida, Arizona and New Jersey — it’s very strong ... For us it’s not necessarily about recruiting, but building relationships.”
The question you’re probably asking yourself is how much this actually matters. Well, it varies.
Ohio State currently has the No. 2 class in 2020, trailing Miami but with a significant lead over the Hurricanes in terms of average player rating. It’s nearly three points higher. With the players committed, and the highly-ranked players giving OSU serious consideration, this might be Meyer’s best chance to sign the No. 1 class. If that happens, it’s obviously about a whole lot more than this group chat.
Wray committed before the chat existed. He prepared a Power Point presentation after his first visit as a freshman, explaining to his parents why Ohio State was the right place for him. The only thing that delayed his announcement was figuring out Meyer’s future. Cavazos was in a similar position. He knew he wanted to play for Meyer. The group chat didn’t have much of an impact on his commitment.
But the connection created through shared jokes on Twitter does play a part.
“I think it factors in a lot, especially for guys who want to be close to the guys they’re gonna be going to school with,” Wypler said. “It’s real important. It won’t always play a major role, but it gives them something to think about when they’re choosing ... It played a big part in my decision. The relationships you have in the locker room have to be strong for you to enjoy your time there.”
Does that mean OSU will automatically get Bresee or any of the other uncommitted guys? No. But it appears the Buckeyes have the only 2020 class doing something like this. Players talk all the time, but this kind of player-run coordinated effort with specific recruiting targets isn’t happening elsewhere — at least not on this scale.
Johnson, the No. 8 player in the class who committed to Ohio State last month, had offers from everybody. He was never asked to be part of a group like this at another school. Bresee is the No. 1 player in the country. Everybody wants him. If this existed somewhere else, he would’ve been asked to be a part of it. He said at The Opening Finals in June that this is the only group he’s in.
Max Wray, a freshman offensive tackle at Ohio State and Jake’s brother, was once a part of Georgia’s 2017 recruiting class and tried to start something similar when he was committed to the Bulldogs. It didn’t take.
So far it appears Jake’s plan is working.
“I’ve always wanted to be a leader, so I wanted to commit early . ... It’s about who you know. I kinda just figured if I know everybody, and everybody knows me, then I have pull,” Wray said. “I wanted a heavy influence.”