There was a bit of an uproar across the college football world when Ohio State commit Luke Montgomery shared a photo on social media of himself with Buckeye head coach Ryan Day and offensive line coach Justin Frye that was taken during an in-home visit on Tuesday evening. Why the controversy? Well, Tuesday happened to fall during the college football recruiting dead period which doesn't end until Friday and prevents contact between coaches and prospective student-athletes.
While many on Twitter tried to flex their recruiting calendar knowledge and throw out accusations of Ohio State breaking recruiting rules, it turns out that this was just another case of the Buckeye staff using innovation along with their deep understanding of the recruiting rule book to their advantage, according to Montgomery.
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"Ohio State is one of the most prestigious schools and they do things by the book," Montgomery said. "They are big-time rule followers and I had no idea that we could actually do this. I called coach Frye a couple days ago and talked with him, coach Day, coach (Kevin) Wilson and coach Mike (Sollenne), the offensive line GA. They said something about coming up sometime soon and then the next day coach Frye said he and coach Day were going to drive down and have dinner at the house and do my home visit on Tuesday.
"They got here and I asked them how we could do this because it was a dead period. They said since I am an early enrollee and obviously not going to do my home visit in spring because I'll already be there, and since I have all of my admissions done, I have my classes and paid my admissions fee. Basically from then on out, I have my Buckeye email, I'm getting my Buckeye ID and I'm pretty much a student. So that is basically how we can get around everything."
College football fans and Twitter experts weren't the only ones with an eyebrow raised when they saw Montgomery openly posting a picture of the Buckeyes' head man doing an in-home visit during the dead period on Twitter.
"It was funny, I was talking with coach (Mark) Pantoni and he's like, once you put that tweet out, there were a bunch of schools texting and asking how they can do it too. Apparently it's just a rule that nobody really knows about."
In the end it appears there was much ado about nothing and this was merely another instance of Ohio State leading the way in innovation when it comes to the recruiting game.
What is it like to have an in-home visit with your future head coach and position coach on a Tuesday evening during a somewhat dead period in November?
"They got here and we have a really good butcher place called Miller's Meats that we ordered for dinner - chicken, chicken wings and macaroni," Montgomery said. "We talked about life, we talked about ball and it went great. We talked a little about last week's game and props to coach Day because he was in a great mood the whole time, him and coach Frye. They know that we will be cheering for Kansas State and Utah this week because we will have a chance to get back in if a playoff seed loses. I know we will get back what is ours if we do, so it will be all right."
