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Published Sep 15, 2017
Take Two: Ohio State recruits speak out about QB situation
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Adam Gorney  •  Rivals.com
National Recruiting Director
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@adamgorney

Take Two returns with a daily offering tackling a handful of issues in the college football landscape. Rivals.com National Recruiting Analyst Adam Gorney lays out the situation and then receives takes from Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell and a local expert from the Rivals.com network of team sites.

MORE TAKE TWO: Lamar Jackson | Texas | Emory Jones | Florida | Justin Fields | Gus Malzahn

STORYLINE

On top of Ohio State losing to Oklahoma 31-16 last weekend, two of the Buckeyes’ top targets surprisingly questioned coach Urban Meyer’s decision to stick with struggling J.T. Barrett at quarterback instead of replacing him with Dwayne Haskins.

Five-star defensive end Micah Parsons and five-star offensive lineman Jackson Carman, who were both in Columbus for the game, took to Twitter to show support for replacing Barrett, a clear rip of Meyer’s decision to stay with Barrett for the Buckeyes’ game against Army this week.

Parsons has since apologized for his post but Carman has not, actually doubling down this week and getting in a back-and-forth with ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit on social media.

When Herbstreit responded to someone’s comment about Carman’s post, the five-star offensive lineman tweeted back to Herbstreit: “Pretty sure I wouldn’t have any problems in Dabo Swinney’s or Clay Helton’s locker room for my opinion on OSU’s QB issues.”

Carman, who has Ohio State, USC and Clemson as a top three, might be right.

So is this a case of two high-level prospects getting caught up in the moment and expressing opinions without understanding the consequences? Is this in the long run much ado about nothing?

Or should Ohio State cut and run as fast as possible and focus more on players that not only trust in their possible future coaching staff but don’t question their judgments even before getting on campus?

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FIRST TAKE: MARC GIVLER, BUCKEYEGROVE.COM

“Mountains are being made out of mole hills here. Certainly, whenever a school invites a recruit to campus for a game or a visit, they don't want to see anything on social media that could be construed as negative or critical as those recruits are guests in their house so to speak. So there is no question that Ohio State would prefer opinions related to the starting quarterback situation to remain private.

“That being said, teenagers don't always filter things before putting them on social media and what many people may forget is that they are also fans and in this case we have two kids who are Ohio State fans and who also have a great deal of respect for Dwayne Haskins making an off-the-cuff comment without realizing it could be offensive to the coaches and players.

"Ultimately recruiting is based on a prospect's body of work. If a regrettable tweet about a football-related opinion is the biggest question mark, it's not going to be that damaging. I don't believe the statuses of either Parsons or Carman are different with Ohio State than they were just this past Friday, but I'm sure Ohio State also wishes this situation wouldn't have occurred.”

SECOND TAKE: MIKE FARRELL, RIVALS.COM

“They’re just being kids. The more interesting issue is Herbstreit not really knowing when to hold back the grumpy old man, get-off-my-grass attitude. I like Herbstreit, but he has the same frustrations that a lot of people do with recruiting and entitlement and everybody having a voice but he just has to stay out of it. Ohio State will not back off them unless there are other red flags we don’t know about and both will end up at Ohio State before all is said and done. So I don’t think it’s a big deal. It became a big deal when Herbstreit got involved.”

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