Danny Clark
Danny Clark announced his decommitment from Ohio State on Tuesday.
(John Kutz, cleveland.com)
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Danny Clark spent many nights crying over the decision he never wanted to make.
When he announced his decommitment from Ohio State on Tuesday morning, it may have seemed like another recruiting transaction in a college football world where commitments, decommitments, flips, transfers and dismissals occur daily.
Yes, Clark's decommitment is another spot that's open in Ohio State's 2017 recruiting class, another chance for fans to picture what five-star prospect the Buckeyes can now take instead.
That's so impersonal. It's the easy way out.
It's too easy to forget that behind Clark's decommitment is a child that saw the lifelong dream he thought he accomplished taken away, a kid who had a vision for what he wanted for his future changed because of someone else's decisions.
This was caused by Urban Meyer's mistake. What was that mistake? Offering Clark too early.
Ohio State never faced any pressure to offer Clark. If you read the heartfelt message posted as part of his decommitment announcement, it's so abundantly clear that being a Buckeye is the only thing that's ever mattered.
Why did Ohio State offer Clark as a freshman when the staff could have waited a few years to see how he developed? Premature offers happen all the time, which is part of the reason why Meyer laments the idea of a sped-up recruiting calendar. But when Meyer and his staff offered the 14-year-old version of Clark, they knew he was going to accept it immediately. Clark said it 1,000 times through the media that he was going to be a Buckeye once he got his chance.
So this is different than just prematurely offering a prospect. When Ohio State offered Clark, they were prematurely taking a verbal commitment. The staff knew what was going to happen.
It just wasn't supposed to turn out this way.
But in a world where a recruiting mistake can have a profoundly negative impact on a program, Meyer had a responsibility to rectify it.
How? I asked him Wednesday.
"How do we rectify a mistake? That's pretty hard -- I don't know," Meyer said. "I think honest conversation along the journey. One thing, to go to a place and never playing, that's awful, and you're unhappy at a school. How does the person fit into systems and those certain things, but those are great conversations. Those aren't negative conversations. But I think just open conversation, and it's a relationship process. Just honest conversation."
When Clark got involved with Ohio State, he knew this was big boy football. For a program to compete at the highest level, to be a national title contender, every single scholarship matters. Sometimes one five-star prospect is the difference between a championship and a two-loss season.
This isn't the first time Ohio State has moved on from a committed prospect. It's happened before with guys like Lonnie Johnson, Tyler Green and, most recently, four-star running back Todd Sibley, Clark's teammate at Archbishop Hoban.
In big-time college football, the recruiting process doesn't end with a commitment. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh came under fire last year when they turned away commitments late in the process, and he referred to it as a "meritocracy."
Asked if he agrees with that premise, Meyer said he did.
"I agree with that," Meyer said. "I don't know if I'd use the term meritocracy. I would just call it accountability. If you shut it down as a player, I agree with that."
This is in no way saying that Clark shut it down, but his style of play -- and perhaps talent level -- isn't on par with the Ohio State wants and needs. That was communicated to Clark, and, for the last six months, he worked through it.
Clark never shied away. Even when the Buckeyes started recruiting other quarterbacks and earned a commitment from five-star dual-threat QB Tate Martell of Las Vegas (Nev.) Bishop Gorman, Clark never wavered in his commitment. He showed up at Friday Night Lights in July and, by all accounts, had his best camp performance going head-to-head with Martell.
Throughout all of it, Clark was aware of how Ohio State felt. With Dwayne Haskins redshirting this year, Martell coming in and four-star Emory Jones committed in 2018, Clark just wasn't a fit. He wasn't a fit with the tight scholarship numbers and he wasn't a fit in the offense.
Which brings us back to Meyer's mistake: Why offer Clark? It's not like Clark was a dual-threat quarterback three years ago. He is what he is.
In a statement Tuesday, Clark said that he was "forced" to accept that Ohio State wasn't a fit. That isn't a kid who didn't want to put up a fight and prove Buckeyes coaches wrong, which was illustrated over and over again through Clark's loyal dedication to helping Ohio State assemble its elite 2017 class.
So let's get back to Clark, the kid.
Don't go to bed at night thinking that Ohio State did Clark a favor, that the Buckeyes gave him a chance to go somewhere else where he'd have a better chance of playing. Think about how many recruiting letters Clark threw away the last three years while he was staunchly loyal to Ohio State. Opportunities that may have existed 12 months ago just don't exist now.
What's best for Clark isn't up for anyone to decide but Clark. And by sticking with his Ohio State commitment and showing up to face Martell head on, his message was clear: "I want to be a Buckeye, and nothing is going to stop me from it."
That's the attitude you want in a quarterback. And he'll probably be successful wherever he goes because that attitude and work ethic is rare.
It just so happens Ohio State didn't want that quarterback.
Clark may have eventually taken Ohio State's hint and decided to moved on, but it wasn't the decision he wanted to make.
When he closed out his decommitment statement, he said, "My story isn't over."
It just isn't the story Clark wanted.