Breaking news:How the 2024 recruiting class might have been spared by Buckeye Nation.

Ryan Day needed to find a victory someplace to turn this program around after the Ohio State football team’s disastrous season finale. It was a significant first step in the right direction for Day when many of Ohio State’s best players declared they would participate in the Cotton Bowl, but as more rumors spread that some of the top 2024 commits would sign with other teams, things appeared bleak for Day once more.

First, there was running back Jordan Lyle, who de-committed from Ohio State two days before signing day after flirting with Miami for months. This wasn’t a shock for anyone who had been paying attention to Ohio State recruiting and saw the writing on the wall given how many unofficial visits he had made to Miami at the end of the season.

However, Lyle’s de-commitment was the precursor to what was going to happen leading up to signing day. Many recruiting experts were reporting that Ohio State was going to also lose three other possible commits including both 5-star studs Jeremiah Smith and Eddrick Houston. Then there was also high four-star wide receiver Jeremiah McClellan, who despite being committed to Ohio State, was having crystal ball flips to Oregon.

On Tuesday, December 19, with the message boards and the internet in general in an uproar over Day and his staff losing possible multiple huge pieces in the 2024 recruiting class, the bat signal was sent out by Ohio State collective, The 1870 Society, via a call for donations.

With a call for help from one of the nation’s largest alumni organizations and fanbase, no doubt the donations started to come in. I have been under the assumption that this call was made due to the fact that Ohio State was in a bidding war for Smith, Houston, and McClellan. There is only so much money to go around and with the collective being the organization with the negotiating power, it had to feel like a helpless situation for Day and the rest of the coaching staff.

The majority of the class signed as predicted during the morning of signing day, but those three stayed unsigned until word spread that McClellan had, in fact, flipped to Oregon. That was Day’s third major loss in the closing stages; the other two were Lyle and Justin Scott, both to Miami.