Brian Hartline's acceptance of the USF job may not have been as clean as we have been led to believe.
Early on Wednesday morning, it was announced that Ohio State Buckeyes' offensive coordinator, Brian Hartline, was set to be the next coach of the University of South Florida Bulls. Many celebrated the honor and felt that it was fairly obvious that Hartline was in line to be a head coach.
It all made sense.
Hartline's name was being floated around in the conversation for some of the big time schools, such as the Penn State Nittany Lions. Maybe that was too much for a first-time head coach, so he was in conversations with Kentucky and other schools on that second tier of college football.
Finally, the news broke that it was USF. A perfect landing spot for Hartline to get some head coach experience for a potential future job down the road. Surely, head coach Ryan Day and the Buckeyes knew this was happening.
Unfortunately, that was not the case and is likely part of the reason for the mass exodus of the Buckeyes' wide receiver class.
According to Jeremy Birmingham of 97.1 The Fan on Thursday, the Buckeyes staff and team didn't find out about Hartline's decision until Tuesday at midnight, just a few short hours before National Signing Day went into full effect.
This gave the Buckeyes absolutely no time to tell their top recruits, specifically the receivers, that this was happening. This is incredibly important information for a young man to process about the most important decision of his young life.
It obviously pushed Kayden Wyatt-Dixon to cement his flip to USC, and then it influenced Chris Henry Jr.'s decision, so much so that he didn't submit his papers to Ohio State. Birm himself, along with others, believes that he is likely going to be an Oregon Duck as a result of this debacle.
If this is true, this is a complete fumble by the Buckeyes and specifically Brian Hartline. It's the unfortunate reality of college football these days, and it is a true catch-22.
Had they held onto this information until after Henry and others signed, it would have been a far worse look, and they likely would have had reservations then in that scenario.
Regardless, it is still a terrible look for this news to come out at midnight, just a few hours before these National Letters of Intent were rolling in.
It's an unfortunate reality for all of the parties involved. Ryan Day cannot be happy at all with how it was handled by Hartline and USF Hartline put his future former team in a horrible spot, and the people who ultimately got caught in the crosshairs were a handful of high school seniors.
A true bummer of a situation, and Ohio State will have to suffer the benefits of missing out on their top recruit.