Our Honor Defend

July 2007 – mid August 2007: Lots of things to consider

Soon after his visit to Columbus for camp, Terrelle Pryor went back to the AAU circuit. However, a lot of thoughts things occur by this time that are cause for greater pontification.

Down to… 12? At the beginning of July, Terrelle Pryor was cited as having added Southern California to the list of schools he was considering.  The list that was slated to be 10 by the end of May, that became 11 by the beginning of June got one bigger at the beginning of July.  The plan to whittle down the list in August was still in full force, but for the meantime, the Trojans were mentioned as one of his schools through July 2007.  As with Oregon to follow in December 2007/January 2008, I think this was just a flash in the pan flirtation.  It’s USC, and if I were Terrelle, I would’ve tried to bilk the Trojans out of a visit to Los Angeles, even though Los Angeles is a lame city¹.  To my knowledge, I don’t recall Terrelle elaborating on why USC was added to his list, confirming that they weren’t a major contender for Pryor.

How serious of a player is WVU in this? Around this time, basically only one school seems to step out into the forefront along with Ohio State as a challenger for Pryor’s services, and it’s WVU.  As I noted earlier in the post, there’s a lot of logical reasons that would lead Terrelle to WVU.  Morgantown was within easy driving distance of his Jeannette home, but certainly outside of Pittsburgh for his comfort.  Both the hoops team and football team were tops in the Big East and the football team runs the spread option offense that both he and his coach would prefer to run at the next level.  However, the wildcard in this picture at the time might not be Rich Rodriguez, but actually Bob Huggins.

Much of this is the same innuendo that I didn’t feel like mentioning in the third chapter of this feature, when the overtures from WVU were becoming more pronounced. Bob Huggins, though at the time a quasi-disgraced basketball coach on his way out of the University of Cincinnati, may have been one of the first head coaches to court Terrelle Pryor, and apparently did so starting from Terrelle’s 8th grade year. The problem apparently being is that the owner of Terrelle’s AAU team (the Pittsburgh J.O.T.S) is good friend with Bob Huggins and, allegedly, tried to cajole Pryor away from Pitt and towards Manhattan, where Huggins had just ended up. Pryor and people close to him balked at that idea, and, for the moment, wrote off Huggins.

However, now that he had taken the WVU job, questions began to swirl around how interested Terrelle was in playing basketball for Huggins.  In other words, was the nature of the previous rejection about the character of Bob Huggins or was it just about playing that far away from his Jeannette home?  Whatever the case, Pryor’s interest in WVU was growing, and combined with how well Rodriguez had been recruiting Pryor, WVU may have been one of the teams to beat for Pryor.  The interest was certainly real enough for Terrelle to start thinking about visiting WVU.  While playing AAU ball in July, Terrelle stopped by Morgantown and thought about using some time there for an unofficial visit.  At the end of July, it’s becoming clear to me at least that WVU was probably going to get a visit from Terrelle during football season, perhaps even an official visit.

But is Ohio State running away with this? The fun story in July for Buckeye fans is the growing confidence that recruitniks had that Terrelle had actually liked Ohio State a lot more than he had let on with his terse words to the recruiting services.  As Terrelle’s summer began to dwindle away, perhaps the Buckeyes had moved to the pole position entering Terrelle’s senior year.

Outside of WVU and Tennessee, no other school seemed to have been faring too well at this point.  Michigan accepted a verbal from John Wienke (now at Iowa) on July 01, making the likelihood he attend Michigan (at least under Carr’s reign) highly unlikely.  Some speculation indicated that Penn State and Florida may have been becoming longshots, Florida for sake of distance and disinterest from Billy Donovan in Pryor playing hoops and Penn State for its rural location. While still interested in Texas, Terrelle began to express how uneasy he was with being pegged as the legacy of Vince Young, something he knew would dog him at Texas should he go there.

Ohio State, on the other hand, continued with its inside position with Terrelle Pryor, with some of the friendships he formed with members of the Brew Crew playing a hand.  Indeed, at the end of July, the AAU circuit brought Terrelle to Orlando, where he made time to hang out with Michael Brewster.

By the end of July, Terrelle was ready to narrow his list even further and begin the process of scheduling visits during the fall.  At the time, he was only certain of scheduling visits to Ohio State and WVU.

1. I would know, I grew up there for 18 years. [↩]

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