The story of a lot of recruits that end up at upper echelon programs ? at least in the Midwest ? usually starts quietly. They start by acquiring MAC offers or interest from a service academy before they finally get a breakthrough offer from a BCS conference program. Other programs, and even bigger programs, eventually follow suit, leaving said hypothetical recruit with a litany of options for his choosing. This wasn?t Jonathan Newsome. His story starts at the end of January 2008 when
the Buckeyes and the Illini sent out offers simultaneously. With it, Newsome?s first two offers were from the year?s national championship game participant
1 and the Big Ten?s Rose Bowl participant. That?s not bad at all. Ron Zook?s reasons for offering are straight-forward: the cat is out of the bag on the Glenville program. Previously that little secret that the Buckeyes knew about, Zook was the first one to pry a Tarblooder away from Jim Tressel that Tressel had offered (Cordale Scott). He was trying to do it again. Oddly enough, in spite of the little stream now forking out of the Glenville-Ohio State pipeline, connecting to Champaign, Illinois never seemed to be a real option for Jonathan. While
he discussed visiting Illinois early, they were never really given lip service as his second preference. Get this:
Indiana was. Michigan State, if anyone, was his third preference if he had to itemize it as such. All the schools that eventually offered him lagged behind one school on his chart: Ohio State.
