When news hit Wednesday that Florida wide receiver James Louis had verballed to Ohio State, a resounding "wut?" went up across Buckeye Nation.
The fine folks at BuckeyePlanet, who make a business of documenting the movement of every recruit to even garner a sniff from the staff were dead silent on the guy for 19 days before the unexpected news hit.
Louis is one of the top receivers in the country (Rivals: 31, Scout: 26, ESPN 150) and his film is already evoking comparisons to Santonio Holmes (another Palm Beach County recruit) and Chris Gamble.
ESPN has this to say about James:
This young man can flat out run. He possesses some of the best quickness and acceleration of any receiver in this class and he can be a dangerous weapon in all three phases of the passing game.
So how did he fall into Tressel's lap? Lucky for us, Vico is on the case and he turns up a fascinating backstory.
When he called Florida to inform the school that the Gators were his pick, the coaching staff was happy, but head coach Urban Meyer asked him not to talk about his decision with the media for a few days. Louis didn’t really think much about that comment, until this past week.
After being unable to attend Florida’s Friday Night Lights Camp, Louis started to see numerous stories popping up online about how Florida wasn’t going to accept his commitment and how he might have to wait until the staff saw who else ended up committing. That set off alarms in his head and he immediately began calling and e-mailing Meyer and his coaching staff.
After five or so days of silence from Florida’s end, Louis said to heck with it and called the Ohio State coaches to let them know he will be a Buckeye next year.
The prevailing opinion on just what spurred Florida's apparent change of heart on Louis is Chris Dunkley went in and impressed with his own FNL performance, possibly taking Louis' spot on the Gators.
Further, it appears as if Cris Carter was selling the Buckeyes to Louis and might have had a big hand in this most awesome of surprises.
The 2010 class might have lurched out to a slow start, but with the addition of Rod Smith, and now Louis, we could be in store for an unexpected and exciting stretch run.
