Landon Young, hailing from Lexington, Kentucky, is a four-star 2016 OL signee with the home-state Wildcats. According to 247sports.com, the United States Army All-American is the highest-rated member of Kentucky's 2016 class, which finished No. 34 in national rankings.
Young committed to the Wildcats in June 2013 and blossomed into the player Kentucky envisioned when it offered. As Young's renown grew, bigger schools like Ohio State, South Carolina, and Auburn came knocking.
The only other school Young visited was Urban Meyer's Ohio State, which he did in an unofficial capacity on May 30, 2015. During this visit, a private sit-down with Urban Meyer occurred. According to Young, things didn't go well.
From seccountry.com:
"I was at Ohio State having a private meeting with Urban Meyer. I had gone up to camp there, and they had treated me like a piece of meat, just treated me like crap. By that time, I was a four-star tackle. I weighed about 270 [pounds], and I was 6-7.
I wasn’t even on their radar. I came back up after they offered me. Four straight days, I got (offers from) the University of Cincinnati, Alabama, Auburn and then Ohio State. I went up and said, ‘Coach (Meyer), what was the reason that you all of a sudden offered me?’ He said, ‘We looked at your tape, and it was pretty good and I saw interest in that.’ I said, ‘Well coach, back when I was just committing to Kentucky and keeping my options open, I came up to a camp and sent you my film and everything, and you didn’t even reply. It seemed like y’all just deleted it.’
He said, ‘Well, if you look back at that time, you were how big?’ I said, ‘6-7, 270, just like I am now.’ He said, ‘Well, you were an insubstantial tackle, an insubstantial player,’ so he was saying I (didn’t) even amount to being able to be recruited by Ohio State as a four-star tackle. He said, ‘Now what offers did you have?’ I said, ‘I had my one from Kentucky,’ and he said, ‘Well, you were an insubstantial player with insubstantial offers from an insubstantial school.’"
It's important to note this is only one side to the story, but nobody reasonable would expect Urban Meyer to be vastly familiar with every player coming to Ohio State with a highlight reel in hand.
It's clear, however, Young took the exchange personally.
"That sort of put me on a bad note because that’s the team I’m committed to. He called me a bad player at that. That doesn’t usually sit well with kids. I may not have been the best, but saying I was an insubstantial player sort of hit me the wrong way.
He's not the first highly-touted offensive lineman to speak publicly about his poor opinion of Urban Meyer, but he's probably the first since 2014 five-star OL Miami signee Kc McDermott.
It's unlikely Urban Meyer will ever speak on it publicly. Young will get his chance at a last laugh should Kentucky and Ohio State ever meet in the College Football Playoffs during his Wildcat career.
