On Tuesday, the NCAA announced Ohio State's sanctions for the numerous violations that were discovered over the last 12 months. Among the sanctions are a one-year postseason ban (for 2012) and the loss of nine scholarships over the next three seasons.
Predictably, one of the biggest questions that arose in the wake of the NCAA's announcement was about how Ohio State's recruiting would be affected by the sanctions. Although recruits knew sanctions were coming, the severity was not known until Tuesday. In the grand scheme of things, Ohio State got off pretty easy all things considered, but the school seemed to be taken by surprise by the bowl ban.
In just the last week, Ohio State has done quite a bit on the recruiting trail. In addition to getting Bri'onte Dunn to reaffirm his commitment after seriously looking at Michigan, Urban Meyer also got Se'Von Pittman to decommit from Michigan State to Ohio State, Tommy Schutt to decommit from Penn State to Ohio State and Noah Spence to commit to Ohio State. Are any of these players suddenly rethinking their decision now that the sanctions are out? It doesn't sound like it, at least not for Dunn and Pittman. From Ari Wasserman:
Se'Von Pittman and Bri'onte Dunn will both remain committed to Ohio State.
As soon as Jim Tressel resigned and Dunn started looking at schools other than Ohio State, his father said that a bowl ban would be a big deal in his son's recruitment. It turns out, apparently, that missing a bowl for one season isn't that big of a deal to Dunn after all, or at least not enough for him to reconsider his commitment. That's a big change from the summer and even the fall.
For Ohio State, it looks like the most damage by the NCAA scandal has already been done.