Hey, hey, where you been? But got talk is about to begin. Hey, hey, hey, come on in.

Welcome to Buckeye Talk. It is your Thursday edition. It is edition 1.2 actually of this Thursday edition of Buckeye Talk.

I'm Nathan Baird with Steven Weins. We recorded a whole episode earlier today. We were talking about in part of that the wrap up of Ohio State summer camps and

Taven Saint Claire and how he'd been hanging around more than Ohio State expected him to or the more than we expected him to at this time last week.

And that, you know, maybe you should be on commitment watch and maybe that should be happening soon. And then we stopped recording and about a half hour later, I think he said, yeah, all right, now, how about now, let's commit now.

So Ohio State has its second commitment in the 2025 class. But most importantly, it has its quarterback in the 2025 class. So Steven, let's start off, just give us the nuts and bolts of Taven Saint Claire from an in state guy, which is as you pointed out first in state.

Guy, potentially is if he gets a signing day, be the first in state guy since Joe burrow, which is hilarious on its own right Ohio. There's a lot of moving parts here, right, a year ago.

I don't think anybody would have said that, hey, who will house it's who's going to be Ohio since 2025 quarterback if you had to make an early prediction right now, who might claim that spot.

I don't think anybody would have said Taven Saint Claire. And a lot, he was, he showed up to a camp last summer and to a seven on seven event, he was skinny, he was still tall, I mean, he's six, three and a half maybe six or four, he was tall, but he was skinny, he was long and lanky, wasn't the most athletic kid in the world.

Very raw as a pot passer, it just wasn't there, right. You just didn't see it. You maybe went, maybe he's a good Mac player, but you're not thinking this is a dude who might be on five star watch and something clicked for him. And I asked him what, what changed.

And really it's not some of it is just these are teenagers who were still growing, he's put on about 40 pounds, he said he played about 180 last year, he's about 216 right now, but it's the physical growth of really he started looking at himself a little bit differently.

He used to walk in the places last year and look at some of these top guys and didn't think he could play with them. He didn't have a lot of confidence in himself. At some point, he just stopped looking at himself as less than and started thinking he could hang with some of those guys.

And really the more he thought that the more it came into fruition. And so over the last couple of months here, he had started down this path.

He's got 25 offers now about two weeks ago, he and his family took a sweat went through the South and started getting a lot of those offers Alabama came along. I think Mississippi State came along. I don't think Georgia came along quite yet, but some of these bigger schools started to come along now in a way that I think over the next year.

We're going to watch a kid turn into a five-star recruit because what I've seen from him, whether it was that Thursday at this fourth day camp of the year or him popping up in the afternoon of the Tuesday day camp, the last day camp.

And then what I got to see from him Wednesday, actually spending even if you're not hitting, getting to just see him read offices, make reads and push the ball down the field.

That is a very different quarterback that I saw a year from now, a year ago, and there are people in this program who agreed with me, which is why it was me already for you to commit whenever you want to commit.

And that turns out to be on Wednesday evening, as he leaves Ohio State and heads home finishing runner up in that 707 event to the guys that I think at that point, most people would have thought had a better chance of being Ohio State's quarterback.

And that's Ryan Montgomery, who's the top 200 recruit in the center. And then excuse me, the brother of current freshman Luke Montgomery, you're probably given the leeway to him at that point.

And that has very much changed. I think Ryan's going to be a high level quarterback with schools like Georgia who are on his tail.

But something has the confidence really clicked in Tavian in a way that it has led to this kind of jump started rise for a guy who right now is 333, I would expect him to be within the top 200 the next time they up those rankings.

And really by the time we get to signing day next year. So this is a whole other 18 months until he signs, but you feel a lot more comfortable about it because he's an in-state kid.

...