To really invest your time, energy, and heart into following recruiting can be a perilous endeavor. Even though you don’t actually know any of the young men involved, you become attached to them, not only as future college athletes but as an idea — as a projection — of what they could be if they were to end up on your team of choice.
Invariably for Ohio State fans, as the large list of offers that the Buckeyes send out gets trimmed down and you see the names of players that you had been imagining in scarlet and gray for months become connected, crystal balled, or even committed to other schools, it can be difficult; even for those of us not off our rockers enough to tweet unhinged things at high schoolers.