KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Instead of doing the hat dance, Nick Ramirez will spend his Wednesday rolling them bones with the football gods. This wasn't how he planned it, of course. But, hey, kid, welcome to real life.
"I guess I'm going to wait until something else falls (through)," Ramirez, star senior linebacker at Lee's Summit (Mo.) West High School, says of National Signing Day. "They just said, 'Keep your phone on you.'"
The "they" in question are the Kansas State football staff. The Wildcats want Ramirez — the 15th-best middle linebacker prospect in the country, according to Scout.com — on board, which is dandy. Except, of course, for one small detail: They probably won't have a scholarship available immediately.
So, yeah, there's some gray area in play here. Literally. Best-case, a full ride opens up at the 11th hour. Worst-case, Ramirez has pledged to "grayshirt" at K-State, which means he'll have to delay enrollment and, at least initially, pay his own way.
All of which begs the question: How did one of the top recruits in greater Kansas City — if not the state of Missouri — wind up stuck between a rock and hard place?
"I think the way that went down, he wanted to see how much love was out there for him still," West coach Royce Boehm explains. "I think he committed too early. He wasn't getting any more phone calls from anybody. Before he even took his ACT test, he committed. I said, 'You're not even making sense.' All the colleges were coming in, but none of them were talking to him, because he'd already committed."
"It's been a roller-coaster," the linebacker says.
That and a soap opera, complete with lust, betrayal, and cliff-hangers galore:
Chapter 1: Young man falls head-over-heels in love.
Chapter 2: Young man pledges his loyalty.
Chapter 3: Young man notices there are other fish in the sea, and some of them are really kind of hot.
Chapter 4: Young man sees his uncommitted friends being chased by the aforementioned hot fish.
Chapter 5: Young man decides he wants a piece of that action, too, and pronto.
Chapter 6: Young man watches his betrothed lose at home to Syracuse, and decides all that love crapola is for the birds.
Chapter 7: Young man calls his betrothed to tell her he's a free agent again, and thanks for the laughs. She is, unsurprisingly, not amused.
"I just wanted to visit other schools because Mizzou didn't have the best year," says Ramirez, who'd committed to the Tigers in April, only to do an about-face in mid-November after Missouri limped home with a disheartening 5-7 record.
"I heard they were about to start losing a lot of recruits and things didn't seem real bright," Ramirez continued. "But I had a lot respect for the program; I was committed there at one time. I just think K-State is a better fit for me."
Ramirez and West teammate Jamone Boyd were still on board as of November 17, when they trekked to Columbia to watch Mizzou take on Syracuse firsthand. It didn't end well. The hosts blew a 17-3 lead and lost, 31-27; it was the Tigers' fourth setback in six games, dropping their record to 3-4 at Faurot Field and 5-6 overall.
"Things just changed," Ramirez says. "They're talking about getting a whole bunch of good players. It's not like those other SEC schools aren't getting good players, too."
Ramirez called Mizzou's coaches to let them know he was going to do some more campus-shopping, and that was that.
Only it wasn't. The Tigers' response was to pull the offer and extend it to someone else.
"Missouri, now that they're playing as an SEC school, they're recruiting like an SEC school," offers Brandon Huffman, senior recruiting analyst for football with Scout.com. "You're either in or you're out, and you're out for good. That may come back to bite them down the line, too."
Meanwhile, Plan B in Ramirez's camp proved to be more of a scramble than anyone had initially thought. Nick collected three 2-foot by 3-foot plastic storage bins full of recruiting letters from other schools ("I'm probably just going keep them, just to show my kids one day," he allows), but the programs that had been chasing the defender — Kansas State, Nebraska, Arkansas, Iowa, chief among them — crossed him off their lists following his early pledge to Mizzou. By late November, most of their respective quotas were filled.
"I didn't see anything coming down with him like that," Boehm says. "I jumped on the phone right away and started calling around and tried to get him hooked up with somebody."
The Wildcats didn't have any full rides at the time. The Cornhuskers? Sorry, Coach. The Razorbacks? Fresh out.
"Coach, you were right," Nick told Boehm.
"You think I'm going to steer you the wrong way?" the coach replied.
Ramirez visited K-State the first weekend of December, just in time to watch Wildcat fans storm the field after a Big-12-championship-clinching victory over Texas. The coaches called Ramirez back and said they'd try to hold a spot for him, as long as he, in turn, could wait for them.
And here we are. Limbo City.
"What I learned about the whole recruiting process," Ramirez says, "is to never take anything for granted."
Love, least of all.
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter @seankeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com
