The rumor-mill is swirling today over Arizona 4-star DB, Steven Ortiz Jr. after the Crystal Ball machine went into action.
There was a report that Ortiz was “mulling” around making a commitment to Washington, and while the Huskies are definitely a top contender for his pledge, it’s a little premature to think anything is about to happen anytime soon.
“His plan is to commit on or around August 1st”, Ortiz’s father, Steven Sr. told Realdawg.com this afternoon, “I know there’s a lot of buzz but he still has to take official visits and right now that’s not happening.”
Due to the travel and recruiting restrictions, obviously, no recruits can take official visits to any schools — and this is going to slow down a lot of early decisions that hinged on such.
So, everyone can relax.
Ortiz, himself, tweeted out that he doesn’t have plans to announce until August 1st (see Tweet).
He also told Realdawg.com “I’m not committing anywhere yet.”
“Washington is definitely a consideration”, he continued, “I want to take a couple officials first and then commit by August 1st, unless this coronavirus stuff makes things so hard that I can’t take visits then I don’t know…but Washington is definitely one of my top schools.”
Here’s the issue here: A Crystal Ball prediction goes in and everyone flips out on the net; I get barraged by instant messages and direct messages and then the poor kid gets hammered by reporters calling and texting them, as well.
This Crystal Ball feature was fun for awhile, but it’s turned into a real pain for recruits and their families and needs to go away. I’ve heard nothing but negative feedback over it from recruits and their families about it in the past year or so.
Also, I’ve seen exaggerated reports going up lately because business is not good right now for the networks and most recruiting sites. Spring football is at a standstill and recruiting decisions aren’t happening due to restrictions.
