COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Urban Meyer picked up the list from the podium, names printed on card stock of the newest Ohio State Buckeyes. Ohio State's coach was speaking Wednesday on the new National Signing Day, a December college football holiday that is clearly going to make the old February signing day all but obsolete.
Meyer had railed against the new date many times before, aggravated on behalf of high school recruits and college programs at another acceleration of the recruiting calendar.
Meyer is always in favor of time. Meyer always believes in patience. As a parent whose children went through college recruiting (though none in football), he believes more time leads to more information which creates better decisions.
More time also allows Ohio State to make moves late in the recruiting process, swiping players from lesser programs with late flips. He's admitted to that as well.
But the guy who never wanted Wednesday to come saw his program sign 21 players in a class currently ranked No. 1 in the nation by 247sports.com.
The guy who never wanted this day to exist ... well, he'll take it.
"Do I think it's all negative? I was really dead set against it. I'm looking at this right here," Meyer said, holding the list. "Dead set against what? That's unbelievable."
* Read bios on the newly signed Buckeyes
Regardless of the date, count Ohio State once again among the winners. This class will be one of the best for the Buckeyes and for Meyer, and the only major difference is that the work is done before Christmas instead of early February.
Since the Big Ten Championship on Dec. 2, and the Dec. 3 announcement that left the Buckeyes out of the College Football Playoff, the OSU coaches have been recruiting like mad. They would have been recruiting anyway, but this was breakneck speed. Graduate assistants and other staffers have been watching USC film and compiling scouting reports for the Dec. 29 Cotton Bowl.
Meyer and his assistants have been putting the final touches on this class.
"I can't remember the urgency that we experienced today or this past two weeks," Meyer said, kicking off his news conference by praising his coaches and recruiting chief Mark Pantoni. "You just start thinking about the time warp that took place, finishing the season that we had to finish the way we did, and then you play your rival, and then you play the Big Ten Championship game, and by the way, signing date is two weeks away now.
"I can't remember a December like that ever. So we've just got to plan, and that's the way it's going to be (from now on.) I just really appreciate our coaches and their families because they were gone. You think, 'Boy, you guys just won the Big Ten Championship.' OK, I'll see you in two weeks because (recruiting is) done, and when I say done, it was incredible."
The end was bumpy, as the best player in Ohio, offensive tackle Jackson Carman, picked Clemson over the Buckeyes on Wednesday, with Meyer entering his planned news conference late because he was on the phone with Carman.
A top-10 national recruit, this was the biggest in-state recruiting loss for the Buckeyes under Meyer.
Among other misses, Ohio State parted ways with four-star quarterback Emory Jones late in the recruiting cycle, and after being verbally commited to the Buckeyes for 17 months, Jones signed with Florida.
Five-star defensive end Micah Parsons signed with Penn State after a September recruiting snafu by the Buckeyes.
Five-star defensive end Brenton Cox flipped away from Ohio State late in the process.
And five-star defensive back Jaiden Woodbey is expected to sign with USC on Wednesday evening despite a previous verbal commitment to Ohio State.
Final count, that's four five-star recruits that didn't sign with Ohio State after the Buckeyes thought they were in very good shape with them at various points.
But two five-stars, defensive tackle Taron Vincent and H-back Jaelen Gill, did sign on as Buckeyes. Overall, according to the ratings of 247sports.com, the 21-player OSU class includes two five-stars, 16 four-stars and three three-stars.
The class includes:
* Six players among the top 50 in the nation
* 10 players among the top 100 in the nation
* 14 players among the top 150 in the nation
And it's basically full.
There still is a signing day on the first Wednesday in February. But Ohio State, and most major teams, won't plan on doing much with it.
"We're not many left," Meyer said. "I just don't know our roster number."
At the moment, the Buckeyes have three scholarships open in their 85 scholarship maximim, with a known transfer (Kierre Hawkins) and a known medical hardship (A.J. Alexander). They previously were at 84. There are also 14 scholarship seniors leaving.
That's 17 openings. And they already signed 21, with the additional four spots to be accounted for by expected losses among early NFL departures.
This is it. Meyer never wanted it. But this was signing day.
Meyer said he asked his assistants for pros and cons about the early signing period as part of this process. The pro is that the Buckeyes don't have to "babysit" a recruit like Gill. The five-star H-back from Westerville South in the Columbus suburbs always wanted to be a Buckeye. Now, instead of Ohio State having to stay on him on the one percent chance another school could flip him, Gill is signed, the process is over and both the player and school can relax.
That's the only pro Meyer could name - an earlier finish to recruiting for the sure thing.
The con?
It's the crunch.
"You're trying to speed recruit," Meyer said. "We only had two weeks to recruit, and people will say we should know about them early. Is that right? Whoever would say, 'You should know about that,' I imagine, all due respect, they're journalists or have nothing to do with recruiting or coaching or anything like that because football is a developmental sport.
"So the positive is, like I said, no babysitting. The negative is that you're squeezing the recruiting process into a small time period and very critical decisions for us, more critical decision for the young person."
It's the Wednesday before Christmas. And those decisions have been made.