He was polarizing yet still at the top of recruiting wish lists. He’d rumble free as a running back, haul in catches as a receiver and force fumbles and produce strip sacks from wherever he lined him up on defense. He wanted to win so badly that he even volunteered to punt and handle kickoffs.
“We’re trying to find punters and kickers and he’s like, ‘Let me do it!’ I’m initially like, ‘Come on, get out of here, you’re wasting our time,’ ” Everett said. “Then he ripped off a few of them and I’m like, ‘OK, all right.’ ”
Parsons could line up anywhere on the field, hence all the scholarship offers, but he was also bold enough following Ohio State’s loss to Oklahoma to tweet that Urban Meyer should replace J.T. Barrett with Dwayne Haskins. Parsons did so while on an official visit at Ohio State. It later surfaced that the Buckeyes self-reported a recruiting violation because of a photo of Parsons and Kirk Herbstreit together on the set of ESPN’s College GameDay. The Buckeyes’ interest cooled.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Parsons’ father, Terrence, said. “He’s where he’s supposed to be at. I had to let him take some journeys.”
The Pennsylvania native who had been on Penn State’s radar since ninth grade had also shied away from his early verbal pledge to Penn State, breaking the Nittany Lions’ recruiting commandment where James Franklin wants players to surrender their other visits after they commit. He compares their verbal pledge to that of a wedding vow.
Penn State and Parsons broke up, divorced and remarried. Through it all, Parsons learned to love the hate from fans.
