Urban Meyer Initially Didn't Give Terry McLaurin An Ohio State Offer Because He Was Worried About His Catching Ability

On today's Pardon My Take... TERRY MCLAURIN! The wide receiver for the Washington Commanders joined Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter on today's show from Training Camp to discuss his new, huge contract, what he thinks of the new team name, his relationship with Joe Burrow, and much more. 

McLaurin is also a former Ohio State Buckeye. When he was suiting up in scarlet and grey, a man by the name of Urban Meyer was his head coach. But before McLaurin got to the college level, that player-coach relationship wasn't initially a sure thing. On today's show, McLaurin told the story of how an offer from Ohio State took a little bit longer to become reality than he would have preferred. Take a look...

Mr. Cat: So I had a question about your beginning at Ohio State. Is it true that Urban Meyer said that... he didn't give you an offer because he said you couldn't catch?

Terry McLaurin: (laughing) I saw that circling around a little bit. Yeah, I think, so, I was in his office, and he basically was like, "You know, look, we like your speed, we like the person you are. We don't really know too much about you." Because I got invited to a camp and like, I think Coach Combs was my DB coach, he was my recruiter. So, he came to my high school early June, and by that next week, I was visiting Ohio State, so they didn't really know who I was. I finished the workout, I was the fastest kid at the camp, I was killing it. And Coach Meyer was like, Coach Combs was like... "You're going to get this, this, or this." (Thumbs up, middle thumb, thumbs down.) Usually, you don't get the middle thumb, and so of course, I go in there, I'm super excited. I'm thinking I'm about to get offered, and I get the thumb in the middle. I'm looking around like, "Yo, what's going on? I wasn't supposed to get that."

Terry McLaurin: So like, he basically was like, "Your hands aren't…" He really said, "Your hands aren't good enough right now to be able to feel comfortable enough extending you a offer. But this is what I tell you, he said, "If you go home, catch 200 footballs a day, come back in two weeks, you'll work out in front of me as soon as you get here, and we would go from there, like, there's a chance you have an offer." And at first, I'm not going to lie, I was kind of disappointed because I felt like all the boxes that I needed to check at that moment, based off what Coach Combs was telling me, the feelings I was getting from the coaching staff, I thought I was going to get offers. 

Terry McLaurin: So at that moment, I had a choice to either, like, "Okay, I'm either going to go and accept one of these other offers that I had at the time, or I'm going to take this and let it, like, fuel me, and just get challenged in a new way because when you're in high school football, there's challenges, but like a lot of the time, those guys who are playing those D1 schools are the better kids on their teams, the better kids in their area, so I felt like being challenged that way, help me, honestly, take my game to another level.

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Terry McLaurin: So when I came back, I was like, it probably took like five routes and Coach Meyer was like, "Yo, you're done, you got an offer." So like, not only was that a challenge and it was disappointing at the time, but it also, like, I had a decision to make as a young man. I'm 17-18 years old at the time, but I am not going to quit and go take another offer, which I felt like I had other good offers, or was I going to take this challenge and come back better? And not only that, like I came back better, it blew him away and I got the offer. And it's kind of like, it honestly was kind of like setting the foundation of what my career, what my character, what my legacy was going to be there. 

Grit. Perseverance. Determination. It wasn't always going to be easy for Terry McLaurin to get to where he is at now, and as detailed above, the ride to getting an offer at Ohio State was from from simple. Now? He is making millions and millions of dollars and balling out with Mr. Commenter's Washington Commanders.