Top 2013 Recruit Jalin Marshall Set to Declare: Will Ohio State Be His Choice?

With just a few weeks left until National Signing Day, the college football recruiting rumors and chatter have begun to hit a fevered pitch as everyone continues to speculate about where all of the nation's top high school football recruits will ultimately end up.

Who’s headed here?

Who’s going there?

Who’s changing their mind?

Yes, Feb. 1 promises to be another wildly entertaining day full of surprises, however, one school will actually get the chance to celebrate a day early on Jan. 31, as that’s the day that one of the top recruits in the 2013 class, QB Jalin Marshall out of Ohio’s Middletown high school, will announce his decision on where he plans to go to school.

Admittedly, commitments made a year in advance are certainly not set in stone, as we’ve seen plenty of kids in years past who have stayed committed to schools for months only to renege on their pledge and change their minds on National Signing Day.

But Marshall sounds like he has his mind made up, though, and it seems like there’s one particular school he could be leaning towards. And it’s one that happens to be pretty close to home.

Currently Marshall holds offers from the likes of Cincinnati, Illinois, Indiana, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Tennessee and UCLA, but it seems that his top choice could be his home-state school, Ohio State.

Marshall got the chance to visit Columbus on a few occasions during the 2011 season, and from all indications, he certainly liked what he saw.

Now with Urban Meyer, one of the top head coaches and recruiters in all of college football taking over the program, the Buckeyes look like they’re headed back to the top of the Big Ten, and that journey could be something that Marshall wants to be a part of.

The athletic 6’0’’, 190-pound human highlight-reel plays quarterback for Middletown, but he’ll probably end up at either running back or wide receiver in college, and with his type of skill-set and rare natural ability and athleticism, he could be a perfect fit as a Percy Harvin-type of playmaker in Meyer’s spread offense.

Meyer is already in the process of assembling one of this year's top-rated recruiting classes, and reeling in one of the premier players in the 2013 class so far in advance would certainly go a long way towards showing the rest of the college football world that Ohio State is once again a force to be reckoned with.

Buckeyes fans will certainly have plenty to celebrate on National Signing Day, but they may get the chance to start the party a little early if Marshall ends up committing to Meyer and Ohio State.

Scandal, probation, bowl ban—none of that seems to matter as Columbus once again appears to be a desirable destination for the nation's elite high school football recruits.