Wan'Dale Robinson claps back at suggestion Ohio State didn't recruit him due to Kentucky interest

Before making his way to Kentucky as a college redshirt junior, Wan’Dale Robinson was considered one of the best high school football recruits, not only in the Bluegrass State but across the entire country. The fact that he was even considering the Wildcats apparently rubbed a former Ohio State head coach the wrong way.

Zach Smith, who was the Buckeyes’ wide receivers coach until he was fired in 2018 over domestic assault allegations, recently hopped on his podcast to share a story about Urban Meyer‘s recruiting tactics. Meyer was Ohio State’s head coach from 2012-18, where he won the national championship in 2014. Robinson, a four-star class of 2019 recruit out of Frankfort (KY) Western Hills, was being recruited by the Buckeyes and many others.

As Smith tells it, Robinson was offered by Ohio State, but wasn’t considered a “take” at the time. Meyer had visions of Robinson being a slot receiver and kick/punt returner in Columbus. He went so far as to push Robinson for a commitment to OSU, but Robinson’s interest in the Kentucky program apparently did not sit well with Meyer.

“The kid (Robinson) kept pushing back, like ‘I don’t know. Well, I gotta go to Kentucky.’ And Urban finally said, he looked at me, he’s like ‘What are we doing right now?” Smith said on the Menace 2 Sports podcast, clarifying that Robinson was in the room for this exchange. “He said, ‘Are we still talking about Kentucky?’ To the kid. And the kid was like, ‘Huh? Yeah.’ And he (Meyer) was like, ‘We don’t recruit against Kentucky. If you want to go to Kentucky that’s a red flag for me. We don’t want you.'”

Smith adds that Meyer “essentially kinda pulled” Robinson’s scholarship then and there.

This version of the story didn’t sit too well with Robinson, who caught wind of the now-viral clip on social media. “Considering I still took an OV to OSU i think i was a take,” he wrote with laughing emojis at the end of his post.

considering i still took an OV to OSU i think i was a take😂😂 https://t.co/2Mh62Xl7wo

— Wan’Dale Robinson (@wanda1erobinson) July 18, 2025

Robinson did indeed take an official visit in October of 2018. He also officially visited Alabama, Nebraska, Michigan, and Purdue that same year before committing to Kentucky in November. The speedy pass catcher later flipped to Nebraska a month later, spending his first three seasons with the Cornhuskers before returning to Kentucky via the transfer portal for the 2021 season. Robinson went on to set records as a Wildcat before becoming a second-round NFL Draft pick in 2022.

Meyer, who was suspended for the first three games of the 2018 season in response to his handling of Smith’s domestic assault allegations, ultimately announced his intentions to retire from Ohio State at the end of that year.