Ryan Baer with his family during his visit to UK earlier this week. (Twitter Photo)
Ohio offensive lineman Ryan Baer had a lot of college football analysts — and fans — convinced that his recruitment likely would come down to Notre Dame and Kentucky. However, that obviously was not the case as Baer called off his official visit to Notre Dame this weekend after visiting both UK and Michigan State earlier this week.
He had already taken official visits to Virginia and Illinois along with unofficial visits to Ohio State and Pittsburgh. Now he’s not planning any more visits even though he has almost 30 scholarship offers.
The 6-7, 320-pound Baer is ranked as the 31st best offensive tackle in the 2022 recruiting class by Rivals.com. He is the 40th best offensive tackle in the 247Sports rankings and a top 400 player nationally.
While calling off his visit to Notre Dame could be good news for Kentucky, Baer said it was more that he had just seen enough based on schools he’s already visited.
“All five of my visits have been really good visits,” Baer said. “I kind of waited to the last minute and started rushing (to make visits) and other people kind of got in my head.
“I hurried and made a couple of bad decisions at the end. I just decided to keep this last weekend open and talk with my family.”
His father, Russ, has been on each visit with him and talks with his son about his likes and dislikes from each visit.
“I know there are a couple of schools he has liked,” Ryan Baer, who also earlier canceled an official visit to Tennessee, said. “Some schools have made him a little happier than others.”
Baer still hopes to have a college choice made in July before his senior season at North High School in Eastlake, Ohio, starts.
“I am not complaining but recruiting can get stressful. It’s a blessing to be recruited but it can be stressful,” he said.
He did say his visit to Michigan State “went really good” earlier this week.
“Their campus surprised me. I had never been there before. It was actually pretty nice,” he said.
