COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Most Ohio State football fans know what Mark Pantoni, the recruiting boss who takes a lead role in shaping the Buckeyes’ roster, does. But they aren’t sure what he might do.

Pantoni arrived in Columbus eight years ago as a newlywed, a Florida graduate and an Urban Meyer loyalist who would have followed his old boss anywhere. Wednesday, on National Signing Day, he’ll celebrate the culmination of a year’s work pulling together the Buckeyes’ 2020 recruiting class. He’ll do that as a husband and father who has developed Columbus roots; an empowered boss of a department that has vastly expanded over the years; a personnel director tasked with even more responsibility under first-year coach Ryan Day; and a Buckeye.

The 38-year-old watches seven or eight hours of prospect film every day and directs Ohio State’s recruiting energies toward the high-profile prospects they determine they can get and the under-the-radar prospects they determine other teams are overlooking. The result is a 2020 recruiting class that should rank No. 4 in the nation by the end of Wednesday. The result is classes that, since Pantoni’s first full year with the 2013 class, have ranked No. 2, No. 3, No. 7, No. 4, No. 2, No. 2 and No. 14 in the nation. And now this season.

The result also is a question that has danced around the edges of this Ohio State season, as the Buckeyes pulled together under Day after Meyer’s retirement and rolled to a 13-0 record and No. 2 seed in the College Football Playoff. Along the way, everyone has referenced the “structure” that Meyer left in place. Some of that structure consists of ideas. A lot of it is just people.

People like strength coach and the head of football performance, Mickey Marotti; football operations head Brian Voltolini; head of player development Ryan Stamper; and Pantoni. They all followed Meyer from Florida. So what might happen if Meyer ever returns to coaching? Would the structure follow the old boss, or stay in the same place? If the chance arose, would Pantoni follow Meyer again?

“All I can say is that I know Urban loves this place, and he loves Ryan,” Pantoni told me in his office last week. “So I think he wouldn’t want to destroy this place, either. He’d definitely be considerate of Ryan and Ohio State for sure.”

The other side of that is that Pantoni loves this place. He and his wife, Kristin, are Florida grads and Florida natives, but their 4-year-old twins, Hayden and Madison, are Midwestern kids who tell their baffled parents they prefer the cold to the heat. The Pantonis are invested in the Rock City Church in Columbus, where a lot of other members of the football program now attend. Kristin’s mother moved to Columbus, and Mark’s family visits a lot, and they say Columbus exceeded their expectations as a place to raise a family. A young couple that came to Columbus for a job also said they were prioritizing something else in their new life.

“The number one goal in moving here was happiness for my family,” Pantoni said. “And so as long as that happiness is there, there’s no reason to leave. ... It a hundred percent feels like home, and hopefully home for a long time. That’s just how much we love it here.”

I’ve written enough stories about football coaches and staffers who love a place and then leave to understand how this can work. If someone offers to quadruple Pantoni’s salary, who knows what the future holds. But I wanted to talk to him not just because signing day was looming, but because following a leader and then developing as your own person is a typical life experience. We’ve covered Pantoni’s job skills and successful growth along the way. But his life has changed.

Pantoni once worked for someone else for a year, at Florida in 2011 after Meyer left the Gators. And Pantoni was out the door of his alma mater (where he once thought he’d work forever) and on the road to a foreign land in Ohio as soon as Meyer was hired in Columbus. Then the 2018 season began with Meyer’s suspension and ended with his retirement, as all the Meyer guys knew their futures were affected by the choices their boss made. Pantoni was uncertain during the suspension and uncertain during the transition, but he figured he’d work until he was told to stop.

He wasn’t told to stop. Meyer very much wanted his staffers to keep their jobs. Day took over and said he wanted to keep this rolling. And that meant even more responsibility for Pantoni.

“I kind of let him run the personnel department, is the best way to put it,” Day said this week. "That’s recruiting. There’s a lot that goes into it. It’s not just evaluating. It’s everything else, the organization of recruiting trips, the organization of recruiting weekends, the organization of the staff, where we put people, the recruiting, everything. He does it all. Organizes the numbers.

“The amount of trust that I have in him is off the charts. What he’s done this year, helped put together this class, you can’t put a value on that.”

Ohio State player personnel director Mark Pantoni in his office.

As the play caller for the offense, Day has more daily involvement with the game plan than Meyer did. Meyer was in Pantoni’s office every day to talk recruiting. Day understands Ohio State’s success starts with recruiting, but during the season he might not swing by as much. There’s a recruiting meeting every week, and instant meetings when needed. But Pantoni was dealing with a new coach and a new style.

“Ryan has more time devoted to where he has to be in that offensive room,” Pantoni said, “which is good, because he trusts us to make sure our job is getting done right. Urban had more time just to check in more often with us, which is how they wanted to do things. But as long as that trust factor is there that we’re going to get our job done, we’re good."

They are good. The Buckeyes went heavy with Ohio players early in this class and still pulled national top-100 players like Pennsylvania receiver Julian Fleming, New Jersey center Luke Wypler and Texas receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Meyer, Pantoni and the assistant coaches on the road worked together seamlessly as Ohio State became a recruiting monster in the last seven years. Now Pantoni is helping a new coach feed that monster.

He’s doing it not with Meyer in his office, but in his head.

“Working with Urban for so long as we all have, he’s such a strong leader and such a strong CEO, and his demands and expectations were so clear; what made it so good was he pushed everyone to be their best. Every day, when you walked in this building, you had to be at your best,” Pantoni said. “After 10 years of being around him, we’ve all tried to train ourselves to that mindset of, ‘Hey, we have to be the best at what we do.’ And so I think that’s what’s built this infrastructure.”

The structure is the people. Those people are now part of Ohio State, not just part of a Meyer plan. If Meyer does coach again, I do believe that Pantoni, with his family and his faith and his life in Columbus, wouldn’t feel he needed to follow this time. He’s built something here, with a department he runs with Meyer’s leadership influence. He co-founded a national personnel symposium for college recruiting leaders and personnel heads that is entering its third year. While he once thought he wanted to be a college athletic director, he’s no longer interested in that path. While NFL teams have offered him positions in their personnel departments, he’s turned them down so far.

“I’m extremely happy. If your goal is to get to the top, I feel like I’m in the best possible position I could be, at the best school in the country," Pantoni said. “I enjoy being around the kids. I enjoy the stability of living here. I enjoy the collegiate fan base.”

Pantoni said he knows that recruits choose Ohio State for the program and the tradition and the success and the head coach and the position coach. He calls himself a small part of the process. But he likes that part.

“The small part that I like to play is, ‘Hey, I found this guy, I evaluated this guy, I believed in this guy when maybe the coaches didn’t.' That’s what drives me,” Pantoni said.

Then. Now. And maybe for many more Ohio State recruiting classes to come.

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