Few college football recruiting stories have ended quite as oddly as that of five-star safety Peyton Bowen in the 2023 recruiting cycle. He committed to Notre Dame on New Year’s Day 2022 and remained a verbal commitment all year. He did so despite continuing to take visits all along.
Then when the early signing period came, Bowen announced he was going to Oregon. Except they never received his national letter of intent so a day later he wound up at Oklahoma.
It was one of the strangest turns of events and the story isn’t done quite yet. According to Bowen, it turns out he did send Oregon his national letter of intent, but that he forgot to include a certain specific detail.
From On3 Sports:
“I sent (the letter of intent in) but we didn’t put the a.m. or p.m. on by accident,” Bowen said. “So I should be there right now, honestly. I wrote the time, but didn’t write a.m. or p.m. by it.” – Peyton Bowen
Here’s the thing. If you wanted to be at Oregon then simply forgetting to put morning or afternoon next to the time wouldn’t have been a holdup. Oregon would have called and said “Hey, you’re missing this. Can you fill it out and resend right away?”
And if Bowen wanted to be there he would have resent it. He didn’t though, he clearly was looking for something else that Oregon and Notre Dame weren’t willing to promise quite like Oklahoma was. That’s fine as it’s allowed in the international waters of NIL, but just be honest about it.
Bowen has the talent to be a collegiate star and be playing on Sundays for quite some time. I hope for the young man’s sake that he’s able to achieve those things so he’s not remembered just for being the young man who changed his mind every time the wind blew during his recruitment.