Legend Bey Instagram/Legend Bey
By Kevin Harrish on

National Signing Day is always filled with bizarre stories as elite high school football players announce their college decisions, and this year was certainly no exception, as a top high school prospect from Texas was seemingly forced to commit to a school against his wishes and locked out of his social media account by his family.

Four-star athlete Legend Bey, out of Fourney, Texas, flipped his commitment from the Tennessee Volunteers to the Ohio State Buckeyes last month and appeared set to sign his national letter of intent with Ohio State on Wednesday morning when college football’s early signing period began. Bey even participated in a signing ceremony at his high school on Wednesday morning, wearing Ohio State gear and standing in front of a table decorated with Buckeye logos and photos of him with Ohio State’s coaches.

However, as the day progressed, the situation took a series of bizarre turns.

First came the sudden departure of Ohio State offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach Brian Hartline, who was announced as the next head coach of South Florida. However, while this caused some Ohio State wide receiver commits to revisit their decisions, Bey did not seem concerned about the change. He told Ishmael Johnson of the Dallas Morning News that he was remaining committed to Ohio State and spoke highly of head coach Ryan Day.

All signs pointed to Bey ultimately signing his letter of intent with Ohio State, but Mike Roach of 247 Sports reported on Wednesday morning that while Bey was “completely content” to sign with the Buckeyes, he was facing “significant pressure” from some people in his circle to flip his commitment back to Tennessee.

More specifically, Roach reported that Bey’s mother wouldn’t sign off on the commitment. Since Bey was still a minor, Ohio State would have waited until his 18th birthday, in three weeks, to accept the signature through compliance. Roach reported that the situation between Bey and his mother became so intense that his high school coaches tried to intervene and defuse the situation.

Later in the afternoon, it appeared Bey’s mother and family had won out, as Tennessee announced that the four-star prospect had officially signed with the school.

It’s worth noting that NCAA rules prohibit a school from discussing a high school prospect unless they receive a national letter of intent or, in some cases, financial aid paperwork from the athlete. So Tennessee’s public acknowledgment of Bey’s decision is significant, as it indicates that the school did receive paperwork announcing his intent.

Bey seemingly confirmed his decision later that day.

“It was a family decision,” Bey told On3’s Volquest Wednesday afternoon. “There was a lot going on. Still had that relationship with coach (Josh Heupel) and I just felt like coming back home.”

That seemed to be the end of a bizarre story, but things took another turn on Thursday afternoon when Bey appeared to claim in a since-deleted X post that he was no longer in control of his social media accounts and did not want to sign with Tennessee.

“Good Afternoon, I was just recently logged out of my IG and probably will be logged out of this Account as well by my older brother who has access to mv account because, i won’t sign to the school him and my mother wants- Legend Bey,” the since-deleted post reads, which has been preserved on Reddit.

Before that post, Bey appeared to send out another since-deleted post that featured a graphic that depicted him standing arm in arm with Ohio State head coach Ryan Day and running backs coach Carlos Locklyn with the caption, “We Have Your Back.”

The posts were quickly deleted, and there have been no follow-up posts on X.

At this point, there are obviously still a lot of things we don’t know about the situation, and it seems to be far from over. One of the biggest questions seems to be who actually signed the paperwork that was sent to Tennessee. Rivals’ Keegan Pope reports that “sources close to the situation have cast doubt about whether it was Bey or someone else who signed the paperwork that was ultimately sent to Tennessee.”

Whoever signed the paperwork, 247Sports’ Roach reported that Bey was “unhappy” with the decision to sign with Tennessee and that he would seek a path to be released from Tennessee and end up at Ohio State. He further reported that Tennessee “would not be opposed” to releasing Bey from his signing agreement, given the way his recruitment played out. Of course, Bey could also opt to enter the transfer portal when it opens in January.

Regardless of how this plays out, it is certainly one of the more bizarre and frankly sad stories to come out of a national signing day in recent memory.

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