Sports

COLUMBUS — Willie Mobley, a high school recruit who signed this week to play at Ohio State, said he wasn't fooled by fake letters with the forged signature of coach Jim Tressel telling him his scholarship had been withdrawn.

Mobley, a 6-foot-2, 263-pound defensive lineman from Eden Prairie, Minn., gave a verbal commitment to the Buckeyes in November. The first bogus letter arrived in January followed by a second one Wednesday, he said.

Both letters appeared to be on Ohio State letterhead and were postmarked from Columbus.

"I looked at them like, 'What the heck? This is fake,' " Mobley said Thursday. "There were all these misspellings, and you couldn't even read the signature, it was like, 'Jim, scribble-scribble.' "

Mobley, who also considered attending Minnesota and UCLA, said he called Tressel to tell him about the hoax. Tressel told him he had heard of other players receiving the letters, Mobley said.

The Buckeyes locked up 19 football recruits Wednesday on national signing day.