Recruiting Overdrive

The first recruiting weekend of January concluded and guess what?!? Everyone had a super happy fun time. Whether you read Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, etc. recruiting websites you’ll find a plethora of stories on recruits singing each school’s praise.

One lesson from reading this weekend’s recruiting stories—Recruits are bigger teases than strippers looking for tips. And it plays right into the hands of the recruiting services. Fans want to read the next Tim Tebow or Julio Jones enjoyed their time on campus. Fans want to read how recruits think Nick Saban isn’t Satan or how Gene Chizik isn’t a mentally retarded version of former Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron.

It is good for fans, but boring. I’d like to see just one recruit say a campus sucked. Perhaps a recruit could say that Coach Saban wouldn’t share his Little Debbie cakes or that Coach Chizik smells like cabbage. Those would be juicy details useful in assessing a school’s chances of landing a recruit. Alas, we probably won’t see very many, if any, of those stories during the push to National Signing Day.

What you will see are some of these recruiting services publishing the party line—party line as in, saying what furthers the agenda of each respective school. Criticism doesn’t sell, but apologetics sells—Phillip Marshall anyone? And every school has their own online apologists at these recruiting sites.

Another feature common to every recruiting site is the conspiracy theory on the message board. When a recruit commits to a rival, some nefarious booster organization obviously cheated. Everyone is cheating if you believe Internet message boards. According to the Internet, even the refuse of the SEC cheats—that being Mississippi State and South Carolina.

Did you know Mississippi State and South Carolina were giving recruits cars? No? Probably because they were giving out a Toyota Prius instead of the infamous Escalade. You can’t expect more. They are Mississippi State and Scouth Carolina! This weekend the only Division 1 school not accused of cheating was UAB. Of course, that could be because nobody knows UAB has a football program outside of three weirdoes hanging out on Southside.

Thank God for recruiting websites! January would be dull without them.
(editor’s note: This is the first in a series on recruiting sites and the coverage of recruiting. I promise to provide something useful on recruiting in the coming days as this series unfolds. Maybe.)