If you think you know every dirty creative trick schools use to recruit athletes, you may be right. But I'm willing to guess that you don't. I think I learned at an early age about the sneaky ways of recruiting from reading "That's My Story and I'm Sticking To It", by Alex Hawkins.
When Hawkins, then a South Charleston high school senior, was being sought after by football and basketball college coaches, he chose football because it paid more money. "I was offered a farm to sign with the University of Kentucky but I was offered $1,500 a semester, a complete men's wardrobe and a new automobile to play football for coach Rex Enright at South Carolina.
Depending on how you look at it, those days are sadly over. Too bad I couldn't find the bit about the men West Virginia paid to make sure no other coaches talked to Hawkins. Because the South Carolina coaches had to sneak in the back door to make that offer. Undoubtedly, WVU's men were looking for new jobs that fall.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Recruiting always has been and always will be about getting access to the player, and what you can sell them in that time. Despite the NCAA's best efforts to control the contact coaches have with recruits, it seems there's always a loophole.
So when Oregon coaches identified their top 20 prospects for the class of 2005, Gilmore and his staff designed custom comic books starring each recruit as the hero who leads the Ducks to a national title. Because NCAA rules at the time only allowed programs to send letter-sized, black-and-white pages to recruits, Gilmore sent each prospect one page a week. After a few months, the recruit had the full comic book.
The practice of sending a recruit a comic book about themselves was nixed when the NCAA passed a rule that only material that was created by a coach could be sent to recruits. I would not be at all surprised to learn that Oregon offered a spot on the coaching staff to Stan Lee.
Refresher: a high school football recruit out of Nevada named Kevin Hart made a commitment to California several days ago. Problem was, Cal hadn't recruited him. Neither had any other schools. That prompted an investigation and the involvement of law enforcement.
The story soon centered around a mysterious recruiter who allegedly duped the poor high school senior.
"I wanted to play D-I ball more than anything. When I realized that wasn't going to happen, I made up what I wanted to be reality. I am sorry for disappointing and embarrassing my family, coaches, Fernley High School, the involved universities and reporters covering the story."
Now the school district "continues to conduct its internal investigation into how so many people were duped by the high school senior."
Good debate here between ESPN's Robert Smith and Jesse Palmer.
Palmer says Terrelle Pryor is raw as a passer, and would be better suited with his skills at spread schools Oregon and Michigan (welcome to the modern age, fellas). Ohio State's pro-style offense involves a fullback and tight ends and might be overwhelming for a guy that raw.
Smith makes it known Pryor simply won't redshirt and if he went to Ohio State, its offense would most certainly change. Lost in all that discussion: Penn State, the presumed favorite of Pryor's father. Good stuff.
College football's offseason is wonderful. It's a time when fans fret for upwards of eight months about how a team full of 18-21 year-olds will perform in a pressure-packed, abbreviated season while simultaneously taking classes* In the downtime, said players tend to get into trouble. Lots of it. The best of them entertain and/or frighten us.
Today's amusement comes from Oregon receiver Derrick Jones, last seen flying down the Michigan sidelines (0:35) (03:00) and proving once again Michigan's defense could probably afford to pull its safeties back against teams with vertical pass offenses. But we digress.
Less than an ounce of marijuana was found at the residence at the time of Jones' Jan. 25 arrest, Eugene police Sgt. Rich Stronach said.
Jones was taken to jail on a contempt of court charge for failing to appear for a Eugene Municipal Court hearing, Stronach said.
Jones, a sophomore from Gardena, Calif., also was arrested in October for driving with a suspended license and missed one game when coaches suspended him for the arrest.
How one gets cited for that when seemingly half the population of Eugene may in fact operate drug houses is beyond us. A swift booting off the Oregon team is likely since coaches tend to cut bait with guys whose legal troubles escalate instead of dissipate.
Right: a certain subset of Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State fans.
National Signing Day -- which is a holiday for that guy in your office who's constantly muttering about his stapler -- is February sixth. On that day, virtually every high school recruit in the country will sign a binding letter of intent to attend a particular college.
"I'd say it's about 50-50 that I'll push things back," Pryor said.
Aw, Jesus. More waiting? More bated breath? More pictures with Corvettes? Pryor's stated reason for the delay is a potential visit to spread-friendly Oregon. This would seem to refute the rumors that Pryor is an Ohio State lock... though not much.
Pryor's visit with JoePa went "OK" according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which in normally effusive recruit-speak means "get that crazy old man away from me." Meanwhile, even Ohio State fans are getting on the preemptive sour grapes bandwagon.
Where's he going? Tune in Wednesday! Or sometime after Wednesday!
Sure, things looked bleak when Dennis Dixon collapsed in a heap against Arizona and Oregon soon went on to three straight defeats. Oregon's quarterbacks looked like garbage and they were presumably left for dead against South Florida in the Sun Bowl.
I guess they didn't get the memo.
A nobody reserve named Justin Roper has been magnificent for the Ducks this afternoon, leading them to a 46-14 third quarter lead against an above average Bulls defense. Turnovers have helped, but Roper is 15/26 for 181 yards and 4 touchdowns in just three quarters of work. Not bad, huh?
I think Oregon got silly in sticking with its dropback veteran Brady Leaf instead of taking its lumps with the more mobile Roper and it cost them several winnable games and ultimately the Pac-10 championship. Contrary to the concerns of some, the spread can go on when a quarterback gets injured. Just like with more pro-style offenses it is up to a coaching staff to find and develop the appropriate style of quarterback to run the system in case a starter goes down.
In doing so, Oregon found its mojo in a big way as the run/pass game is clicking. Johnathan Stewart, aided by a functional quarterback for the first time in a few games has gone off for over 200 yards (a Sun Bowl record) including a 71-yard touchdown run.
Although it seemed unlikely as their season unraveled earlier this month, the UCLA Bruins are still in the running for the Rose Bowl Game after defeating the beleaguered Oregon Ducks in Pasadena 16-0.
For the first half of the game, it looked like neither injury-riddled team wanted to win the ballgame. Converted wide receiver Osaar Rashaan completed none of his 7 passes in the start, resulting in Karl Dorrell bringing "emergency substitute" Ben Olson off the bench at haltime--providing a spark to make the UCLA offense look merely mediocre. Meanwhile, the Bruin defense showed just how important Dennis Dixon was to the Oregon Ducks.
If UCLA beats USC, Oregon beats Oregon State and Arizona defeats Arizona State next Saturday, the Bruins will have the tiebreaker in the four-way race, sending the 7-5 Bruins to the Rose Bowl Game, Oregon to the Holiday Bowl, USC to the Sun Bowl and Arizona State to San Francisco's Emerald Bowl.
Then again, the Oregon loss puts USC in the drivers' seat for the Rose Bowl game--win and they're in. Even if the Trojans lose to UCLA, they could back in to the Rose Bowl is Oregon and Arizona State also lose.
ESPN/ABC also brings us this great fact: an unranked team has defeated a top five team 11 times this season which is the most in college football history. This lays bare the obvious feeling that these upsets are almost trite at this point. Fortunately we're down to the nitty gritty of the season dominated by rivalry games and conference championship battles which give a new flavor to the 2007 mix. Oh, and there's also that simmering rivalry game between Kansas and Missouri that greatly affects the BCS Championship race.
Dennis Dixon completely tore the ACL in his left knee in Oregon's win over Arizona State on Nov. 3, and convinced Oregon's coaches and doctors to let him try and play in the Arizona game last night.
After leaving last night's loss in the first quarter when the knee faltered again, Dixon will now have season-ending surgery, bringing his UO career to a close. That was the word on a conference call featuring UO coach Mike Bellotti and team physician Dr. Bob Crist this evening.
It was fun while it lasted but that show just came to an end. Oregon's a different team without him and it showed last night. Their runaway Pac-10 Championship and BCS game hopes are now teetering. Dixon's Heisman Trophy crashed the minute he crumpled to the turf last night and Arizona's victory obviously ended their BCS Championship Game hopes.
What a cruel blow to both Dixon and the team. The senior was a middling draft prospect to begin with but this late-season injury will deeply interfere with his ability to train and test ahead of next April's draft. Fortunately for Dixon he has a minor league baseball opportunity to fall back upon, but even that won't last much longer unless he learns to hit the curve ball.
I don't credit this to parity, I think that's a lazy description for what's happening this year in college football. College football is a game with uneven matchups but so much more psychologically at play that provides this great variance that we see. And tonight that variance was an injury to Oregon's quarterback absolutely putting his team into a shell.
His backup tossed an interception that was returned for a touchdown, they surrendered a weird punt return touchdown and then basically quit until late in the fourth quarter. That's college kids for ya.
And now the red-shirted college kids are storming the field, reminiscent of Rutgers' upset over Louisville last year.
The effects are far-reaching. With Dixon's injury, Florida quarterback Tim Tebow is the runaway favorite to win the Heisman Trophy. He would be the award's first-ever underclass winner.
Elsewhere, Kansas is now the clear favorite to play LSU in the BCS Championship Game. Kansas! Heaven help us trying to sort things out if one or both of them lose any of their remaining games. This is big.
If you think you know every 
Puuuuuuuuuuuuure fiction.
College football's offseason is wonderful. It's a time when fans fret for upwards of eight months about how a team full of 18-21 year-olds will perform in a pressure-packed, abbreviated season while simultaneously taking classes* In the downtime, said players tend to get into trouble. 
Right: a certain subset of Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State fans.
Sure, things looked bleak when 
Although it seemed unlikely as their 
Finito. No mas. Retire the jersey time. Done.
Ok so 
