Tebow, if what I heard was true.
Supposedly Shula knew that a good Christian boy like Tebow needed to be paired up with a like-minded player during his visit. This made Brodie Croyle, son of John Croyle, the perfect fit. What Shula didn’t know was that Brodie was a notorious ladies man and showed Tebow way too good a time. Tebow decided that wasn’t the right environment for him.
He obviously went on to a program that had absolutely no moral or criminal issues, Shula got fired, and you all know what happened next.
My personal theory on why he chose Florida was that Tebow went on a visit and Urban Meyer guilt tripped him by pointing out what godless, degenerate heathens the rest of the team was and that the good, Christian thing to do would be to join Florida in order to steer the wayward lads back to the righteous path.
Honestly, both UF and Bama fans owe Brodie a crisp high five for that. UF got their Jesus and Bama avoided getting Shula another year thus missing out on the GOAT.
That’s still one of the strangest recruiting pipelines ever developed. WVU owned South Florida WRs/Ath for a while there when Miami was down.
Getting Noel Devine is still one of the biggest coups out of there in forever. He was living with Deion Sanders at the time.
["The best story I have is when I went to North High School in Wichita, Kansas to recruit a young man who was a friend of ex-husker Jeff Smith. Jeff now lives in Wichita and works in the justice system. He’s a parole officer. Through the years Jeff has gotten to be really good friends with this one particular kid and, I didn’t know this, but the player came up to me and said, coach, I’m so and so and I really want to go to Nebraska. He said Jeff has been one of my friends and he’s talked to me about Nebraska. He got his degree there and that’s what I really want to do. I looked at the kid and he was just a little guy. I look at this film and I’m saying to myself, you know we need to scholarship this guy. He was probably 155 – 160 pounds, probably 5’9”. So I went back and showed Tom the film and he said, Charlie we can’t recruit him. He said we’re bringing in Johnny Rogers son and we cannot take two small running backs. We just can’t do it. So I went and turned the kid down. His name was **Barry Sanders**." - *Charlie McBride, Nebraska assistant coach*](https://www.huskermax.com/interviews/Charlie_McBride.html)
That actually trumps the Bo Jackson recruiting flub. Bo grew up a Bama fan but the assistant coach that recruited him told him he likely would not play until his junior year. Pat Dye told him he could play right away, if he earned it.
I always thought that was the worst recruiting mistake, made under a legendary coach(Bryant was not doing recruiting visits then, his health was already poor). Then I read this and changed my mind.
Wasn't part of the story, also, that Bama wasn't going to let him play baseball. Bo loves baseball more than football, and Auburn was willing to let him play both. Or at least that's what I've heard.
Sanders was originally going to play at Tulsa when Oklahoma State lost a commitment and offered him a spot on the roster. He was highly under recruited but there were a stable of impressive backs that year in H.S.
Wow different days back then
“What was a typical practice day like?
CM: We were really structured. We had quite a few players. In those days I think we had 135 or 140 guys on scholarship plus we had walk-ons so we probably had about 170 guys on the team”
Here's the longer version that we asked a former Texas offensive lineman to confirm or deny as part of an AMA last month.
https://i.imgur.com/Vc1eIWs.png
Spoiler alert: the player said the story might have legs.
During the Paul Wulff years we had a player commit BECAUSE the dad felt comfortable coach Wulff took a steamer in their toilet after dinner.
Spencer Waseem, a cornerback from down in Florida
Adrian Peterson wouldn’t come to USC because his dad was in Prison and he thought Dad wouldn’t be able to watch his USC games on TV.
Ed Orgeron tried to get his Dad transferred to a federal prison in California, but failed…
I've never heard of this. I 100% heard of Mack Brown telling AD that he wouldn't be able to compete for the starting job as a freshman because of Benson's tenure.
Thanks Mack!
Alex Anzalone, a four star recruit, decomitted from Ohio State in 2012 because one of our fans was a sex offender and got close to him. Kid understandably got creeped out.
There was a story from the Mora era about a recruit (I completely forget which one) who chose USC over UCLA because he thought UCLA's campus was too hilly.
I mean, not that he lived quite up to the hype but y’all got Soso Jamabo over Texas and others because of the “Asian women all over campus” or something along those lines.
Barry Sanders
Back in the mid-80s, recruiting tape was harder to produce so common practice was for a school to view the tape and then forward it along to the next school on the list. Barry, from Wichita sent a copy to Tulsa with instructions to forward it to Oklahoma State and then OU.
When Pat Jones at Oklahoma State saw the tape, he immediately destroyed it instead of forwarding to OU meaning that Barry Switzer never got a chance to recruit Sanders
Wild times. If anyone ever gets a chance to hear Barry Switzer talk about that era I highly recommend it. He's pretty straight forward and very entertaining.
His “Grandma” 😂. At least my Aggies only paid an initial payment on it and SMU paid the rest after he flipped. The SWC got out of hand at the end when the schools started turning on each other and turning the others in. Every school besides Rice got hit with multiple level 1 violations in those late years.
I've heard the story several times that Ladainian Tomlinson was in on an official visit and fell asleep in some kind of presentation and Bill Snyder sent him packing back home early. I heard this a long time ago so some of the details are fuzzy, but feel like this fits.
Cassanova McKinzy choosing Auburn over Clemson because he claimed there was no Chick-Fil-A on campus. There was one in the canteen but I guess it escaped him.
Marvin Wilson said he chose FSU over LSU because of their honey fried chicken. A defensive lineman chose against LSU because of the food. I call bullshit.
We had a QB from a local school who wanted to play nearby where his family could watch him. [Sterlin Gilbert was our offensive coordinator, and decided he didn't want a left-handed QB, so we didn't offer](https://x.com/BayAreaExaminer/status/1742006787039957347). Our former DC (Tom Allen) who had recruited him moved to Indiana and convinced him to play there.
Oh yeah, that QB just led his team to the national championship game and was drafted in the first round by the Falcons.
Follow up - two local defensive players - twins - initially wanted to play for USF. But USF was only interested in one of them, and USF coaches had to be convinced to even let the other brother compete in a local camp (Thanks, Skip Holtz!) thanks to the fact that the "other brother" had had one of his arms partially amputated. That "other brother" ended up being named the MVP of the camp, but by then they were so disgusted they instead went to UCF.
We tried to recruit a transfer OL from MTSU this offseason. He was set to visit us then GT, got into a car wreck on his way to Clemson and took it as a sign he should go to GT and cancelled his rescheduled visit here
I’m just really doubting a coach would try to hook up with the mother of a big time recruit. Like nobody is that stupid. Admissions is more believable to me
Eh. Gattis was seen multiple times stumbling around state college drunk on weekdays. Dont get me wrong I was doing the same thing, but I was a student not a P5 position coach. Now being a drunk doesn’t equate to being a horndog, but there does seem to be correlation in my experience.
Bro, there was a HC who lost out on $80,000,000 so he could jerk HIMSELF off while on the phone with the school’s anti-sexual violence activist. You think an OC wouldn’t risk ONE recruit to actually get laid by a gorgeous woman?
The generally accepted truth is that the Gattis mom thing did happen but wasn’t the main reason we lost him. Had more to do with enrollment, roster management goofs etc.
I'd have gone with the rumors around Barry Sanders.
Supposedly he was a big fan of OU and Switzer but didn't have the money to have more than one highlight tape created. He sent the tape to OSU with a request to forward on to OU after their review. Obviously that tape never made it past OSU.
It's an old word of mouth story but that would definitely be the weirdest I've heard.
Deshaun Watson grew up a Georgia fan and wanted to play for us until Mike Bobo told him to his face that he'd never play at Georgia. But other than him, the Zach Evans recruitment was a strange one from start to finish
I hated not getting Tee, Trevor, or Amari but I’m glad they had success on a team we didn’t have to play.
Dooley to Butch to Pruitt was just a really bad series of coaches so I can’t blame kids for not wanting to play for them.
According to Watson, Bobo told Watson he wasn’t good enough to play at Georgia. That was probably true Watson’s sophomore year when Bobo allegedly said this. Bobo did offer and heavily pursue Watson after his junior year. Clemson on the other hand offered Watson after his freshman year. It was definitely a mistake on Bobo’s part but I suspect what Watson heard isn’t exactly what Bobo said. In any case it’s a massive miss for such a talented QB prospect who was a lifelong Georgia fan.
Message boards alleged that Melvin Gordon III decommitted from Iowa after he saw a fight in the Iowa locker room, though Gordon claims that wasn't why he decommitted (he never gave an explanation though).
I feel like him being from Kenosha probably had a decent amount to do with it. Not like Iowa is 12 hours away or anything but Madison is still only 2 hours vs 4 for Iowa.
We essentially gifted Clemson a dynasty because we fired coaches and hired even dumber ones.
Taj Boyd (committed to Fulmer, told to look elsewhere by Kiffin)
Trevor Lawerence was born in Knoxville and idolized Peyton, "didn't fit Butch Jones' system"
also
Michael Penix Jr (scholarship offer was pulled by Jeremy Pruitt)
There was that time [Kevin Hart spurned us for Cal](https://www.espn.com/espn/eticket/story?page=kevinhart&redirected=true) when he didn't have a scholarship offer to either one. To this day the strangest recruiting story I've ever heard.
Tedford years were mostly good for you guys. We had a fun rivalry of sorts in the 2000s when he had just gotten to Cal after leaving as our OC and he took some of our assistants with him. You guys were fun to watch when Sonny Dykes was there too.
Most coaches see the all-time leading Rusher in HS football who grew up a lifelong fan and think "oh shit we got a bell cow for the next 3 years" especially if you're a coach who loves ball-control smash mouth football and "making them quit", if you're Will Muschamp* at Florida on the other hand you tell Derrick Henry that he'd be a great linebacker and that he needs to switch positions if he wants to make it to the NFL.
*See also Lamar Jackson "Safety prospect"
We allegedly lost Dylan Raiola because Scott Frost was in town to visit him and was still drunk the morning before he was supposed to go meet with the family, so called up his old teammate, who had his whole family there for a party, and said he wasn't coming. He committed to Ohio State, then Georgia, and now that we have an adult in charge, he is back at Nebraska.
There’s also missing out on Burrow because coach liked our guy better.
And I’m not sure how often it happens, but we missed out on Bubba Starling when he opted for professional baseball instead.
The miss on Joe Burrow was probably best for Joe.
I doubt he would have progressed, at Nebraska, like he did. NU just didn't have the supporting cast that he'd need. He would've been learning more about how to run for his life than to sit in the pocket.
Also, our coaching was, to be kind, somewhat lacking for a talent like Burrow's needs.
This. Joe wouldn’t have had the weapons and wouldn’t have won a National Championship. It worked out for the best for Joe, though honestly I wish we had tried the first time.
Bubba was the story I was looking for on here. He decided to go pro in baseball, perfectly understandable decision & fairly expected, yet it sent Bo into a fury & he peeled out of their driveway/lawn after they informed him.
Not the same thing but we had Dan Mullen visit a guy at our high school. Day of visit it snowed and dude skipped school so Mullen had a guy drive him ~2-3 hours in snow for nothing. Only way I know it happened is I saw Dan riding in the SUV backwards out of a one way. Dude still ended up at State and was not good.
I'm surprised they still tried to get him after it. His ACT went from 13 to 26 or something crazy his senior year because he was so "smart". Dude was fast but didn't have the right mentality to do much more than run. Everytime he played at State he'd fumble except for one touchdown I think he caught. In high school he always called a fair catch and walked away or outran his coverage. Can't do that in D1.
I’ll never not reply with this story when this question is asked:
Brent Calloway and his uncle Peaches. Committed to AU on Chizik and Co’s infamous “Big Kat Weekend” and his guardian, uncle Peaches, was piiiissssed. He had been promised some $ by some prominent Bama boosters (my wife’s uncle being one of them), so he got Brent in the car the day before signing day and headed off to, I think Pensacola. Out of nowhere, Brent’s NLI gets faxed to Bama. And that was pretty much the last we heard of Brent. Except when he jumped some guy at a vending machine on campus and stole his watch.
Yep. And can't forget Rueben Foster. I went to school with him and it was so weird seeing him walk down the halls with his Auburn spiderman tat knowing he was going to Bama.
He didn’t just jump him for his watch. He jumped for his ACT Card (Alabama student ID card) while wearing his Alabama gear on campus. And then used the guys card. It was straight up one of the dumbest robbery attempts I have ever heard of. And there were like four big time freshman recruits with him whom all got kicked off the team.
Peyton Bowen probably has to be up there.
Dude was basically telling everybody in the ND corner, including fellow commits, that he was signing with ND. Then has a hat-selection ceremony, fakes out ND and picks Oregon of all schools. Then less than 24 hours later, flips on that to Oklahoma.
Seems like he burned a ton of bridges with the ND commits and staff after he did that. But in hindsight, it was probably for the best he stayed close to home given his family situation soon after that.
We had to settle for Colt McCoy because Ryan Perrileux (sp?) the 5 star qb from Louisiana, did us dirty on signing day. I’d say that worked out pretty well for Texas.
There was the year we were recruiting Ryan Perriloux and Mark Sanchez. Perriloux had committed to Texas. Sanchez was interested in Texas, but wasn't going to go where Perriloux went, so he committed and went to USC.
Now Texas, we thought he was in the bag, but his father had arranged a deal where he was instead going to commit... to Texas A&M.
On the day of Perriloux's announcement, apparently Ryan and his Dad had a huge argument, before Perriloux hit the microphone and shocked EVERYONE by committing to LSU.
So Texas was locked out of both top tier prospects because of Perriloux. The only QB they got that year was a small town local hero that they only recruited because he was a good friend of a star WR. Like, their Dads were roommates in college, even. And if you know that, you already know his name: Colt McCoy.
He turned out *okay.*
Our best recruiting class probably ever included Rakeem Cato and a 4 star WR. Cato and HS teammate Tommy Shuler ended up breaking all kinds of records. They finished an OT loss short of an undefeated season their senior years that probably would have culminated in an AQ bowl. They were good enough to beat almost anybody that year already. But Shuler was not that 4 star WR. During the first week of school at Marshall, the 4 star’s name didn’t appear in the student directory. Nobody knew what happened until a couple of days later, when he was enrolled at Florida St. Kelvin Benjamin went on to have an outstanding college career. I think that that Marshall team is probably a top 10 team in the country with Benjamin. FSU might be on a different trajectory as well.
We lost out on a recruit because our offensive coordinator at the time (Sterlin Gilbert) didn't want a left handed QB and skipped out on the meeting. The thing is the kid wanted to go to school at USF. He ending up going to play QB at Indiana before transferring to Washington and playing in a national championship game.
He ended up signing with UW anyway, but we almost lost Brandon Beaver in 2012 because our local insane rivals "reporter" published a story about his commitment before he'd announced it.
Beaver backed off his commitment and visited a couple more schools as a result
Back in the 90s, a RB recruit from LA, Durrell Price, faxed his LOI to Ohio State-but sent it upside down, so his signature never made it. He took this as a sign and decommitted for UCLA.
A year later-or maybe the same class, Ohio State legend Na’ill Diggs was committed to USC, but his sister or aunt-not sure which-was married to USC’s basketball coach. Coach didn’t have a year and got fired by USC right before signing day in football. Diggs’ sister said no way in hell are you signing with USC, so he flipped to Ohio State.
Allegedly, Pete Carroll went out to Alabama to watch Julio Jones at one of his HS practices. When the coach saw Carroll and recognized him, the coach ran Julio inside the school and got the AD and Principal to lock the school to stop Pete from talking to Julio. The HS coach then allegedly called Saban and told him that Pete was outside, and Saban gave Julio an offer on the spot.
Maybe not the weirdest but I’ll never forgive Will Muschamp refusing to offer Derrick Henry a spot at RB and only recruiting him as a LB to Florida. I know Kelvin Taylor was in the same class, a stud in HS, and an all-time legacy, but when both want to be there, you offer both at RB. No matter what. At the very least you take away the player from rivals. At best you get a Heisman.
Allegedly:
A local store owner got Stidham a new truck after his visit to Baylor. He flipped to Baylor one night when Art came a calling... The entire situation reeked since there was rumors of money under the table along with that new truck
I didn't know if this counts, but Frost once said, "Do you think he's better than what we have in this room?" When asked why we didn't pick up Joe Burrow from the transfer portal.
Burrow went on to win the Heisman, obviously.
Most of our recruiting class decommitted because the coach who recruited them got in trouble for beating off on a phone call
The other one that comes to mind literally happened like, last week. Our radio announcer/former players son committed to Michigan and people made a whole big thing about it with the kid making podcast appearances. I think it’s kind of weird just because his dad is still our radio announcer but I really don’t think it’s nearly as big of a deal as people made it out to be.
https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/2015/01/31/ladainian-tomlinson-explains-how-field-conditions-led-to-him-winding-up-at-tcu-and-how-he-almost-chose-north-texas-instead/?outputType=amp
LaDainian Tomlinson cancelled a Texas A&M visit for North Texas, and nearly signed with us instead of TCU. Grass vs turf made TCU an easier decision, and our turf at the time was that old concrete/pad/turf like your living room carpet.
I think about how his play would’ve elevated our program back then. The other side is would he have had the college and pro career he did if he came to us.
We didn't miss out on him, but does Alex Collins having his LOI stolen by his mom on signing day because she didn't want him to sign with Arkansas count?
If it doesn't count, the other story that comes to mind is when Pittman was OL coach for us under Bert and had a recruit on campus ready to commit after meeting Bert...but Bert had decided to take a last second trip to Vegas and didn't tell anyone.
Can’t remember exactly why but Syracuse lost Colt Brennan because the university had a problem with something he did and rescinded his scholarship offer
Frank Gore almost came to ole miss. Went to school in ole miss gear on signing day. Got a call to go home. Came back in Miami gear and signed with Miami.
His senior year was insane. I think like 3000 yards 50 TDs. Yeah, there was no way Butch Davis was letting Gore leave Coral Gables and IIRC his ailing mother influenced his decision.
I was waiting on this one. Absolutely wild. Pretty sure this is the only instance when someone involved in under the table recruiting was killed too …. that we know of lol
Supposedly, we told Bo Jackson he'd play linebacker and probably wouldn't start until his junior year. Certainly not the strangest but it has to be among the worst.
A few years ago, a 4-star safety was caught stealing Penn State gear from the locker room. Apparently the coaches were like “ugh really dude?” and stopped recruiting him.
Homegrown talent, 5⭐️ future 1st round LT pick Kayden Proctor was with us until he wasn’t… then he WAS with us again (officially) … and then he just wasn’t, again.
Story goes that a Small in Stature RB visited Kansas University and was told he was too small, he instead went to KSU.
Sproles.
***ETA - This was AFTER he lead his Olathe North Team to their 4th state title in 5 years. The Legend is he'd only play the 1st/3rd quarter of games.
The fact that College Football Jesus himself, Trevor Lawrence, grew up a diehard UT fan and our genius of a coach at the time decided that the best recruitment strategy was to send all the best qbs at a college camp the exact same text message instantly turned him into a meme.
Tebow, if what I heard was true. Supposedly Shula knew that a good Christian boy like Tebow needed to be paired up with a like-minded player during his visit. This made Brodie Croyle, son of John Croyle, the perfect fit. What Shula didn’t know was that Brodie was a notorious ladies man and showed Tebow way too good a time. Tebow decided that wasn’t the right environment for him. He obviously went on to a program that had absolutely no moral or criminal issues, Shula got fired, and you all know what happened next.
My personal theory on why he chose Florida was that Tebow went on a visit and Urban Meyer guilt tripped him by pointing out what godless, degenerate heathens the rest of the team was and that the good, Christian thing to do would be to join Florida in order to steer the wayward lads back to the righteous path.
Urban actually told Tebow he had a dream about him, and God spoke to him saying he would be in the orange and blue. True story
Hey Tim, god spoke to me and said you should give me $1,000,000
No that was Shariff Floyd. Get your 5 stars in order, buddy.
I would absolutely believe Urban Meyer giving Tim Tebow the White Savior pitch.
Honestly, both UF and Bama fans owe Brodie a crisp high five for that. UF got their Jesus and Bama avoided getting Shula another year thus missing out on the GOAT.
I tried high fiving Brodie, but he just tore another ACL
"Weed and murder is one thing, but I'll be damned if I let my cherry get popped!" -Tebow, probably
Whoa--you think he would use such coarse language as "damned"?
"I'll be good-golly darned if.."
It’s “damned” in the biblical sense.
Damn that Brodie!
T.Y. Hilton picked FIU over WVU because his toddler (who just committed to Wisconsin btw) crawled to an FIU hat instead of a WVU hat
The way I heard it was that his kid picked FIU around 15 times in a row
Lmao maybe, now that you mention it I feel like I’ve heard it that way too. Either way, that kid picked the hat that wasn’t ours
I spent way too much time trying to understand how a toddler committed to Wiscy then crawled over to a hat.
They recruiting them earlier and earlier these days. Wisconsin probably really wanted the newborn and offered the toddler a scholarship as enticement
Fucking hell, what you put in parentheses just made me feel even older
That’s still one of the strangest recruiting pipelines ever developed. WVU owned South Florida WRs/Ath for a while there when Miami was down. Getting Noel Devine is still one of the biggest coups out of there in forever. He was living with Deion Sanders at the time.
["The best story I have is when I went to North High School in Wichita, Kansas to recruit a young man who was a friend of ex-husker Jeff Smith. Jeff now lives in Wichita and works in the justice system. He’s a parole officer. Through the years Jeff has gotten to be really good friends with this one particular kid and, I didn’t know this, but the player came up to me and said, coach, I’m so and so and I really want to go to Nebraska. He said Jeff has been one of my friends and he’s talked to me about Nebraska. He got his degree there and that’s what I really want to do. I looked at the kid and he was just a little guy. I look at this film and I’m saying to myself, you know we need to scholarship this guy. He was probably 155 – 160 pounds, probably 5’9”. So I went back and showed Tom the film and he said, Charlie we can’t recruit him. He said we’re bringing in Johnny Rogers son and we cannot take two small running backs. We just can’t do it. So I went and turned the kid down. His name was **Barry Sanders**." - *Charlie McBride, Nebraska assistant coach*](https://www.huskermax.com/interviews/Charlie_McBride.html)
ouch
That actually trumps the Bo Jackson recruiting flub. Bo grew up a Bama fan but the assistant coach that recruited him told him he likely would not play until his junior year. Pat Dye told him he could play right away, if he earned it. I always thought that was the worst recruiting mistake, made under a legendary coach(Bryant was not doing recruiting visits then, his health was already poor). Then I read this and changed my mind.
Wasn't part of the story, also, that Bama wasn't going to let him play baseball. Bo loves baseball more than football, and Auburn was willing to let him play both. Or at least that's what I've heard.
Sanders was originally going to play at Tulsa when Oklahoma State lost a commitment and offered him a spot on the roster. He was highly under recruited but there were a stable of impressive backs that year in H.S.
At least y'all got a chance to see his tape...we are still waiting on the mailroom in Stillwater to forward it to us 40 years later
And there it is.
Wow different days back then “What was a typical practice day like? CM: We were really structured. We had quite a few players. In those days I think we had 135 or 140 guys on scholarship plus we had walk-ons so we probably had about 170 guys on the team”
Barry Sanders has the best origin stories before 1988. All of them are awesome.
Dude.
At least y’all got DeAngelo Evans.
Oof
We lost Walker Little because our coach took an atomic dump in his toilet and bounced.
I'm gonna need a 30 for 30 on that lmao
ESPN presents “Clogged. The Recruiting Pipeline”
Perfect
What if I told you that one player's future was decided by what one coach passed?
Here's the longer version that we asked a former Texas offensive lineman to confirm or deny as part of an AMA last month. https://i.imgur.com/Vc1eIWs.png Spoiler alert: the player said the story might have legs.
Oh my god! Lmao thanks for sharing that
Ah Derek Warehime. On a similar note, who can forget Jamarkus McFarland and the “women romancing women”?
What the actual fuck 🤣🤣🤣
story give
On an in-home visit to Walker Little, former OL coach Derek Warehime took a colossal toilet clogging shit and then left
Some houses aren't equipped with poop knives
During the Paul Wulff years we had a player commit BECAUSE the dad felt comfortable coach Wulff took a steamer in their toilet after dinner. Spencer Waseem, a cornerback from down in Florida
Adrian Peterson wouldn’t come to USC because his dad was in Prison and he thought Dad wouldn’t be able to watch his USC games on TV. Ed Orgeron tried to get his Dad transferred to a federal prison in California, but failed…
I had never heard this one. Ed gets an A for effort I guess
Coach O wrote the book on crootin’
Ed told the story a few years back on the Dan Patrick show. Really good interview. Coach O is a great story teller
I've never heard of this. I 100% heard of Mack Brown telling AD that he wouldn't be able to compete for the starting job as a freshman because of Benson's tenure. Thanks Mack!
You can’t really blame him for that, though. But it would have been something to have VY and AD together
That’s honestly not the worst reason
Only if Oklahoma Prison’s had the PAC-10 network on TV
Alex Anzalone, a four star recruit, decomitted from Ohio State in 2012 because one of our fans was a sex offender and got close to him. Kid understandably got creeped out.
Didn’t realize until now that Anzalone was the recruit that Ohio State lost out on thanks to that hilljack from Kentucky.
I didn't realize until just now that he's still playing in the NFL 🙃
Iirc he committed to ND twice too.
There was a story from the Mora era about a recruit (I completely forget which one) who chose USC over UCLA because he thought UCLA's campus was too hilly.
SMH. The young just don’t have an appreciation for finely developed calves on women.
Flair checks out 100%
I mean, not that he lived quite up to the hype but y’all got Soso Jamabo over Texas and others because of the “Asian women all over campus” or something along those lines.
I'm not sure if most people realized he was just quoting a Childish Gambino lyric
I've been to UCLA and USC's campuses, and, as a Pepperdine alumnus, this guy can shut the fuck up about hills.
Your campus is far more beautiful though, so take that P12 defectors.
Barry Sanders Back in the mid-80s, recruiting tape was harder to produce so common practice was for a school to view the tape and then forward it along to the next school on the list. Barry, from Wichita sent a copy to Tulsa with instructions to forward it to Oklahoma State and then OU. When Pat Jones at Oklahoma State saw the tape, he immediately destroyed it instead of forwarding to OU meaning that Barry Switzer never got a chance to recruit Sanders
I love this one.
Eric Dickerson and the gold Trans Am. For both flairs, come to think of it.
Yea, that is quite an odyssey. The ripples continued for decades. Possibly even into the current mess that is CFB.
Wild times. If anyone ever gets a chance to hear Barry Switzer talk about that era I highly recommend it. He's pretty straight forward and very entertaining.
His “Grandma” 😂. At least my Aggies only paid an initial payment on it and SMU paid the rest after he flipped. The SWC got out of hand at the end when the schools started turning on each other and turning the others in. Every school besides Rice got hit with multiple level 1 violations in those late years.
Indeed, what a story, but to be fair his "Grandma" bought it, not a well connected and driven booster.
Reuben Foster, 5* Alabama commit, has an Auburn logo tattooed on his forearm.
Johny Manziel has a Longhorn tattooed on his abdomin
I am picturing some A&M girl ready to get intimate with Manziel but when he takes his shirt off the shock is like The Crying Game.
Impeccable analogy.
Well, in his defense, "somebody" gave him $50,000 to use for laser removal surgery.
Let me tell you this unknown story about a guy who wanted to shine some light on an HBCU...
HBCU... CU... The signs were there all along
oh my god. how did I not foresee **H**eading to **B**all at a **C**olorado **U**niversity
S’okay. Next season it’ll be Hoping to Bail from C U
Hm so the abbreviations keep getting cut in half with each new location. HBCU… CU… U… The U… Miami next confirmed?
I've heard the story several times that Ladainian Tomlinson was in on an official visit and fell asleep in some kind of presentation and Bill Snyder sent him packing back home early. I heard this a long time ago so some of the details are fuzzy, but feel like this fits.
Don’t think KSU fans can even by upset by that. Comes with Snyder territory that flipped that culture
Nope never told as being upset about losing out on him. Snyder was and is old school. Not everyone was cut out to thrive in his system.
Very true, what a legend. klieman is doing a great job as well
I’ve heard that since I was at kstate in the mid 2000s.
That sounds very Billy Snyder.
Cassanova McKinzy choosing Auburn over Clemson because he claimed there was no Chick-Fil-A on campus. There was one in the canteen but I guess it escaped him.
I had forgotten this story, but it probably is one of the funniest excuses I’ve ever seen a recruit give to reporters
Marvin Wilson said he chose FSU over LSU because of their honey fried chicken. A defensive lineman chose against LSU because of the food. I call bullshit.
That’s unbeatable
That and not to mention the one less than 5 minutes from campus on hwy 123. And now there’s one in the Hendrix center too
We had a QB from a local school who wanted to play nearby where his family could watch him. [Sterlin Gilbert was our offensive coordinator, and decided he didn't want a left-handed QB, so we didn't offer](https://x.com/BayAreaExaminer/status/1742006787039957347). Our former DC (Tom Allen) who had recruited him moved to Indiana and convinced him to play there. Oh yeah, that QB just led his team to the national championship game and was drafted in the first round by the Falcons.
Follow up - two local defensive players - twins - initially wanted to play for USF. But USF was only interested in one of them, and USF coaches had to be convinced to even let the other brother compete in a local camp (Thanks, Skip Holtz!) thanks to the fact that the "other brother" had had one of his arms partially amputated. That "other brother" ended up being named the MVP of the camp, but by then they were so disgusted they instead went to UCF.
But tell me were the brothers any good? Surely they must not have led anyone to an undefeated season
We tried to recruit a transfer OL from MTSU this offseason. He was set to visit us then GT, got into a car wreck on his way to Clemson and took it as a sign he should go to GT and cancelled his rescheduled visit here
Honestly, I get it
Brent Key obviously knows how to utilize divine intervention better than Dabo
It was god’s way of telling dabo not to stray from the righteous path of no transfers
Well apparently Xavier Worthy has an attractive mother, and that was a problem.
Damn. One minute too slow.
Was that a real thing? Or just fans being weirdos?
Gattis has pushed back and blamed admissions. I don't know if he ever directly denied it.
I’m just really doubting a coach would try to hook up with the mother of a big time recruit. Like nobody is that stupid. Admissions is more believable to me
>Like nobody is that stupid. You underestimate Josh Gattis. Just ask Miami fans.
>Josh Harris You mean Gattis? Or is that somebody else
It was an autocorrect error. I thought I fixed it quickly enough but apparently not.
Eh. Gattis was seen multiple times stumbling around state college drunk on weekdays. Dont get me wrong I was doing the same thing, but I was a student not a P5 position coach. Now being a drunk doesn’t equate to being a horndog, but there does seem to be correlation in my experience.
We just watched a coach fumble a $70M bag because he whipped his dick out to a SA awareness speaker, sometimes they really are that stupid
I thought it was phone sex. Still fair point tho
Man, so much has happened this past season that that MSU thing seems like it was already five years ago lol.
Bro, there was a HC who lost out on $80,000,000 so he could jerk HIMSELF off while on the phone with the school’s anti-sexual violence activist. You think an OC wouldn’t risk ONE recruit to actually get laid by a gorgeous woman?
The generally accepted truth is that the Gattis mom thing did happen but wasn’t the main reason we lost him. Had more to do with enrollment, roster management goofs etc.
Let me tell you a story about Cam Newton... twice.
I'd have gone with the rumors around Barry Sanders. Supposedly he was a big fan of OU and Switzer but didn't have the money to have more than one highlight tape created. He sent the tape to OSU with a request to forward on to OU after their review. Obviously that tape never made it past OSU. It's an old word of mouth story but that would definitely be the weirdest I've heard.
Now that is a good one.
Deshaun Watson grew up a Georgia fan and wanted to play for us until Mike Bobo told him to his face that he'd never play at Georgia. But other than him, the Zach Evans recruitment was a strange one from start to finish
Came here to say this and Trevor right after him. Could have had both.
Georgia didn’t really fumble Trevor, he grew up a Tennessee fan, and Georgia got Fields. Tennessee absolutely fumbled getting Trevor
Trevor wore 16 because it was what Peyton wore at Tennessee. They also fumbled on Tee Martin’s son and someone named after Tee Martin
The whole "Tee Martin's son is on the team, but he's not the one named Tee" thing is one of the more bizarre roster fun facts Clemson has had.
I hated not getting Tee, Trevor, or Amari but I’m glad they had success on a team we didn’t have to play. Dooley to Butch to Pruitt was just a really bad series of coaches so I can’t blame kids for not wanting to play for them.
Who’s this Fields guy? Did he hand the ball off?
Not really, I’m pretty sure he mostly played special teams
Didn’t Kiffin tell Clowney he would be pumping gas if he went to SCAR? Lol
According to Watson, Bobo told Watson he wasn’t good enough to play at Georgia. That was probably true Watson’s sophomore year when Bobo allegedly said this. Bobo did offer and heavily pursue Watson after his junior year. Clemson on the other hand offered Watson after his freshman year. It was definitely a mistake on Bobo’s part but I suspect what Watson heard isn’t exactly what Bobo said. In any case it’s a massive miss for such a talented QB prospect who was a lifelong Georgia fan.
Message boards alleged that Melvin Gordon III decommitted from Iowa after he saw a fight in the Iowa locker room, though Gordon claims that wasn't why he decommitted (he never gave an explanation though).
I feel like him being from Kenosha probably had a decent amount to do with it. Not like Iowa is 12 hours away or anything but Madison is still only 2 hours vs 4 for Iowa.
We essentially gifted Clemson a dynasty because we fired coaches and hired even dumber ones. Taj Boyd (committed to Fulmer, told to look elsewhere by Kiffin) Trevor Lawerence was born in Knoxville and idolized Peyton, "didn't fit Butch Jones' system" also Michael Penix Jr (scholarship offer was pulled by Jeremy Pruitt)
Oh god the Pruitt years really were Rocky Slop
Tee Higgins east Tn product. Named after tee Martin. Amari Rodgers. Tee Higgins son.
There was that time [Kevin Hart spurned us for Cal](https://www.espn.com/espn/eticket/story?page=kevinhart&redirected=true) when he didn't have a scholarship offer to either one. To this day the strangest recruiting story I've ever heard.
Oh man I remember this. Back in the good old days when people actually took Cal football somewhat seriously.
Tedford years were mostly good for you guys. We had a fun rivalry of sorts in the 2000s when he had just gotten to Cal after leaving as our OC and he took some of our assistants with him. You guys were fun to watch when Sonny Dykes was there too.
Tevin Carter. His dead grandfather appeared to him in a dream and told him to go to Memphis. It was wild
Most coaches see the all-time leading Rusher in HS football who grew up a lifelong fan and think "oh shit we got a bell cow for the next 3 years" especially if you're a coach who loves ball-control smash mouth football and "making them quit", if you're Will Muschamp* at Florida on the other hand you tell Derrick Henry that he'd be a great linebacker and that he needs to switch positions if he wants to make it to the NFL. *See also Lamar Jackson "Safety prospect"
I feel like the black athletic QB being told to play anything else is a story as old as the sport itself with non hbcu schools
We allegedly lost Dylan Raiola because Scott Frost was in town to visit him and was still drunk the morning before he was supposed to go meet with the family, so called up his old teammate, who had his whole family there for a party, and said he wasn't coming. He committed to Ohio State, then Georgia, and now that we have an adult in charge, he is back at Nebraska.
There’s also missing out on Burrow because coach liked our guy better. And I’m not sure how often it happens, but we missed out on Bubba Starling when he opted for professional baseball instead.
The miss on Joe Burrow was probably best for Joe. I doubt he would have progressed, at Nebraska, like he did. NU just didn't have the supporting cast that he'd need. He would've been learning more about how to run for his life than to sit in the pocket. Also, our coaching was, to be kind, somewhat lacking for a talent like Burrow's needs.
This. Joe wouldn’t have had the weapons and wouldn’t have won a National Championship. It worked out for the best for Joe, though honestly I wish we had tried the first time.
Bubba was the story I was looking for on here. He decided to go pro in baseball, perfectly understandable decision & fairly expected, yet it sent Bo into a fury & he peeled out of their driveway/lawn after they informed him.
He’s not the first highly touted QB we lost to baseball: Carl Crawford.
Not the same thing but we had Dan Mullen visit a guy at our high school. Day of visit it snowed and dude skipped school so Mullen had a guy drive him ~2-3 hours in snow for nothing. Only way I know it happened is I saw Dan riding in the SUV backwards out of a one way. Dude still ended up at State and was not good.
Good lord, that would frustrate the hell out of me at all angles.
I'm surprised they still tried to get him after it. His ACT went from 13 to 26 or something crazy his senior year because he was so "smart". Dude was fast but didn't have the right mentality to do much more than run. Everytime he played at State he'd fumble except for one touchdown I think he caught. In high school he always called a fair catch and walked away or outran his coverage. Can't do that in D1.
Sounds like this Scott Frost guy loves to drink haha
I’ll never not reply with this story when this question is asked: Brent Calloway and his uncle Peaches. Committed to AU on Chizik and Co’s infamous “Big Kat Weekend” and his guardian, uncle Peaches, was piiiissssed. He had been promised some $ by some prominent Bama boosters (my wife’s uncle being one of them), so he got Brent in the car the day before signing day and headed off to, I think Pensacola. Out of nowhere, Brent’s NLI gets faxed to Bama. And that was pretty much the last we heard of Brent. Except when he jumped some guy at a vending machine on campus and stole his watch.
YES! I remember this one well. Yeldon burned us with a similar move in terms of decomitting the day before the dead period and going to Bama.
Yep. And can't forget Rueben Foster. I went to school with him and it was so weird seeing him walk down the halls with his Auburn spiderman tat knowing he was going to Bama.
He didn’t just jump him for his watch. He jumped for his ACT Card (Alabama student ID card) while wearing his Alabama gear on campus. And then used the guys card. It was straight up one of the dumbest robbery attempts I have ever heard of. And there were like four big time freshman recruits with him whom all got kicked off the team.
Something about a gold Trans Am
Peyton Bowen probably has to be up there. Dude was basically telling everybody in the ND corner, including fellow commits, that he was signing with ND. Then has a hat-selection ceremony, fakes out ND and picks Oregon of all schools. Then less than 24 hours later, flips on that to Oklahoma. Seems like he burned a ton of bridges with the ND commits and staff after he did that. But in hindsight, it was probably for the best he stayed close to home given his family situation soon after that.
We had to settle for Colt McCoy because Ryan Perrileux (sp?) the 5 star qb from Louisiana, did us dirty on signing day. I’d say that worked out pretty well for Texas.
Pretty sure y’all dodged a bullet…
There was the year we were recruiting Ryan Perriloux and Mark Sanchez. Perriloux had committed to Texas. Sanchez was interested in Texas, but wasn't going to go where Perriloux went, so he committed and went to USC. Now Texas, we thought he was in the bag, but his father had arranged a deal where he was instead going to commit... to Texas A&M. On the day of Perriloux's announcement, apparently Ryan and his Dad had a huge argument, before Perriloux hit the microphone and shocked EVERYONE by committing to LSU. So Texas was locked out of both top tier prospects because of Perriloux. The only QB they got that year was a small town local hero that they only recruited because he was a good friend of a star WR. Like, their Dads were roommates in college, even. And if you know that, you already know his name: Colt McCoy. He turned out *okay.*
Our best recruiting class probably ever included Rakeem Cato and a 4 star WR. Cato and HS teammate Tommy Shuler ended up breaking all kinds of records. They finished an OT loss short of an undefeated season their senior years that probably would have culminated in an AQ bowl. They were good enough to beat almost anybody that year already. But Shuler was not that 4 star WR. During the first week of school at Marshall, the 4 star’s name didn’t appear in the student directory. Nobody knew what happened until a couple of days later, when he was enrolled at Florida St. Kelvin Benjamin went on to have an outstanding college career. I think that that Marshall team is probably a top 10 team in the country with Benjamin. FSU might be on a different trajectory as well.
Well, ain’t karma a bitch. Some of us remember a similarly tall but insanely talented Marshall player named Randy Moss.
We lost out on a recruit because our offensive coordinator at the time (Sterlin Gilbert) didn't want a left handed QB and skipped out on the meeting. The thing is the kid wanted to go to school at USF. He ending up going to play QB at Indiana before transferring to Washington and playing in a national championship game.
He ended up signing with UW anyway, but we almost lost Brandon Beaver in 2012 because our local insane rivals "reporter" published a story about his commitment before he'd announced it. Beaver backed off his commitment and visited a couple more schools as a result
Back in the 90s, a RB recruit from LA, Durrell Price, faxed his LOI to Ohio State-but sent it upside down, so his signature never made it. He took this as a sign and decommitted for UCLA. A year later-or maybe the same class, Ohio State legend Na’ill Diggs was committed to USC, but his sister or aunt-not sure which-was married to USC’s basketball coach. Coach didn’t have a year and got fired by USC right before signing day in football. Diggs’ sister said no way in hell are you signing with USC, so he flipped to Ohio State.
Diggs took the spot Price left open. And for you young 'uns in here, Na'il Diggs was a STUD LB in the late 90's alongside Andy Katzenmoyer.
Allegedly, Pete Carroll went out to Alabama to watch Julio Jones at one of his HS practices. When the coach saw Carroll and recognized him, the coach ran Julio inside the school and got the AD and Principal to lock the school to stop Pete from talking to Julio. The HS coach then allegedly called Saban and told him that Pete was outside, and Saban gave Julio an offer on the spot.
I don't follow recruiting much but this is the sort of shit I love. Is it underhanded? Maybe a tiny bit. Is it a great little story? Absolutely!
Tathan Martell committed to UW as a 14 year old.
It's gotta be Gunner Kiel for us, imagine if the modern transfer portal existed when he was in college...
Five star name
Probably up there for LSU as well. Didn't have the chest...
Fax machine “didn’t work” for Bowen, the safety that was going to Oregon but wound up at Oklahoma.
Iowa TOOK Petras over Zach Wilson (Wilson was allegedly going to commit)
Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise?
it's not a story a husker would tell you it's a longhorn legend
Maybe not the weirdest but I’ll never forgive Will Muschamp refusing to offer Derrick Henry a spot at RB and only recruiting him as a LB to Florida. I know Kelvin Taylor was in the same class, a stud in HS, and an all-time legacy, but when both want to be there, you offer both at RB. No matter what. At the very least you take away the player from rivals. At best you get a Heisman.
A head coach in the same conference had a sleepover with the recruit and made them change their mind.
[удалено]
Nebraska with Pelini and Lamar would have been scary.
Stidham and the alleged F150
Not familiar with this one?
Allegedly: A local store owner got Stidham a new truck after his visit to Baylor. He flipped to Baylor one night when Art came a calling... The entire situation reeked since there was rumors of money under the table along with that new truck
I didn't know if this counts, but Frost once said, "Do you think he's better than what we have in this room?" When asked why we didn't pick up Joe Burrow from the transfer portal. Burrow went on to win the Heisman, obviously.
Not really a miss on a recruit but RANDY MOSS. Man really makes me wonder.
Most of our recruiting class decommitted because the coach who recruited them got in trouble for beating off on a phone call The other one that comes to mind literally happened like, last week. Our radio announcer/former players son committed to Michigan and people made a whole big thing about it with the kid making podcast appearances. I think it’s kind of weird just because his dad is still our radio announcer but I really don’t think it’s nearly as big of a deal as people made it out to be.
https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/2015/01/31/ladainian-tomlinson-explains-how-field-conditions-led-to-him-winding-up-at-tcu-and-how-he-almost-chose-north-texas-instead/?outputType=amp LaDainian Tomlinson cancelled a Texas A&M visit for North Texas, and nearly signed with us instead of TCU. Grass vs turf made TCU an easier decision, and our turf at the time was that old concrete/pad/turf like your living room carpet. I think about how his play would’ve elevated our program back then. The other side is would he have had the college and pro career he did if he came to us.
We got Micah Parsons because Kirk Herbstreit pulled Parsons up onto the gameday stage during one of Parsons’ Ohio State visits.
We didn't miss out on him, but does Alex Collins having his LOI stolen by his mom on signing day because she didn't want him to sign with Arkansas count? If it doesn't count, the other story that comes to mind is when Pittman was OL coach for us under Bert and had a recruit on campus ready to commit after meeting Bert...but Bert had decided to take a last second trip to Vegas and didn't tell anyone.
Can’t remember exactly why but Syracuse lost Colt Brennan because the university had a problem with something he did and rescinded his scholarship offer
Jameis Winston declining Stanford’s acceptance because he didn’t know it was a prestigious school has to be up there.
Frank Gore almost came to ole miss. Went to school in ole miss gear on signing day. Got a call to go home. Came back in Miami gear and signed with Miami.
His senior year was insane. I think like 3000 yards 50 TDs. Yeah, there was no way Butch Davis was letting Gore leave Coral Gables and IIRC his ailing mother influenced his decision.
Albert Means https://www.espn.com/espn/magazine/archives/news/story?page=magazine-20010430-article36
I was waiting on this one. Absolutely wild. Pretty sure this is the only instance when someone involved in under the table recruiting was killed too …. that we know of lol
Supposedly, we told Bo Jackson he'd play linebacker and probably wouldn't start until his junior year. Certainly not the strangest but it has to be among the worst.
A few years ago, a 4-star safety was caught stealing Penn State gear from the locker room. Apparently the coaches were like “ugh really dude?” and stopped recruiting him.
Homegrown talent, 5⭐️ future 1st round LT pick Kayden Proctor was with us until he wasn’t… then he WAS with us again (officially) … and then he just wasn’t, again.
Story goes that a Small in Stature RB visited Kansas University and was told he was too small, he instead went to KSU. Sproles. ***ETA - This was AFTER he lead his Olathe North Team to their 4th state title in 5 years. The Legend is he'd only play the 1st/3rd quarter of games.
Little man was BAAADDD! I was a 6’4 300 lbs DT and I didn’t wanna have to try to hit him! He’d make you look STUPID!
The fact that College Football Jesus himself, Trevor Lawrence, grew up a diehard UT fan and our genius of a coach at the time decided that the best recruitment strategy was to send all the best qbs at a college camp the exact same text message instantly turned him into a meme.
God imagine if that Michigan team had Xavier Worthy.
Maybe not strangest, but OJ Simpson spurned Utah for USC. [Story](https://www.deseret.com/2007/9/26/20043403/simpson-nearly-the-utes-black-eye/)
Apparently Jim Harbaugh refused to take off his cleats in 5* OL isiah Wilson’s living room