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.
OTL: "The next time you consider hiring or firing a coach will you call Phil Knight first? To see what he thinks?
PK: Yeah, I'd probably would talk to him about it, I would talk to some other donors too.
This kind of stuff makes the NCAA incredibly squeamish, but Kilkenny comes across as honest about the murkier aspects of his ascent and relationship with Knight.
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.
Jeff Gaulton, the nightclub's co-owner, says he routinely comps Ducks [athletes playing for the University of Oregon].
For Oregon, this could be trouble. Because to the NCAA, this is taboo.
"I had no idea," Gaulton says.
Letting athletes in free while making others pay constitutes what the NCAA calls an "extra benefit."
Gaulton admits comping any and all Duck athletes who have wanted to gain admission. The cover charge is only $10, but good luck trying to explain that to the unblinking NCAA. According to the article, any benefits under $100 can be forgiven if paid back, but what happens to Oregon if many of its athletes were regulars with dozens of visits to Taboo over the year?
That kind of payback will cost the athletes a pretty penny. It's an almost impossible to navigate situation determining exactly how many visits each of its hundreds of athletes possibly made to that night club. Now USC's also getting roped in, as Gaulton says O.J. Mayo and several USC basketball players also came in gratis.
Have fun with all of that, Oregon and USC. In the meantime, it's a stupid rule. It discourages booster funny business, but if the NCAA wants to get serious about smaller perks it should expand its enforcement wing instead of placing heavy burdens on institutions to monitor these difficult to catch (until it's too late) situations.
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.
If you think you know every 
Interesting piece from ESPN's "Outside the Lines" series 
Puuuuuuuuuuuuure fiction.
I direct your attention to 
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 
