Today, in a move that shocked no one, a recruit de-committed from Purdue after months of lapping up the attention from other programs. If you follow recruiting, you know about whom I'm speaking...if you don't, it's really not worth mentioning his name because he's probably looking for himself in Google searches every night.
This offensive line project had verbally committed to Michigan the fall of '12, to Purdue in early fall of '13 and will go for the hat trick whenever he decides to make his next verbal commitment. Who knows if that one will stick. BUT, if I was a betting man, I wouldn't put one crisp Washington on him staying put for four years.
I feel bad for Hazell, Shoop, Painter, Owens and others who have to do this job...because recruiting is really the part of big time college coaching that makes their high salaries well-earned. I've said it before- when clean, it's still a grimy business that leaves you feeling just a bit dirty if you follow it too much...and when the rules are no longer respected, recruiting will make you dry heave and want to scrub with a brillo pad until you come clean.
Granted, there are plenty of good stories like Kendall "The Kid" Stephens or Austin Appleby out there- you know a player commits, is nothing but classy during the verbal period and then he actually signs...but there are tons more in which a student athlete acts like an entitled prima donna only to have a full-grown man sacrifice his own self-worth in the name of potentially making a program marginally better as he continues to pursue that fickle target.
We saw Butler beat Purdue last Saturday and the one bullet point of "The Butler Way" is they want players who know what Butler is and really want to be a part of the school and the program. Pretty simple...and, get this- it works.
When a kid decides to act like a brat and do what a few of Purdue's recruits did this season, Hazell and Painter alike need to simply warn them, then pull the scholarship offer. Some of us might take this for granted, and many recruits absolutely do, but there are thousands of high school basketball and football players that really, really want to be Boilermakers. And as time and resources are wasted chasing a few clowns, attention could be used in an effort to connect with the right fit...Just a thought.
Can't wait until signing day...
