Remember that one time when it was a good idea to base your feelings and emotions on the decisions of some high schoolers with a bunch of hats?
Yeah, me neither.
I just don’t care that much about recruiting.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s important and everything, but I just don’t list it among my “Important things that matter from day to day.”
But I’m obviously in the minority among college football fans.
People are completely flipping out over what some 18-year-old kids with above average athletic skills are going to be doing with the next 3-5 years of their lives.
Let it go.
This whole recruiting hype has gotten out of control, and it’s invading my personal life.
When I walked into the newsroom Wednesday morning, it was a madhouse.
Three or four computers were on various recruiting sites, ESPN2 was on the TV, ESPNU was streaming on another desktop and one writer was running around like a chicken with his head cut off.
And don’t even get me started on how weird I think it is for a few thousand middle-aged men to sit around drinking and watching kids sign papers. Do they not have anything better to do with their Wednesday afternoons?
IHOP has all-you-can-eat pancakes for a limited time again. That’s definitely something that interests me more than college football in February.
Before that, I had to field questions about defensive lineman Darrington Sentimore’s true intentions on Facebook chat.
I didn’t even know who this kid was until someone messaged me, and I still don’t care.
I have better things to worry about — like my next meal.
The timing just isn’t right for me to care about college football this early.
We’re in the middle of a pretty interesting college basketball season that might see LSU’s men team running away with the Southeastern Conference title — even though I still have my doubts.
The baseball team just held its first practice in the new Alex Box Stadium. Their season starts in two and a half weeks, and they’re going to start No. 1 or No. 2 in the country.
The softball team’s season started Thursday, too, and they move into their swank new abode next week.
Also, there’s a pretty intense season of “24” going on.
Jack Bauer and that cute redhead are way more interesting than whatever is going on at the River Center.
Caring about recruiting this early is just impractical because there’s so much that can happen in the next few years.
A few of these kids will be superstars in the future — probably wide receiver Rueben Randle and quarterback Russell Shepard to name a few.
Some of them will be solid contributors for the Tigers but won’t amount to much in the long run.
And someone could be like Ryan Perrilloux — a counterfeit.
Someone could be good for a few seasons on the field — possibly even winning LSU an SEC Championship Game — but spend most of his time off the field messing around, allegedly calling waiters “Osama” and getting into fights at the Varsity.
You know, living the dream.
There’s just so much that could go wrong for me to invest time and energy into it.
Also, this whole recruiting thing is such an inexact science.
Former LSU running back Jacob Hester was a two-star recruit coming out of high school, according to Rivals.com, and he turned out to be one of the key players on LSU’s 2007 national title team.
On the other hand, wide receiver Jared Mitchell was the No. 10 receiver in the nation when he committed to LSU but didn’t contribute very much on the football field before realizing his true calling was to play for LSU’s baseball team — and he is a fine player on the diamond.
So it just seems excessive to me for more than 8,000 members to be on Tigerdroppings.com, about 10 of my Facebook friends to have National Signing Day related statuses and that one writer to be running around all morning.
These kids might be busts anyway.
Call me in August to talk about football. I have better things to do right now.
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Contact Johanathan Brooks at jbrooks@lsureveille.com
The 6th Man: Signing Day has too much attention
Published: Thursday, February 5, 2009
Updated: Thursday, February 5, 2009
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