The Recruiting Hat Dance

I seem to remember Means being the big stud 1,000-yard rusher at North Carolina.

 

You remember correctly.

Matt Cassel never started a game at USC.

 

Natrone Means was excellent at North Carolina.

Jerome Bettis (I assume Butts is either an mix of Bus and Bettis or an autocorrect mistake) was outshined in his final season at Notre Dame by Reggie Brooks, but they split carries pretty evenly. The season before, he led the team in carries and rushing yards and scored 16 rushing touchdowns. At worst, he was in the LenDale White role.

 

Marion Butts - my bad, but he sat behind Sammie Smith at Florida State.

 

Are you thinking of Willie Parker?

 

Choo Choo Justice?

Means was definitely the starter at UNC. He had two 1,000-yard seasons.

 

It would only be funny once, but I'd love to see some 1-star line up hats for Florida, USC, Oregon, etc., then trash them before whipping out the cap for the D-II school downstate.

 

Pretty sure that was Tyrod Taylor, actually.

 

No, it was definitely Marcus Vick. It was in 2002 and I watched it on the TV station out of Lynchburg. I moved out of the area not long afterward.

 

I don't like the hat dance because it contributes to the rock-star mentality that leads many of these kids astray in the end. Entitlement issues and all that. Now it's got to be orchestrated with smoke and mirrors, and now let's throw in some deception and some subtle taunts at the runner-up schools.

Now the kids demand the media stage, and the orchestrated adolation, and the YouTube videos, and they're not even out of high school yet. All that special attention contributes to the bigger problems that have corrupted or damaged a lot of college programs -- and a lot of those "rock stars" in the process.

 

The problems that have corrupted and damaged college sports have little to do with the players.

 

Didn't say that wasn't so.
The hat dance has become an orchestrated circus.