First off...I am a firm believer that anyone who profits off minors....for whatever reason....is creepy.

That being said, when did high school recruiting turn into a big business with high market potential? The dallas morning news used to post the top recruits in the area, but I don't really think that was creepy. I don't think the Texas Football magazine was creepy either. But now with twitter and these exclusive interviews and phone calls, and following kids into bathrooms to make sure they hadnt changed their commitment since the last time they took a dump...it has gotten way out of hand. Yall we got to chill on this one.

It allows for football fanatics such as myself to be able to have more to talk about/pay attention to in the offseason.

You might want to ask the owners of this website.

Wasn't it that Dallas Carter team that started the announcement craze and shined the light on recruiting?

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It's been that way for decades! Look at the Aptly named "Pony-excess" scandal at SMU..... Our problems under Sherrill etc. ....

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Agreed sort of . . .I think he is referencing the very large media landscape that has crept up around the recruiting process.

If you go back 15 years ago the movement in my mind was just getting started and it went in concert with the explosion in team-centric websites. At that time you had a just a handful of old dudes like Max Emfinger doing all the work for the newspapers primarily. TexAgs is one of the few indies sites left but most of the Scout and 247 sites were all local efforts at one point that got gobbled up. That was the old source for all the inside speculation and rumor mongering. This was the heydey of Jeff Ketchum and Bobby Burton.

After the landscape was consolidated and the content owners realized that football junkies were even more insecure and small-peened than in their wildest dreams and they started investing in gated premium sites. More gated premium sites built up as competition and that is how we had Hop, Tarp, and Hamm all covering A&M recruiting.

The Horns have cycled through experts over the years as well.

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But now with twitter and these exclusive interviews and phone calls, and following kids into bathrooms to make sure they hadnt changed their commitment since the last time they took a dump...it has gotten way out of hand. Yall we got to chill on this one.

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The experts are just responding to the fans themselves. That is the root of recruiting evil.

When people who never played the sport, never coached the sport, and never truly scouted the sport started calling themselves experts and people started paying them.

Geoff Ketchum somehow made a good living as a recruiting expert. The dude never played a down of football.

Probably when a Yale alum saw Pudge Heffelfinger in action and "persuaded" him to attend Yale instead of U of Minnesota.

So in 1887.

At least since 1966

https://www.si.com/vault/1968/09/09/631522/pursuit-of-a-big-blue-chipper

Texas, OU and SMU had full time coaches living in Abilene mowing their yard and other things.
It was common for players Dads to get new jobs back then. Not even illegal. Mildrens Dad got a job in Abilene because of his 8th grade son. Then late got another in Oklahoma.

The first ever college football game was between Rutgers and Princeton on November 6, 1869. Rutgers won 6-4.

So... November 7, 1869.

I don't really disagree.

jja79 said:

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So you think Texags is creepy?

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Yup

TexAgs and it's staff isn't at all creepy. The same can't be said for some of it's posters.

The grown men on this site are the ones who created the market. I definitely mind a level of recruiting coverage higher than the pre internet era when I would just see a list of the Parade All Americans and where they signed, but following what a recruit posts on social media and guys like Hamm (and yes, even TexAgs) constantly texting with recruits is way out of hand.

Max Emfinger was one of the first recruiting gurus I remember hearing about and that was in the mid 80s.

I dropped premium for that reason. It's nuts having grown men pay other grown men to essentially stalk 16 year olds and report back.

The "recruiting as a business" model that OP mentions has as much to do with college football being the second biggest sport in America (behind only the NFL), the rise of multiple 24/7/365 sports networks and our insatiable desire to know if only because recruiting knowledge is now so easily attained.

The have to put something live on TV and radio and absent of actual games, the comings and goings of the college football world more than suffice.

It's not a coincidence that the OU president waits until football hits a dry spell to shoot his mouth off about the big 12. He knows that's red meat at a time when the media needs all they can get. Well, 7 x 7 tournaments, elite 11 QB camps, faux satellite camp controversy, coaching salaries, paying players, etc are all part of the football cycle of which recruiting occupies a huge space.

The best way to fix recruiting and lower the ego's of these 18 year olds is to make it an NCAA violation for any player to make a commitment announcement on live national TV. It's a complete joke that ESPN can fly a kid and his family to come make his commitment in their studios and that is allowed. If there was no show to be put on there would be none of this grandstanding until signing day for the attention grabbing commitment when they have known where they are going for a month or longer.

Texags has 4 or 5 grown men bird dogging these kids. ESPN isn't the problem with the kids and their egos. That's a very few. Texags, Orange Bloods, etc are hounding every possible prospect.

Bodhi said:

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First off...I am a firm believer that anyone who profits off minors....for whatever reason....is creepy.

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By this statement can I assume you are a Christian Scientist? I mean Doctors make money of minors (and the rest of us) every day.

Still I do agree that in this modern day it appears more creepy as social media and the interweb have made it more apparent the lengths some people go to in order to keep tabs on recruits. I'm sure it has always happened, but now any nimrod can do it, put it behind a paywall and make a few bucks.

That is very true. I do think it is a combined effort though. Texags and Orange bloods are not giving them national attention though. ESPN does though. Is there really any point to things like the under armour all star game? Seems like all it does is build egos and give more for grown men to obsess about. Not to mention adds another game a kid could get hurt in. The problem is a combined effort by all mentioned to make them famous while still in high school so everyone can argue who's signing class has the most superstars.

At the point when college coaches started getting paid to win it became a business. Like most sports where someone gets paid, the human nature to be associated with a "winner" and have bragging rights has blown things out of proportion.

If you spend time on this board (looking in the mirror) you are part it to some extent.

somewhere between Jackie Sherrill's first million dollar contract and Nick Saban's 12 million/year contract.

It started with a paper publication prepared by a Notre Dame grad named Joe Terranova in the mid- 70s.
He was followed by publications by Max Emfinger and Tom Lemming. It was a full blown industry by 1980.
I can speak with authority because I used to subscribe to them.

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The best way to fix recruiting and lower the ego's of these 18 year olds is to make it an NCAA violation for any player to make a commitment announcement on live national TV.

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Yes, lets penalize the one person that actually should be allowed to profit or benefit from their decision. The best plan is to just ignore this. But if we really want to involve the NCAA, ban the most egregious offenders from college facilities. Ideally high schools would ban them from their facilities as well, but that's probably not workable.

Bodhi said:

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First off...I am a firm believer that anyone who profits off minors....for whatever reason....is creepy.

That being said, when did high school recruiting turn into a big business with high market potential? The dallas morning news used to post the top recruits in the area, but I don't really think that was creepy. I don't think the Texas Football magazine was creepy either. But now with twitter and these exclusive interviews and phone calls, and following kids into bathrooms to make sure they hadnt changed their commitment since the last time they took a dump...it has gotten way out of hand. Yall we got to chill on this one.

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When we made a video on Brandon Jones

ironmanag said:

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When people who never played the sport, never coached the sport, and never truly scouted the sport started calling themselves experts and people started paying them.

Geoff Ketchum somehow made a good living as a recruiting expert. The dude never played a down of football.

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Not really a positive one way or the other. Like most things it's about intelligence and knowledge not necessarily participation.

Lots of people have played PRO NFL football and only a few make it as color guys and analysts. and about half are personality based and the other half are intelligence.

And that's at pro level.

I wouldn't randomly put any stock in the average kid's opinion that played high school football just because they played in it.

Iowaggie said:

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Probably when a Yale alum saw Pudge Heffelfinger in action and "persuaded" him to attend Yale instead of U of Minnesota.

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If he was dumb enough that he had to be "persuaded" to go to Yale instead of Minnesota, he couldn't have lasted long at Yale.

Everything sports-related has gone over the top. So much emphasis on sports.

Been a business for years