Ongoing recruiting lunacy...

Two years ago we were treated to the ludicrous and unending Terrelle Pryor recruiting "process". Ohio State is now indirectly linked to another round of extended recruiting coverage that just about makes me puke. Once again it's the consensus top recruit in the nation but this guy's no QB. And frankly, I'm wondering if the kid can spell Q-B.

Of course I'm referring to 6'8", 300 lb. Seantrel Henderson, the massive offensive lineman from Minnesota. For those of you that aren't already familiar with Mr. Henderson, he's exactly the kind of kid that exemplifies much of what's wrong with collegiate football recruiting in general. He appears to be milking the process, his father is WAAAAY too publicly involved in the whole thing and, as always, there is no guarantee that the kid will be any good at all at the next level.

Remember the last 6'8" recruit that showed up at Ohio State? That guy made more noise off the field than he did on it. Yes, that was Mr. Alex Boone. Another very, very heavily recruited player that did not come anywhere close to living up to his potential. How about another blast from the past, Jefferson Kelley? Anyone remember that guy out of Cincinnati Colerain? He was 6'6", 300 lbs. when he came to Ohio State and never ended up playing a lick. I believe he even quit the team eventually.

Not that Seantrel Henderson is going to be Alex Boone or Jefferson Kelley. Those are just a couple of the thousands and thousands of examples of how many of these guys just don't pan out, and therefore don't warrant nearly as much of the attention that they receive.

Dismissing the fact that Henderson could very easily be a complete bust at the collegiate level, we should note that on signing day Seantrel spurned several schools including Ohio State and "signed" with Lane Kiffin and USC. Except it turns out he didn't "sign" at all. He committed to Southern Cal, but has decided he wants to wait and see what the NCAA has to say about USC before he actually signs the letter of intent.

Here is what Seantrel Henderson's father, Sean Henderson, had to say about the situation:

"I wouldn’t lose the leverage that we have. I mean, at the end of the day it’s still a business and at the end of the day it’s still my son’s future. And everything that’s going to possibly go on in his life could boil down to that decision and I wouldn’t sell him basically, per se, you know, but my son, his life away and put it in their hands not knowing, you know, what the future holds for USC or for him. And so I’d rather be able to at least let him keep his options open, because if things aren’t looking good come the 20th or the 21st [of February] or whatever, then we might have to move in a different direction, but it’s only for the sake of his future."

Wow.

I don't even know what to make of that...stuff. All I know is that Sean Henderson seems to give more interviews than his son. And I also know that after reading that garbage that I really don't care to see Sean Henderson or his son anywhere near Ohio State's campus. The whole thing just SCREAMS 'high maintenance'.

I bring this all up of course because presumably Little Seantrel is still available for the taking, especially if the NCAA has anything bad to say about Southern Cal. And this is where it gets real stupid. Ignore the fact that if the Henderson family REALLY was worried about potential NCAA sanctions that they would have already crossed USC off the list. Ignore the notion that Lane Kiffin is a carpet-bagging dirtbag that makes Bobby Petrino look like a reasonable fellow.

The chances that anyone is going to find out anything about what will actually come down the pike from the NCAA as it pertains to USC within the next month or so (which is how long the big lug has to pick a school) are very remote. There are glaciers in North America that move faster than the NCAA.

And finally, the genius/ridiculousness of collegiate football recruiting is that indecisive attention whores like the Henderson family get far more attention than the kids that decide by the end of their junior year where they want to go to school. Is it because the kids that wait are better football players? Hardly. It's because a kid making a decision and sticking by it doesn't sell subscriptions to useless piles of "insider information."