College football is an unrepentant crack whore

College football is a dirty business, no more so than in the first week of February. Coaches and kids display their disloyalty in ever-shocking ways, as coaches pull offers at the last minute and kids dis hats with the wrong logo.

I follow recruiting a little bit. I am not Tom Luginbill – I can’t discuss whether a kid projects as more of an ‘athlete’ at the next level, or whether he’s got enough ‘burst’ to be an edge rusher.

But when it gets close, I eagerly read commitment lists, check out Youtubery and try to figure out how a kid fits into a college’s depth chart. I read about the type of offense he ran in high school, his test scores, and whether he might need a year at Hargrave.

But loving this aspect is like loving a girl addicted to crack. The more time I spend with it, the worse I feel, and the more I get scared that I might catch something.

David Logan Schroeder has provided a nice summary of this year’s SEC recruiting hijinks in this article on Bleacher Report, and it illustrates nicely how ridiculous the whole business has become.

This year featured a kid talking trash to a hat, one coach pulling a scholarship offer at the eleventh hour, another coach ominously saying that “kids should honor their commitments,” and kids stringing colleges along until the bitter end.

The whole thing is putrid and needs to be fixed. While that fix may be an early signing period, or just greater restrictions on recruiting, or the abolition of recruiting altogether, I don’t know.

But I do know that the current system stinks, and I am glad that it’s over and I don’t have to think about it for another year.