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| Wichita native Bryce Brown went from a running back prospect people were comparing to Bo Jackson, to a virtual unknown over the course of his three year college career. |
The rise and fall of a top-ranked high school athlete can be over with quicker than the fall from grace of just about any other prominent public figure in America today. I use the phrase "public figure" without any irony, as the performance of these young men is often even closer scrutinized than the track record of elected officials in many states, most obviously in the football obsessed ones like Alabama and Florida. Much of this has to do with the proliferation of easy access to information regarding recruits and the recruiting process afforded by a plethora of internet sites, many of which didn't even exist five or six years ago. There's also significantly more high school football being broadcast nationally. Not only are there the yearly all-star contests like the Army All-America Game, ESPN frequently televises games featuring high school powers like California's Mater Dei and De La Salle. This has led to a pattern of anointing future stars as if they've already arrived, at times before they've even stepped on a college field. During my twenty-plus years of following football, I've seen many of these hyped prospects come and go. In this piece, I'll examine a few who went bust and a few who were successes, on a trip down memory lane:
Chris Galippo: Coming out of Servite High School in Anaheim back in 2007, Galippo was ranked ahead of future NFL stars like Carlos Dunlap, Cam Newton and Dez Bryant on ESPN's list of the top 100 high school football prospects that year. As you can see in the video below, he was a one man wrecking crew at Servite.
Galippo was named MVP of the Army All-America game that year, and he committed to USC at a time when the Trojans were the most successful program in college football. He was glowingly compared to pro linebackers like Brian Urlacher in write ups in Parade magazine and elsewhere, and expected to be the backbone of a USC defense that already boasted a beastly group of linebackers, including future NFLers Brian Cushing and Rey Maualuga. So, why isn't Galippo a household name today? Injuries would seem to be the most obvious culprit. During his time at USC, he suffered through two back surgeries in his first two years of college, and though he rebounded to start over 20 games for the Trojans, it was clear to NFL scouts that he never became the elite linebacker he showed flashes of becoming as a high schooler. After running a rather pedestrian (for a modern linebacker, anyway) 4.81 40 yard dash at USC's Pro Day, he went undrafted. He was waived by the Colts three months after being signed as an undrafted free agent in 2012 and now covers prep football for Fox Sports West. Fun fact: Galippo was part of a trio of Servite alums who played together in high school and all ended up at USC. The two guys in the trio who were highest ranked by ESPN, Rivals etc. when they committed were Galippo and wide receiver D.J. Shoemate, both of whom are now out of football. The third guy, viewed almost as an afterthought, was offensive lineman Matt Kalil, who went on to become the fourth overall pick in the 2012 draft and currently starts for the Minnesota Vikings.
Joe McKnight: Coming out as the only player in the 2007 class ranked ahead of Chris Galippo by ESPN, McKnight was touted as a can't miss running back prospect. Widely expected to commit to LSU since its campus was only a stone's throw from his high school, McKnight surprised a lot of Louisiana denizens when he chose to become the heir apparent to Reggie Bush at USC.
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| Looks like the years have taken a bit of a toll on Mr. McKnight... |
After showing flashes of why many recruiting services had him ranked as the number one prospect in the country during his Freshman year, McKnight went into the 2008 season with a lot of hype. Sports Illustrated had him as one of the ten players on their preseason Heisman watch-list. Unfortunately, like Galippo, he was hampered by injuries relatively early into his college career, with nagging hand injuries leading to fumbling problems and missed games during a disappointing Sophomore campaign. The following year, McKnight was one of several current and former USC players singled out by the NCAA for receiving impermissible benefits of one form or another, and ended his college career serving out a suspension after a roundly disappointing season by USC which culminated in an Emerald Bowl berth. Some draft analysts pegged McKnight as a possible mid to late round steal after he declared for the 2010 draft, arguing that he simply hadn't realized his potential due to all the chaos around him at USC. The New York Jets traded up twelve spots to select him in the 4th round, and while he was useful in the return game he wasn't able to earn much time as a featured back, even on a team that was starting people like Bilal Powell and Shonn Greene every week.
After being released by the Jets, McKnight spent the 2013 year out of football, then proceeded to sign a contract with the Kansas City Chiefs prior to the start of this season. He looked promising doing return work for the Chiefs, and he caught two touchdown passes from Alex Smith a couple weeks ago against the Dolphins, but his season was cut short by an ACL tear in the Chiefs next game. I think McKnight came to USC with almost impossibly high expectations, both because he's simply not as good of a ball player as Reggie Bush, and the role of running backs in both the pro and college game has changed so drastically. One of the reasons Bush was so dynamic was that he was able to adapt to a pass happy offense like that used by so many programs today, and basically act as extra receiver when needed. Despite the fact that McKnight may have had better straight line speed than just about anyone who's ran the ball at USC, his hands were never as good as Bush's and he lacked that undefinable slippery, elusive quality that so many gear running backs have. Bush may be a larger man, but he definitely seemed harder for opposing defenses to get ahold of than McKnight did. I still think we'll see more of McKnight in the NFL as a return specialist if nothing else, but unfortunately when you come into the spotlight with as much hype as he did that sort of finish to a career leads to many a football fan slapping you with "bust" status.
Tennessee's 2009 Class: Lane Kiffin. The name brings forth a variety of emotions from football fans, most of them associated with disgust. Prior to his time at Tennessee, though, Kiffin was known by many simply as that young dude who got hired and fired by Al Davis over the course of about 14 games as head coach of the Raiders. He'd been a pretty good offensive coordinator at USC before landing the Raiders job and it just so happened the University of Tennessee was looking for a new head coach around the same time Kiffin was let go by the Raiders. Kiffin accepted the job and began his tenure with a boastful press conference where he talked about defeating then national champion Florida in their matchup that year. He also brought a staff loaded with big names into Knoxville with him. First among them were his dad, Monte, defensive coordinator of a 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team which won the Super Bowl, and Ed Orgeron. Orgeron was a recruiting wizard who'd worked as Pete Carroll's Recruiting Coordinator at USC from 2001-2004 helping land players like Reggie Bush and Mike Williams, followed by a stint as head coach at Ole Miss where he quite impressively brought in a class ranked in the top 15 nationally in 2006 at a long-time SEC whipping boy. Not surprisingly, it took little time for Kiffin and his staff to start making waves on the recruiting front.
After being released by the Jets, McKnight spent the 2013 year out of football, then proceeded to sign a contract with the Kansas City Chiefs prior to the start of this season. He looked promising doing return work for the Chiefs, and he caught two touchdown passes from Alex Smith a couple weeks ago against the Dolphins, but his season was cut short by an ACL tear in the Chiefs next game. I think McKnight came to USC with almost impossibly high expectations, both because he's simply not as good of a ball player as Reggie Bush, and the role of running backs in both the pro and college game has changed so drastically. One of the reasons Bush was so dynamic was that he was able to adapt to a pass happy offense like that used by so many programs today, and basically act as extra receiver when needed. Despite the fact that McKnight may have had better straight line speed than just about anyone who's ran the ball at USC, his hands were never as good as Bush's and he lacked that undefinable slippery, elusive quality that so many gear running backs have. Bush may be a larger man, but he definitely seemed harder for opposing defenses to get ahold of than McKnight did. I still think we'll see more of McKnight in the NFL as a return specialist if nothing else, but unfortunately when you come into the spotlight with as much hype as he did that sort of finish to a career leads to many a football fan slapping you with "bust" status.
Tennessee's 2009 Class: Lane Kiffin. The name brings forth a variety of emotions from football fans, most of them associated with disgust. Prior to his time at Tennessee, though, Kiffin was known by many simply as that young dude who got hired and fired by Al Davis over the course of about 14 games as head coach of the Raiders. He'd been a pretty good offensive coordinator at USC before landing the Raiders job and it just so happened the University of Tennessee was looking for a new head coach around the same time Kiffin was let go by the Raiders. Kiffin accepted the job and began his tenure with a boastful press conference where he talked about defeating then national champion Florida in their matchup that year. He also brought a staff loaded with big names into Knoxville with him. First among them were his dad, Monte, defensive coordinator of a 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team which won the Super Bowl, and Ed Orgeron. Orgeron was a recruiting wizard who'd worked as Pete Carroll's Recruiting Coordinator at USC from 2001-2004 helping land players like Reggie Bush and Mike Williams, followed by a stint as head coach at Ole Miss where he quite impressively brought in a class ranked in the top 15 nationally in 2006 at a long-time SEC whipping boy. Not surprisingly, it took little time for Kiffin and his staff to start making waves on the recruiting front.
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| Just look at this shifty bastard |
They were accused of all sorts of unsavory methods and tampering regarding the recruiting process, but other than a nasty exchange involving then Florida coach Urban Meyer and Kiffin taking potshots through the media at one another, nothing much came of the allegations. In fact, when National Signing Day 2009 rolled around going into Kiffin's second season in Knoxville, it looked like his tactics had paid off. Tennessee surprised everyone by landing running back Bryce Brown, the number one prospect in the entire class according to most recruiting services, along with four other players ranked in the top 100: safety Janzen Jackson, wide receiver Nu'Keese Richardson, linebacker Jerod Askew and running back David Oku, who they were able to poach from Nebraska even though he played high school ball in Lincoln and had been thought of as a Husker lock for months.
Because Jackson hadn't directly participated in the robbery, he was only suspended for two games. However, the other two players were dismissed from the program altogether. Jackson showed more flashes of being something special during his time on the field than anyone else in the class, being named to the SEC All-Freshmen team his first year, and second team All-SEC as a Sophomore. Unfortunately, he did something that caused a UT program which already had him under a microscope to release him from the team for "unspecified reasons". Jackson ended up transferring to FCS division McNeese State and finishing his collegiate career there. As you can see from the video above, it's currently unlikely he has much football in his future, although he did play for the CFL's Toronto Argonauts this year. Bryce Brown played one season for the Vols where he looked pretty pedestrian as Montario Hardesty's backup. He left UT and announced he was transferring to Kansas State shortly after the start of spring practice in 2010, and even after landing at a program with talent supposedly inferior to an SEC team like the Vols the former number one recruit in the land was a member of the K-State team in name only. After being named by former Miami booster, and convicted Ponzi schemer, Nevin Shapiro as one of the players he'd given "impermissible benefits" to (Brown had actually verbally committed to Miami before surprising everyone and committing to play for Kiffin at the last second) Brown left K-State in the middle of what would have been his Junior year and declared his intention to enter the 2012 NFL Draft. He's currently something like the fourth or fifth running back on the Buffalo Bills depth chart. Although he did set a program record for kickoff return yardage as a Freshman, David Oku was unable to get much playing time in what was a fairly crowded backfield even despite his and Brown's struggles, and ended up transferring to Arkansas State. Jerod Askew was dismissed from the program for a "violation of team rules" right around the same time Jackson was. I have no idea what he's doing now, but it's safe to say it's probably not playing football since I can find next to nothing on him online. Oh, and Kiffin? He bolted back to USC, this time as a head coach, less than a month before National Signing Day 2010.
Willie Williams: It's amazing the saga of Willie Williams hasn't been made into a movie yet. It would be the near polar opposite of The Blind Side. He went to six high schools in five years, had been arrested more than five times (usually for burglary or burglary-related indiscretions) before his 18th birthday, and he just happened to be a linebacker prospect so insanely athletically gifted that high school coaches in the Miami area, not at all strangers to having future NFL players around them, compared him to Lawrence Taylor with a straight face. His recruitment attracted so much attention from football fans that the Miami Herald temporarily gave him a column in the sports page detailing his trips to various colleges which produced gems like this, from his visit to Auburn:
During the wait, several of the female hosts, nicknamed the ''Tigerettes," offered him some of their spinach dip.
''You know how it is, those girls are supposed to be there to cheer you up,'' Williams said. "But I told them, 'I ain't no animal, and I ain't going to eat no plant.'
"But they kept pushing it toward me. It was disgusting. I told them, 'I'm from Miami. I don't eat that. You farm people are used to it, but not me.'"
Williams ended up doing what many expected he would from the beginning, and decided to stay home and play for "Da U". Despite making his raw talent more than evident in practice, Williams had problems with the playbook and Miami's coaching staff from the start. He routinely ignored advice and direction from Miami's coaches, he slacked off in practice and (unsurprisingly) possessed a strong sense of entitlement. In the words of former Hurricanes running backs coach Don Soldinger: “His skills—unmatched. But he just didn’t give a s---. He was a dog. He didn’t care. That’s the frustrating part. I mean, wake the f--- up. You just wanted to slap the s--- out of him.” Williams never got to show whether or not he'd live up to his Freshman hype, tearing his lateral collateral ligament during a late August practice. He would miss the entire 2004 season. During the 2005 season he came back to lead Miami in special teams tackles, but made just 17 tackles when he was actually in the game as a linebacker and continued to exasperate Miami's coaching staff. Following a sub-par season for both Williams and Miami football as a whole, Williams informed the school of his intent to transfer in the Summer of 2006.
First he said he was going to transfer to the University of West Virginia. They didn't want him. Then it was Tennessee. They didn't want him, either. Even mid-major, non-powerhouse schools Troy and Fresno State turned down transfer requests from Williams. He eventually ended up at a West Los Angeles College, a community college where he only played five games but looked like a men among boys, albeit against a much lower level of competition. It was enough to finally get another Division 1 program to take a chance on him. Louisville's athletic director at the time was an old college friend of the coach at West L.A., and following his recommendation, decided to offer Williams a scholarship. Williams came to school repeating a line about turning his life around, changing his ways and all that jazz, and looked pretty good once he made it out on the field for the Cardinals. Just as things were looking up for him, Williams was pulled over by Louisville police and found to have marijuana in his car. He was subsequently kicked off the team, and made his way to Union College, an NAIA school in Kentucky where he again dominated against lesser competition. When his college eligibility ran out, no NFL team decided to roll the dice on Williams, even as an undrafted free agent, and he quickly faded from the public eye and the collective memory of college football fans. As for the question of where Willie is now, well, he quickly fell back into his old ways after it became clear he wouldn't have a career in football:
On July 1, a suspect entered through the rear door of a house that appeared unoccupied. When confronted by the homeowner, who had merely been upstairs, the tall, black man with the thin mustache claimed to be a salesman. He pointed to his name tag (W-I-L-L-I-E) and his stack of papers. When the resident threatened to call the police, W-I-L-L-I-E bolted for the door and drove off. A neighbor heard the hubbub and scribbled down the license plate number.
This car belonged to a person who lived in Edgewood, Ky.
He was neither tall nor black nor sporting a thin mustache. His daughter, however, was dating someone who fit that very description: Willie Arthur Williams—former college football player, current fitness center membership salesman.
When the police arrived to arrest him, Williams fessed up. Sort of.
"He admitted he was at those residences," said Fort Mitchell Police Detective Tim Berwanger. "At the residence here, he said he never went in, but was just canvassing the area trying to sell subscriptions" to the fitness center. "At the residence in Fort Thomas, he said he wasn't trying to break in, but may have knocked on the door too hard."
Less than one year later, a Kenton County jury found Williams guilty of second-degree burglary and being a persistent felony offender. Based upon his past misdeeds, as well as a burglary conviction in Georgia in 2010, the jury recommended a 15-year sentence. Judge Patricia Summe agreed.
As you are reading this, Willie Williams is in a Kentucky prison.
Ben Olson and Jake Heaps: Many parallels exist between these former top high school QB prospects.They were both ranked number one at the position coming out of high school, they were both billed as "high character kids", (in part due to their LDS faith) they both ended up at BYU, then transferred to another program and they both currently wallow in obscurity. Olson was a 6 foot 5 "prototype" QB who piled up California high school records playing for one of the state's best programs at the time in Thousand Oaks HS. He was recruited by pretty much every major program in the country, but decided on BYU because of their acceptance of his desire to go on a Mormon mission. Olson was absent from the field for two years while on that mission, and when he returned to BYU he was unable to beat out John Beck for the starting job, resulting in a transfer to UCLA in 2005. His career there was marked by three consecutive season ending injuries, and he'd end up only playing in 11 games with the Bruins while having a roundly disappointing collegiate career. Heaps grew up just outside Seattle and was the center of a heated recruiting battle between BYU and the University of Washington, which had just hired former USC offensive coordinator/QB guru Steve Sarkisian to be their new head coach. He ended up at BYU and showed enough promise as a Freshman to be allowed to split time with established starter Riley Nelson in a two QB system. Nelson went down with a season ending injury early in the year against Florida State, and Heaps was unexpectedly handed the reins of the team. Heaps seemed to live up to the hype, breaking Ty Detmer's record for Freshman touchdown passes at BYU and leading the team to a New Mexico Bowl victory where he was also named the game's MVP. His Sophomore season was not as rosy. Following an unimpressive five game stretch to start the season, Heaps was benched for his old friend Riley Nelson who undeniably outplayed him en route to being named BYU's new starter. In December of his Sophomore year, Heaps announced he would be transferring to another school. He ended up at Kansas just after former Notre Dame head coach and New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis had signed on to coach the team, and many saw him as a perfect fit for Weis's usually pass happy offense. However, Heaps never saw the field at KU after being outplayed in spring practice by junior college transfer Michael Cummings. Heaps has since transferred a second time and is sitting on the University of Miami's bench right now hoping to show the NFL something in 2015 and 2016 with the two years of college eligibility he still has.
Both of these cases exemplify one of the newer factors impacting the college football landscape, especially when it comes to quarterbacks with NFL aspirations: transfer-itis. It used to be a quarterback would bide his time on the bench at a high-profile program just to get a shot at starting, if even for only one year. Some still do, and it works out for them in some cases such as that of Matt Flynn. Flynn parlayed one solid season starting at LSU as a fifth-year senior into becoming a late round draft pick, who then showed enough promise stepping in for Aaron Rodgers after he went down with an injury in 2012 to convince the Seattle Seahawks to sign him to probably the most generous contract ever given to a former back-up who at that time had started in about five NFL games. More often than not, though, these high profile QB recruits bolt from a program if they aren't made the starter by their Sophomore year. For some, this works out. Nick Foles left Michigan State for Arizona after it became clear he wouldn't start over Kirk Cousins, and ended up being a relatively successful starter there and parlaying said success into a job with a franchise whose current QB was a convicted dog killer nearing his 35th birthday with a history of injuries. Following another one of the aforementioned injuries, he ended up as the Eagles starting QB,, and until his injury last Sunday he was enjoying a pretty good run and looking at a nice new contract in the near future. Very often transferring is road to future obscurity, though, as it was with Olson, and as it almost always is in case of guys who transfer more than once such as Heaps.
Here's what Janzen Jackson's been up to lately...
It didn't take long for what was almost a dream situation for UT to implode. On the night of November 12, 2009, Janzen Jackson, Nu'Keese Richardson and a third UT player named Mike Edwards thought it would be a good idea to jack somebody at a local convenience store. This is what went down, according to Knoxville PD: Richardson approached the driver’s side of a parked car wearing a
hooded sweatshirt and holding an air-powered pellet pistol, and he
instructed the people inside to “Give me everything you have.”
Edwards, approaching from the passenger side wearing a hooded sweatshirt, said, “Do what he says.” Because Jackson hadn't directly participated in the robbery, he was only suspended for two games. However, the other two players were dismissed from the program altogether. Jackson showed more flashes of being something special during his time on the field than anyone else in the class, being named to the SEC All-Freshmen team his first year, and second team All-SEC as a Sophomore. Unfortunately, he did something that caused a UT program which already had him under a microscope to release him from the team for "unspecified reasons". Jackson ended up transferring to FCS division McNeese State and finishing his collegiate career there. As you can see from the video above, it's currently unlikely he has much football in his future, although he did play for the CFL's Toronto Argonauts this year. Bryce Brown played one season for the Vols where he looked pretty pedestrian as Montario Hardesty's backup. He left UT and announced he was transferring to Kansas State shortly after the start of spring practice in 2010, and even after landing at a program with talent supposedly inferior to an SEC team like the Vols the former number one recruit in the land was a member of the K-State team in name only. After being named by former Miami booster, and convicted Ponzi schemer, Nevin Shapiro as one of the players he'd given "impermissible benefits" to (Brown had actually verbally committed to Miami before surprising everyone and committing to play for Kiffin at the last second) Brown left K-State in the middle of what would have been his Junior year and declared his intention to enter the 2012 NFL Draft. He's currently something like the fourth or fifth running back on the Buffalo Bills depth chart. Although he did set a program record for kickoff return yardage as a Freshman, David Oku was unable to get much playing time in what was a fairly crowded backfield even despite his and Brown's struggles, and ended up transferring to Arkansas State. Jerod Askew was dismissed from the program for a "violation of team rules" right around the same time Jackson was. I have no idea what he's doing now, but it's safe to say it's probably not playing football since I can find next to nothing on him online. Oh, and Kiffin? He bolted back to USC, this time as a head coach, less than a month before National Signing Day 2010.
Willie Williams: It's amazing the saga of Willie Williams hasn't been made into a movie yet. It would be the near polar opposite of The Blind Side. He went to six high schools in five years, had been arrested more than five times (usually for burglary or burglary-related indiscretions) before his 18th birthday, and he just happened to be a linebacker prospect so insanely athletically gifted that high school coaches in the Miami area, not at all strangers to having future NFL players around them, compared him to Lawrence Taylor with a straight face. His recruitment attracted so much attention from football fans that the Miami Herald temporarily gave him a column in the sports page detailing his trips to various colleges which produced gems like this, from his visit to Auburn:
During the wait, several of the female hosts, nicknamed the ''Tigerettes," offered him some of their spinach dip.
''You know how it is, those girls are supposed to be there to cheer you up,'' Williams said. "But I told them, 'I ain't no animal, and I ain't going to eat no plant.'
"But they kept pushing it toward me. It was disgusting. I told them, 'I'm from Miami. I don't eat that. You farm people are used to it, but not me.'"
Some footage of Williams in action, during his time at a community college in Los Angeles
Williams ended up doing what many expected he would from the beginning, and decided to stay home and play for "Da U". Despite making his raw talent more than evident in practice, Williams had problems with the playbook and Miami's coaching staff from the start. He routinely ignored advice and direction from Miami's coaches, he slacked off in practice and (unsurprisingly) possessed a strong sense of entitlement. In the words of former Hurricanes running backs coach Don Soldinger: “His skills—unmatched. But he just didn’t give a s---. He was a dog. He didn’t care. That’s the frustrating part. I mean, wake the f--- up. You just wanted to slap the s--- out of him.” Williams never got to show whether or not he'd live up to his Freshman hype, tearing his lateral collateral ligament during a late August practice. He would miss the entire 2004 season. During the 2005 season he came back to lead Miami in special teams tackles, but made just 17 tackles when he was actually in the game as a linebacker and continued to exasperate Miami's coaching staff. Following a sub-par season for both Williams and Miami football as a whole, Williams informed the school of his intent to transfer in the Summer of 2006.
First he said he was going to transfer to the University of West Virginia. They didn't want him. Then it was Tennessee. They didn't want him, either. Even mid-major, non-powerhouse schools Troy and Fresno State turned down transfer requests from Williams. He eventually ended up at a West Los Angeles College, a community college where he only played five games but looked like a men among boys, albeit against a much lower level of competition. It was enough to finally get another Division 1 program to take a chance on him. Louisville's athletic director at the time was an old college friend of the coach at West L.A., and following his recommendation, decided to offer Williams a scholarship. Williams came to school repeating a line about turning his life around, changing his ways and all that jazz, and looked pretty good once he made it out on the field for the Cardinals. Just as things were looking up for him, Williams was pulled over by Louisville police and found to have marijuana in his car. He was subsequently kicked off the team, and made his way to Union College, an NAIA school in Kentucky where he again dominated against lesser competition. When his college eligibility ran out, no NFL team decided to roll the dice on Williams, even as an undrafted free agent, and he quickly faded from the public eye and the collective memory of college football fans. As for the question of where Willie is now, well, he quickly fell back into his old ways after it became clear he wouldn't have a career in football:
On July 1, a suspect entered through the rear door of a house that appeared unoccupied. When confronted by the homeowner, who had merely been upstairs, the tall, black man with the thin mustache claimed to be a salesman. He pointed to his name tag (W-I-L-L-I-E) and his stack of papers. When the resident threatened to call the police, W-I-L-L-I-E bolted for the door and drove off. A neighbor heard the hubbub and scribbled down the license plate number.
This car belonged to a person who lived in Edgewood, Ky.
He was neither tall nor black nor sporting a thin mustache. His daughter, however, was dating someone who fit that very description: Willie Arthur Williams—former college football player, current fitness center membership salesman.
When the police arrived to arrest him, Williams fessed up. Sort of.
"He admitted he was at those residences," said Fort Mitchell Police Detective Tim Berwanger. "At the residence here, he said he never went in, but was just canvassing the area trying to sell subscriptions" to the fitness center. "At the residence in Fort Thomas, he said he wasn't trying to break in, but may have knocked on the door too hard."
Less than one year later, a Kenton County jury found Williams guilty of second-degree burglary and being a persistent felony offender. Based upon his past misdeeds, as well as a burglary conviction in Georgia in 2010, the jury recommended a 15-year sentence. Judge Patricia Summe agreed.
As you are reading this, Willie Williams is in a Kentucky prison.
Ben Olson and Jake Heaps: Many parallels exist between these former top high school QB prospects.They were both ranked number one at the position coming out of high school, they were both billed as "high character kids", (in part due to their LDS faith) they both ended up at BYU, then transferred to another program and they both currently wallow in obscurity. Olson was a 6 foot 5 "prototype" QB who piled up California high school records playing for one of the state's best programs at the time in Thousand Oaks HS. He was recruited by pretty much every major program in the country, but decided on BYU because of their acceptance of his desire to go on a Mormon mission. Olson was absent from the field for two years while on that mission, and when he returned to BYU he was unable to beat out John Beck for the starting job, resulting in a transfer to UCLA in 2005. His career there was marked by three consecutive season ending injuries, and he'd end up only playing in 11 games with the Bruins while having a roundly disappointing collegiate career. Heaps grew up just outside Seattle and was the center of a heated recruiting battle between BYU and the University of Washington, which had just hired former USC offensive coordinator/QB guru Steve Sarkisian to be their new head coach. He ended up at BYU and showed enough promise as a Freshman to be allowed to split time with established starter Riley Nelson in a two QB system. Nelson went down with a season ending injury early in the year against Florida State, and Heaps was unexpectedly handed the reins of the team. Heaps seemed to live up to the hype, breaking Ty Detmer's record for Freshman touchdown passes at BYU and leading the team to a New Mexico Bowl victory where he was also named the game's MVP. His Sophomore season was not as rosy. Following an unimpressive five game stretch to start the season, Heaps was benched for his old friend Riley Nelson who undeniably outplayed him en route to being named BYU's new starter. In December of his Sophomore year, Heaps announced he would be transferring to another school. He ended up at Kansas just after former Notre Dame head coach and New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis had signed on to coach the team, and many saw him as a perfect fit for Weis's usually pass happy offense. However, Heaps never saw the field at KU after being outplayed in spring practice by junior college transfer Michael Cummings. Heaps has since transferred a second time and is sitting on the University of Miami's bench right now hoping to show the NFL something in 2015 and 2016 with the two years of college eligibility he still has.
Both of these cases exemplify one of the newer factors impacting the college football landscape, especially when it comes to quarterbacks with NFL aspirations: transfer-itis. It used to be a quarterback would bide his time on the bench at a high-profile program just to get a shot at starting, if even for only one year. Some still do, and it works out for them in some cases such as that of Matt Flynn. Flynn parlayed one solid season starting at LSU as a fifth-year senior into becoming a late round draft pick, who then showed enough promise stepping in for Aaron Rodgers after he went down with an injury in 2012 to convince the Seattle Seahawks to sign him to probably the most generous contract ever given to a former back-up who at that time had started in about five NFL games. More often than not, though, these high profile QB recruits bolt from a program if they aren't made the starter by their Sophomore year. For some, this works out. Nick Foles left Michigan State for Arizona after it became clear he wouldn't start over Kirk Cousins, and ended up being a relatively successful starter there and parlaying said success into a job with a franchise whose current QB was a convicted dog killer nearing his 35th birthday with a history of injuries. Following another one of the aforementioned injuries, he ended up as the Eagles starting QB,, and until his injury last Sunday he was enjoying a pretty good run and looking at a nice new contract in the near future. Very often transferring is road to future obscurity, though, as it was with Olson, and as it almost always is in case of guys who transfer more than once such as Heaps.
Former one star recruit Patrick Willis
So, is the recruiting machine that hypes so many of these kids up broken? I wouldn't necessarily argue that, as we've also seen hyped five star recruits like Julio Jones, Robert Quinn and many others excel in both college and the pros in recent years. The fact that these kids are being evaluated when they're still growing also is one of the potential monkey wrenches that can get thrown into the process. Colorado's own Calais Campbell was a scrawny wide receiver his Freshman and Sophomore year but by the time he was a Senior he was a 6 foot 8 defensive end on his way to starting at the University of Miami. Similar to the pro draft, high school recruiting is simply something that's near impossible for coaches and prognosticators ever to be 100% right about.
