They all wanted Brent Schaeffer. Bad.
Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema brought family into it. He recruited Schaeffer's cousin, Brad Banks, while at Iowa; Texas told Schaeffer he could be the next Vince Young; Kansas State got in late, no doubt dropping names like Ell Roberson and Michael Bishop.
North Carolina State? Well, you know Chuck Amato. The charismatic Chest probably threw his car keys on the desk and told the quarterback the Wolfpack's Honda Civic offense was his.
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| Brent Schaeffer left Tennessee and found his game in California. (Getty Images) |
Janitors recently mopped up the drool left over from the recruiting process. Mississippi won the Schaeffer Sweepstakes, completing a swift, efficient and frightening makeover of a program that went 3-8 in Ed Orgeron's first season.
"The talent here at Ole Miss had to pick up," the coach said.
It did, dramatically. Almost half of Orgeron's class (13 of 30) is from talent-rich Mississippi. It includes a Mississippi Mr. Football finalist, Cordera Eason, one of the nation's top running backs.
All-SEC linebacker Patrick Willis had to be re-recruited after considering a jump to the NFL. Assistants Art Kehoe and Dan Werner (both recently fired at Miami) were hired, sporting a few national championship rings between them.
"We like recruiting, and recruiting is emotional," Orgeron said on signing day after seeming just that while announcing his class.
But no one expected a virtual free-agent quarterback, a former SEC starter. Certainly not at Ole Miss, which had run out of twice-in-a-lifetime quarterbacks when the last Manning left town.
So how did Schaeffer end up in Oxford with three years of eligibility on his meter? And how the heck did he end up there after playing a year of juco ball in Visalia, Calif.?
You'll have to ask Andy Siegel, like everyone else did when they visited College of Sequoias. Siegel is the school's 41-year-old offensive coordinator and Schaeffer's unofficial handler while he's in Visalia.
Recruiters had to go through Siegel, who seemed to have a magic way of contacting Schaeffer when no one else could. Schaeffer had a cell phone but he also had a purpose.
