Recruit the Babies

USC head coach Tim Floyd recently received a verbal commitment from an eighth-grader, and you might think that is weird but its actually the second straight year he has done this. With all the strange recruiting rules the NCAA has its amazing to me how they don't seem to care about college coaches hanging around middle school gyms scouting 13 and 14 year old boys. There's limitations on text messaging and phone calls but not an age limit to when you can start stalking these kids? Has the PAC-10 really got that competitive that coaches have now resorted to signing kids to scholarships that have never played in a high school game?

Frankly I don't see how watching any phenom prospect dominate eighth grade level competition can give you any insight as to what kind of player he will be like 5 years down the road; especially before he is even out of puberty. I for one would never want to commit to a college at age 14, how do you even know what to look for in a college when your 14? That would tell me that your parents are pulling all the strings and I don't know about you but I would not be happy with that. Especially at the ripe old age of 14 when disobeying your parents is more fun than Xbox. And who wants the pressure before you even enter high school of knowing that a university has already invested that much in you. Every other kid out there would literally be gunning for you game after game; who wouldn't want to show up the kid who got a scholarship offer in eighth grade? Recruiting moves like this will make Floyd either a genius or one of those guys from Dateline's "Catch a Predator". But I guess when your coaching at USC you can take more risks when guys like OJ Mayo recruit themselves to your school.