The Knight Commission (creators of fine, sentient automobiles, too) has issued a scathing report scathing recruiting sites with scathing language about the ever-larger phenomenon of recruiting hoopla that will, we guarantee, be described by the press as…scathing. How scathing? Try to duck this shit, Tom Luginbill!

“The elite athletic prospect has become completely commoditized,” said Edwards, and in the process the very top recruits have become “hedonistic, materialistic and individualistic.”

That’s the last thing we’d expect of 18 year olds. We know this because we, too, were 18 once, and we felt the same urges. However, without the benefit of large, publicized recruiting campaigns for our services on university quiz bowl teams, our never-ceasing quest for easy blowjobs and booze was done in spiritual, community-based, and wholesome manner. Thank god we weren’t blessed with the ability to run a 4.3 or toss giants around like sacks of pistachios! We might have done something rash, like chased ass and swigged liquor for the wrong reasons.

Heavens! We might have even be commodified, and thus have a cash value to the universities. Mixing filthy lucre with collegiate athletics? Next you’ll be suggesting we put the games on television.

The last thing we’d want would be mixing money with collegiate athletics.

More HIGH-larity:

Because of their inner-city backgrounds, he said, some of these recruits are also gun-toting gang members. Edwards said it is only a matter of time before one of these spoiled recruits “goes off” in the athletics department because he is not treated the same after joining the team.

Finally, someone uncovers the ticking time bombs underneath our very noses: spoiled gang members. Because you only get spoiled in the last two years of high school. All that mayonnaise sandwich-eating, using the stove for heat, putting plastic sheeting over the window and having your bike stolen fifteen times in a year evaporates in the rush of a few magazine articles, a few hundred bucks slipped into the hand after the game at the Golden Corral. It makes it all good-too good, in fact.

Step three: football recruits gunning Tyra Banks down in the quad while Omar Epps screams at the heavens “WHYYYYYYYY RIVALS? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GIVE HIM FOUR STARS.”

We were going to finish up reading Temple Grandin’s book Animals in Translation tonight, but that shit might have to wait. They don’t let Unfrozen Caveman 1972 Sociologist loose in the media every day, you know.

Has Florida chased Troy Smith into the witness protection program? Perhaps. That’s Smith in an NIU helmet, though our Senior Bowl correspondent says otherwise. HT: Kenny.

MOBILE, AL-We’ve never heard of him. Hell, he’s not even on NIU’s roster. Dark horse Roy Smith, though, impressed scouts with his accuracy on Monday, boosting his draft status and becoming a dark horse pick for the NFL draft thanks to his performance in Senior Bowl practices.

TRoy Smith wows the scouts at the Senior Bowl practices.

“I’m just trying to break in, you know, show people that I can still-I mean, that I throw the ball well, even though, you know, people haven’t seen me play much. Because I went to NIU, you know, and didn’t even start. It’s just all so crazy at this point.”

Smith paused. “And that’s truth…cuz.”

Smith says he’s amazed by the attention he’s gotten thus far.

“I mean, maybe it’s because I look like Troy Smith, and our names sound the same, and we even resemble each other. I would like to point out that they measured me at six feet tall, though. That’s six feet even. Um, yo.”

Senior Bowl coach John Gruden thinks he may have the steal of the draft in the unheralded mystery qb.

“It’s astonishing just how Troy Smith-esque he really is. He even sounds like him, just with this crazy, almost fake sounding southern thug accent he’s got. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume this guy was actually Troy Smith faking an identity and “skipping” the Senior Bowl in order to boost his flagging draft status.”

Gruden laughed, then paused. “But when you’ve got Chris Simms and Bruce Gradkowski on your depth chart as the main course, I don’t care if this guy calls himself Nancy Cockswax and wears a Vera Wang when he’s on the field. We need help. I mean, Chris Simms, Jesus,” he said, muttering and turning away from the cameras and toward the field.

Smith denied any connection between him and Troy Smith. He also denied ever being in Glendale, Arizona. He did admit to hearing of Florida, and even recognized the names of defensive ends Jarvis Moss and Derrick Harvey, though he had less than complimentary words for them.

“Flaming marys, both of ‘em from what I hear. Homie. Did you see how offsides they were the whole time? That guy Troy Smith…my God, if he were hear I’d tell him how much of a man he was, and how shafted he got by his bustass wide receivers and the refs. And what was the band doing playing Titanic? They should have played something else…like…(at this point Smith looks down at an index card with some writing on it)…’Throw some D’s’ by the Rich Boy. That’s how we roll where I’m from. Which is definitely not Cleveland.”

Roy Smith says: “Yes, like that downhome jam from wherever I’m from down south says, every girl should have a picture of my dick on their wall.”

Nick Saban boasts a well-earned reputation as a recruiting addict-the kind of guy who shows up in Barrow, Alaska with fuel for the winter and three freshly killed seals to talk to a promising Inuit fullback.

Saban’s impact at Alabama has already been apparent. The leisurely pace of recruiting under Shula (who to be fair wasn’t a totally retarded recruiter, and generally did well enough) is no more, replaced instead by a flurry of sleep-deprived activity. When you pay the equivalent of the GDP of Laos for a coach, you should expect something on the scale of what Saban’s laying down right now.

Herr Saban also may face another, stickier problem with long-term PR implications in the form of Alabama’s Barbaro: Tyrone Prothro. Warp-fast and wicked prior to the most disgusting injury we’ve ever seen in person in football, Prothro just underwent his fourth surgery on the leg. His prospects of playing football looking very, very spotty at best, Prothro still occupies a precious scholarship spot along with Alabama defensive end Ezekial Knight.

This would present few problems if Alabama fans didn’t hold such powerful feelings for Prothro, who became a veritable football martyr when his leg shattered during the Tide’s 31-3 victory over Florida in 2005. (Damn you, Demeco Ryans, you rabid tackling warthog of a man.) Saban could withdraw the scholarship; he could let Prothro sit and avoid the issue altogether. Saban has already allowed the 15 Shula commits stay; letting the medical redshirts inherited from his predecessor eats up two more precious roster slots.

For a guy with the cold venus flytrap brain-thing all Belichick assistants seem to have, the marginal utility decision seems clear: revoke both scholarships and go. Marginal utility theorists, though, make wretched PR guys.

Prothro: pre-disastrous stroke of malignant fate.