Germany sitchitation

I am more and more disturbed and pleased by what happened to Eugene Germany as time passes. For those who don't remember/never cared, Germany was a top-100 LB/DE recruit last year who went to Pomona(CA) along with actual Michigan recruit Keston Cheathem. Cheathem was a 3* who committed early, his good friend Germany seemed to heavily favor Michigan throughout the process.

Late in the recruiting year, however, USC suddenly got interested. Germany became Pete Carroll's 25th or 26th "#1 guy" and in the aftermath of the Rose Bowl and all that came with it, Germany committed to USC. Then there was a "transcript issue." Which seems like absolutely transparent BS, especially when it converted Germany from a '04 recruit to a winter '05 greyshirt, to conveniently sluff off a player into the next recruiting class. Then USC wanted him to take three classes in the winter semester, perform well in them, and then and only then would he be let on the team. Where has this ever happened before? Uh, nowhere. And USC ain't exactly Stanford. They offered me a full ride sight unseen just because I got some pretty numbers on my SATs. USC is just another football factory, and Eugene Germany was totally qualified. No one comes to Michigan unless they are qualified.

Pete Carroll oversigned and decided to cut bait with Germany because he got two other DE recruits that performed extremely well as freshmen. The rest is window dressing. He screwed with Eugene Germany's life, that's the bottom line. So it's totally disturbing, but also pleasing, because I bet you the next time a Pomona coach goes to bat for USC will be shortly after OSU makes Maurice Clarett athletic director. This is a major red flag for California recruits, and thanks to Ron English, we've got a pipeline in California that just got wider. Now, this isn't going to return USC to its pre-Carroll unglory days, but there are probably a number of coaches in the area who will compare and contrast the approaches of Michigan and USC and quietly support winged helmets for their players.

The other thing is: Germany was a top-100 recruit last year. USC is discarding him completely voluntarily. That says scary things about USC's talent level.