Craven: We're all part of the problem when it comes to recruiting

Photo by Philip VivierStop blaming the high schoolers. We did this. No, not just the media. All of us. We’ve all been found wanting. The only thing more seemingly annoying on Twitter than the recruiting process are the people who consistently complain about the recruiting process. Go get off your own lawn. The dog-and-pony show gets old. The attention focused on prospects who have yet to play a single snap for a college program is slightly misplaced. Most of us could do without a hat ceremony, top 20 lists and the constant updates on Twitter about the 57^th offer from Directional Utah. I get it. National Signing Day comes and goes midway through next week. We’ll all be inundated with hat ceremonies and players begging for attention on social media with late-night list trims and flipping of commitments. We’ll then run to our phones, tablets or computer screen and type about how spoiled the new generation is now. Yelling at a teenager from a digital platform with Cheetos on our shirt because he didn’t pick our school. Recruiting is a million dollar business. Yahoo! is in the game with Rivals.com. CBS recently partnered with 247 and Scout had a long-time run with Fox. That money comes from us, and that money is why a top-rated football prospect rarely makes his college decision in silence. We click on the stories. We re-Tweet their latest offer. We drool over their Hudl and post on message boards about how they’d instantly help the program move in the right direction. Believe it or not, hat ceremonies are a victimless crime. In fact, those boost economy and probably provide a really good friend with a hat of some random college that wasn’t picked. It’s really a win-win. Few things take more mental hopscotch than making a big deal over something not being a big deal. And that’s what you get from the back-in-my-day crowd of college football. Look at recruiting hoopla like bowl games. People get up in arms about that, too. No one is forcing you to watch the Sunscreen Bowl on ESPN 18 if you don’t want, and you don’t have to care about recruiting. None of it is going away. College football is big business and recruiting is a determining factor in the future success of that business. Just breathe. It’ll all be over soon. (And then the 2017 class starts.)

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