While at USC, Lane Kiffin famously offered impressive 7th grader quarterback David Sills a scholarship, and the college football world went bananas with shouts of "That's way to young," and "How young is too young to be recruited?"
Sills, of course, initially announced a verbal commitment to USC, then de-committed and headed to West Virginia, where he moved from quarterback to wide receiver before transferring to El Camino College. In a rare move for transfers, he actually transferred back to Morgantown where he finished his career as one of the best receivers in college football the past two seasons, and will now take his talents to the NFL.
With that type of thing seemingly happening after few years, many are left wondering what lengths college coaches will go to secure the future talent for their program?
Well Chad Morris and his staff at Arkansas have deployed an interesting strategy to land 4-star defensive lineman Vernon Brougton out of Cy Ridge HS (Houston, TX). Broughton has offers from all the blue blood programs, including Alabama, Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia, LSU, Miami, Ohio State, Oklahoma, USC, and Tennessee - just to name a few.
How does a program set themselves apart with all those scholarship offers? Here's Arkansas' creative idea - offer Vernon's brother (class of 2026) and cousin (class of 2023) scholarships and let them go through the customary prospect-in-pads-on-a-visit photoshoot.
For those keeping track at home, 2026 means Vernon's brother is in 5th grade.
For what it's worth, the brother did put together a highlight video where he had to play up an age limit because of the weight limit...so credit him with at least being prepared to impress the teams in the league where #ItJustMeansMore.
Wow....Now imagine being those kids showing up to school the day after being offered a scholarship at an SEC program...