College football recruiting is gross: Missouri-DGB edition
About a week ago, the Tennessee Titans made embattled wide receiver prospect Dorial Green-Beckham a second-round selection in the 2015 NFL Draft.
Normally, I’d refer to Green-Beckham as something like “College X wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham,” but that doesn’t exactly fit here. The former No. 1 recruit in the country played for Missouri in 2012 and 2013 before being dismissed in April 2014. The erstwhile Tiger then transferred to Oklahoma, sat out the 2014 season and decided to go pro.
Which school DGB actually hails from is the kind of petty chicken feed that only has any significance if you’re:
- Pathetic; or
- A college football coach who spends countless hours every year trying to lure 17- and 18-year-old kids to your team.*
*N.B.: there’s plenty of overlap between these two groups of people.
Based on how DGB’s time in Columbia ended, you’d think the Mizzou coaching staff would be loathe to publicize its association with the talented receiver. The wideout was sent packing after getting picked up a couple times for marijuana possession and allegedly pushing a girl down some stairs during an incident with his girlfriend. At the time, the school was under fire after university officials got called out for not properly reporting allegations that football players raped a female student who eventually committed suicide.
Head coach Gary Pinkel and the school received plaudits for dismissing the troubled star after the alleged assault, even though Green-Beckham wasn’t charged by the police (or even interviewed). A U.S. senator, Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), used the case to praise her alma mater’s moral fiber, stating in a USA Today op-ed that she was “never prouder” of the school than when it announced DGB’s sacking. Meanwhile, she threw some shade at OU and Bob Stoops for letting him into their football program.
Taking a stand apparently doesn’t matter when the time comes to take credit for the dude’s success:
If you need a Twitter translation, that’s Pete Scantlebury of PowerMizzou.com, referencing a graphic tweeted out by Mizzou’s director of recruiting, Nick Otterbacher, that compared the Tigers’ NFL draft picks with the picks from the Big 12 in the first two rounds of this year’s festivities. According to Scantlebury, Mizzou is counting DGB among its haul of draftees.
So, in conclusion: DGB wasn’t a Missouri Tiger a year ago when he was a PR nightmare for the school. Now that DGB’s making millions in the NFL and might help the team score the next all-world recruit, it’s like he never left.