re: 2018 Football Recruiting Thread -- Final OP Update Edition

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Q: Was there any funny recruiting story that stands out to you?

A: “It definitely would’ve been with K.J. (Britt) and Malcolm (Askew). So much stuff happened when we went down to Auburn that was so funny. I think it was the Arkansas game, we were walking out of the dorms and walking down the stairs, and K.J. just fell. He slipped down the stairs. And me and Malcolm, we were in front of him, and we didn’t even know he fell. We were still walking, and he was just yelling at us. We turned around, and he was laying there. We started laughing at him. That’s the funniest thing I can think of. He was mad at us, because he thought we knew he fell down and just kept walking.”

Q: Which coach was it the hardest to tell no?

A: “That was probably Coach Barney for Ole Miss. He’s from around this area, and I talked to him. He’s a real funny guy. I’d go up there and mess with him all the time when I visited Ole Miss. He’s a real cool guy, and I wanted to go there and hang around him all the time. He was my friend as a coach. He’s a real cool guy. So when I had to tell him, it was hard for me. I thought he would’ve been mad at me. But, nah, he understood. He told me good luck and things like that. He wished the best for me. He said he would keep watch for me and stuff like that. It was a relief to know that he said that he was still rooting for me.”

Q: What school disappointed you the most during your recruitment?

A: “A couple of schools, they threw an offer out there, and I really didn’t talk to them after that. They’d send me like an edit or something here and there, but I never got to build a relationship with the coaches. Purdue, Tulane, Wake Forest. Minnesota was like that at first, but they started talking more toward the end. Michigan, they were on and off all the time. That was just some of them.”

Q: Which school would you have taken more seriously if they recruited you earlier in the process?

A: “Tennessee. That’s a school that I’ve always liked. If they weren’t playing Auburn, I’d root for them. That’s a team I’ve always liked. Them or Georgia.”

Q: How much negative recruiting was out there?

A: “They really didn’t bash the other schools. But they would sort of sneak diss or something like that. I heard one time, ‘Their coaching staff really isn’t solid. Their coach isn’t guaranteed to be in there much longer.’ But I wasn’t really paying attention to it. Chances were if I was going to that school, I wouldn’t be going for those reasons. I wouldn’t go for the coaching staff. You don’t go to a school for a coaching staff. The coaching staff, they aren’t guaranteed to be there. You go to a school because you feel good being at that school with those players. You have to go with a mentality that if you go down there and you get hurt on your first day and can’t play football anymore, you need to be comfortable at that college.”

Q: Which non-Auburn coach was the nicest to you? Anyone that was a little more hard-edged?

A: “Probably Coach Freeze. I talked to him a couple of times. I talked to him on the phone. He was real nice. He always asked me how I was doing and how my family was doing. He was real nice. We had a good relationship. … The coach from Duke. When I sat in his office, it was just… he was a cool guy, I liked him and everything. There wasn’t anything wrong with him. But he just sat there and carried himself, it was like, ‘Uh, I don’t want to mess with that guy.’ Which, that’s good for a coach, but there was just something about him. I didn’t have a good feeling. But it’s a good thing. I’m not bashing him. It’s just something about him. Not downing him or anything.”

Q: If you were in charge of the NCAA, what’s the one rule you would change with recruiting?

A: “Oh, I know this one. Gameday insinuation or something like that. Like if you go to Auburn, you can’t go through Tiger Walk. I’d change that. You need to give them the feeling of how they feel when they go to that school. Do some of the things that the team does on gameday and things like that. Because I begged to walk through Tiger Walk, and they would not let me. They were like, ‘You’re going to get in trouble with the NCAA.’ So I said, all right, I won’t. But to get the feeling of what it’s like to be on the team through the recruiting process, that’s one thing I would change.”

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