Yesterday was National Signing Day, that special day when all of the nation’s most prized football recruits pledge allegiance to Nick Saban or some team that’s destined to lose to Nick Saban. Alabama locked up the #1 recruiting class for the 5th time in the past 6 years, and USC is said to have had the best NSD (but only finished 5th in the overall class rankings).
My alma mater, the Florida State Seminoles, locked up the #1 DT, DE, and RB recruits which have me optimistic given the phrase ‘championships are won in the trenches’. Up in Michigan, the Wolverines signed the #6 recruiting class and their bitter rivals, the Michigan State Spartans, came in with the #33 recruiting class in the nation.
The MSU recruiting class was poised to come out slightly better than that but 3-star Defensive End Donovan Winter who had previously committed to MSU failed to send in his letter of intent on National Signing Day. Why? Because he was in jail, of course.
Police in Florida arrested Winter, 18, on Monday night and charged the Bishop Moore Catholic High School (Orlando) senior with burglary and larceny of a firearm, according to online records.
He is being held on $2,000 bond and will be required to wear a GPS monitoring device. He has been ordered to appear in court on March 7. He remained jailed as of Wednesday evening.
Bishop Moore’s head coach told the Orlando Sentinel that Winter will not sign a letter of intent Wednesday. The newspaper also reported that Winter is no longer a student at the school.
Seminole County Sheriff's Office
How exactly does someone go from being a highly touted 3-star recruit one day to a H.S. dropout in jail, facing burglary and larceny charges the next day?
I thought the story about the Florida Gators signing WR James Robinson was pretty crazy but that’s got nothing on this one. If the name James Robinson doesn’t ring a bell he’s the player who was cited for marijuana possession during his Ohio State official visit. Robinson had initially committed to Miami, but had offers from Alabama, Auburn, LSU and Tennessee before the marijuana citation. After his run in with the law, he was left without a school to sign with on National Signing Day so the Gators extended him an offer…Which, for the record, even as an FSU fan I haver ZERO problems with this because I don’t think pot should ever DQ an athlete from anything.
Burglary and Larceny? I do think that should probably DQ an athlete from NCAA play, but I’ll wait and reserve judgment until all the facts come out.