Images parodied from SI.com & Thebabynanny.com

Why is Pete Carroll jotting down notes at your six-year old brother’s pee wee football game? Why is Carroll carousing the maternity ward, clocking just how fast the newborn baby makes it through the birth canal? Why, you ask?…Because it’s never too early to start recruiting for 2025.

Okay. It’s not that extreme but Carroll is making waves with his early recruiting tactics, locking in power-recruits before anyone else can get their hands on them. Carroll, along with his recruiting coordinator (and eldest son – Brennan), are sweeping up big talent from all around Southern California, already landing early-bird recruits for 2009.

Mike Farrell, in a special post to Sports Illustrated entitled “Times Are A-Changin’,” writes of Carroll’s NCAA leadership in early recruiting:

“…athlete D.J. Shoemate — easily one of the most talented players in his class — committed to USC during his sophomore year of high school. It means that Shoemate, who would have had offers from almost every program in the country, decided to end the process a full five months before he could receive his first written scholarship offer.

Shoemate has been joined by six other top recruits in USC’s 2008 class. Two current sophomores have decided to follow in Shoemate’s footsteps. They have committed almost before the recruiting process can start, giving USC two commitments for the class of 2009.”

Of course, this type of early recruiting effects more than just rival football programs. It also peeves the sports reporters that salivate at last minute recruiting dramas. We’ve all seen it: The number one recruit in the country. Three hats for three different schools on the table before him. The national media filming his every move as he picks up a hat…puts it back down, picks up another…we gasp, puts it back down, step and repeat and so on and so forth. Not this time media!

Screw the table. Screw the hats. The mystery is over…and the game is about to begin.

In three years.

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