Lane Kiffin's Next Trick: Recruiting a Middle Schooler? Uh, Not Really

In case you're wondering, here is the complete list of outrageous things Lane Kiffin has not done since becoming head coach at Tennessee:

1. Paint himself orange and skydive naked into Bryant-Denny Stadium.
2. Ask what Urban Meyer has done that's so great.
3. Consult with the UT astronomy department to see whether the universe would be annihilated if his ego was ever in the same room as Bruce Pearl's.
4. Coach in, and win, a football game.

For a moment, I had to cross off "make an outrageous scholarship offer to a middle schooler" because, well, there were reports that he just did that. Evan Berry, 13-year-old son of former Vol running back James Berry and brother of current Vol Eric Berry, has officially committed to the Vols. Or so said Rivals.com and ESPN, sort of.

Evan Berry's father begs to differ. As does the NCAA, which doesn't allow coaches to contact middle schoolers.

But you know it's coming.

ESPN, which should know better, ran a crawl about the younger Berry committing to the Vols. Sports Illustrated's recruiting expert Andy Staples even called it "a smart gamble." To be fair, it does sound like the kind of thing Lane Kiffin might do, apart from the whole "he didn't actually do it" thing.

How did the mess get started? Evan Berry was asked a question at a track meet by a reporter who found out he was Eric Berry's little brother. Evan said he was "committed" to Tennessee, which he probably is given his family ties. It's just that "commitment" means something different to the Recruiting-Industrial Complex than it does to, say, an eighth grader.

To a normal person, "committed" means "If possible, I am going to play for the Vols." To the Recruiting-Industrial Complex, it means "I have received a scholarship offer from the current coaching staff, and I have accepted that offer." It also means "Hurry up and get this on the internet, because nobody's going to pay $9.95 a month for old news about the potential college choices of teenage athletes." That still doesn't explain why ESPN put the story on their crawl, however.

Still, for a few short hours, it looked like Lane Kiffin had gone and signed himself a kid who hasn't finished middle school yet. Thus, every local of the Lunatic Athletic Boosters Union held an emergency meeting, trying to determine which of their former stars have offerable spawn, then texting their head coaches to ask why Former Great, Jr. hasn't been offered a scholarship yet. And they weren't going to take "he's eight months old and hasn't learned to walk yet" for an answer.

That is where college football is heading. Every time I think things can't get any weirder in this cornball sport, they do.

UPDATE: Evan Berry also committed to Tennessee back when he was in fifth grade. I believe that's what is known as a "solid verbal."