This story was intended to run on April Fool's Day
OXFORD, Miss. - To earn the reputation as one of college football's best recruiters, Ed Orgeron traveled all over the country to attract top-tier talent for his football teams.
And now, he's even traveling back in time.
Unsatisfied with the performance of his two most experienced quarterbacks and inspired by a recent viewing of Necessary Roughness, Orgeron has reached 15 years into the past to find a quarterback capable of leading the Rebels in 2007;
The third-year Ole Miss head football coach announced today that Kirk Presley, a quarterback from Tupelo (Miss.) High School who earned honorable mention All-American honors in 1993, had signed a letter of intent the Rebels.
"Yaw yaw yaw yaw yaw, yaw yaw, football ," Orgeron said.
The 6'3", 195 lbs. Presley last played football in la 1992, throwing for a touchdown in the Tupelo Golden Wave's 13-0 victory over Hattiesburg in the Class 5A state championship. That season, he passed for 1,412 yards and 16 touchdowns and averaged 41 yards as a punter.
As teammates Mark Fields, Marcus Gary, and Mond Wilson signed D1 scholarships, Presley followed, choosing Mississippi State for football and baseball.
Though he was a prize recruit for Jackie Sherrill's class, the majority of his passion (and arguably his talent) was concentrated in baseball. Presley was such a dominating high school pitcher that the New York Mets selected him 8th overall in the 1993 draft.
Presley still showed up in Starkville that August to check in with the other freshman football players, but a few days later agreed to a lucrative contract with the Mets that paid him a $900,000 signing bonus.
Because of a torn labrum he suffered soon after entering the minors, he never reached his promise as a pitcher. Presley retired from baseball, returned to Tupelo, and anticipated a life away from competitive sports.
That is, until Coach Orgeron decided to watch "Necessary Roughness" on TBS's Movies for Guys Who Like Movies" feature.
'NECESSARY' MOVE
In the 1991 film, directed by Stan Dragoti, Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap) plays Paul Blake, a high school All-American who gave up football to run the family farm. After the Texas State football program is placed on probation and stripped of its athletic scholarships, the new coach (played by Hector Elizondo) convinces Blake to return to the game. Though Blake struggles in the beginning behind an inexperienced offensive line, he leads the team to an improbable victory over Texas in the season finale.
"Yaw yaw yaw yaw yaw yaw, yaw yaw, Scott Bakula football," Orgeron said.
COMPETITION AT QB
Unlike Bakula's character, however, the 31-year-old Presley will have several scholarship quarterbacks to compete with for the starting position, most notably Brent Schaeffer, a former JUCO All-American who struggled as a starter last season; and Seth Adams, a cerebral signal caller who rose from backup at D-II Delta State to the second-half quarterback in last season's game against LSU.
Orgeron has been reluctant to praise either quarterback for his performance during spring practice, and since Jevan Snead is not eligible until 2007 and fans have conveniently forgotten that the team has two supposedly talented redshirt freshman on the roster, the job may be Presley's to lose.
BUST OR CAN'T MISS
The big question remains though: will Presley be "a colossal bust" as the The New York Times once described him or a can't miss prospect (as People Magazine described him).
Recruiting analyst Forrest Davis thinks he can perform.
"I remember writing about this kid for my magazine back in 1992," "He had all the tools: a strong arm, smart, good height, solid speed. I had him on the same level as (former FSU Quarterback) Thad Busby, who turned out to be a pretty good college QB."
"Besides,the bar for quarterbacks has been set pretty low at Ole Miss since Eli graduated," he said.
Nafoom.com blogger Levan Modfrey was less praiseworthy.
"This might be Orgeron's best move since that commercial he did hawking Hummers for that Brandon car dealership," Modfrey said, his voice oozing with sarcasm. "I heard Marcus Dupree has some eligibility left. But hey, at least he finally signed someone who qualified academically."
Mississippi State fan John Lassiter was disappointed that Presley had been scooped up by the rival Rebels.
"I got to admit, I'm a little jealous. I was hoping Coach Croom would have brought in Presley the year we got Ty Evans instead," said Lassiter, now a litigator in Metro Jackson. "Had we had all that defensive talent to go along with a Kirk Presley and not a Derrick Taite, I think we'd have at least one more SEC West Title and we'd be talking about Presley in the same breath as other MSU quarterback greats.
When asked what MSU quarterback greats he was referring to, Lassiter thought for a minute, grimaced, and told us he needed to get back to work.
DISCLAIMER: This is entirely a work of fiction.