The Exodus of Mass

We are less than two weeks away from National Signing Day for college football recruits. This time of year always brings a lot of stress and excitement for college football fans. But this morning, those fans are reeling after a tidal wave of "Crystal Balls," a recruit-prediction metric made popular by 247sports.com, changed where their teams' prized recruits are projected to go to college. While recruits "flipping" their commitments is not surprising, where these recruits are now projected to end up is a complete shock.

Gary says he's not concerned about how he'll fit in Peking's 3-4 defensive scheme.

Like most coaches, Michigan Head Coach Jim Harbaugh was caught off-guard. "We were just floored. I've been recruiting Rashan since I lost that Super Bowl to my idiot brother. We were positive he was a Michigan Man. We've been ignoring a 3-star kid who committed to us back in 2013 for the past few weeks because we were so sure Rashan was gonna take his scholarship spot away from him. Now, hell, I don't even have that 3-star kid's number in my phone anymore. No, wait, here it is, I had it under Tubby McHatesmilk."

While Chinese universities aren't known as traditional football powerhouses, the appeal for the recruits is pretty clear. Because schools in China aren't subject to NCAA bylaws, players can be paid, and they will be, handsomely. "We're talking about 2-3 million dollars a year for most 5-star guys," said one unnamed recruiting coordinator via a snapchat from the men's bathroom of a barbecue restaurant. "That's probably even more than Ole Miss is offering, so it's not looking good for the North American Power-128 teams."

These regional lawnmower dealers are going to be crushed when they learn that 200 bucks and some Bojangles coupons don't have the purchasing power they once did.

But players in China will also still be Student-Athletes, and are given full scholarships. "Let's just say football doesn't work out," said Kentavius "American Dreamsicle" Thornby-Goodman, a much coveted recruit from Tampa, Florida. "Would I be better off with a degree from Florida State or Communications University of China? Shit, Coach Jimbo told me I had to major in Communications at Florida State anyway, so I may as well learn how to say 'The team that wants it more is gonna win the game today' in Chinese while I'm at it."

Several recruits mentioned they were originally trepidatious of playing in China because of the campus lifestyle. But, as one unnamed Defensive Tackle from Maryland put it, "In my experience, you build a big enough hot tub and put on Drake, things work themselves out." In fact, American universities have been unknowingly sending some of their best recruiting resources to China for the past ten years through foreign-exchange programs. One university President, speaking under the condition of anonymity said, "We always thought we were getting the better part of the deal when we sent them TMZ addicts and they sent us aspiring engineers. Now, we're paying our coach 7 million dollars next year, our recruiting class is hot garbage, and what the fuck are we gonna do with a bunch of engineers?"

The exchange program has created an obvious imbalance in fan hotness.

Losing hundreds of the best high school football players to China is not only going to have an impact on college football in America, it has the casino owners and defense contractors who run the NFL concerned too. "We had 3 years of required service out of these kids," said Eugene Goldfarm, Senior VP of Communications for Raytheon. "It's not just the fact that their games gave us all kinds of collision data, saving us millions in guided missile tests, that's just the tip of the iceberg. They'd shoot, spray, and eat everything their "strength and conditioning" coaches told them to. They'd participate in hundreds of hours of studies on enhanced conditioning techniques. Even when we cancelled our airborne venereal disease program, we couldn't stop the voluntary research testing. Now, guess who gets our most impressive physical specimens for the next 3 years? That's right, China. God help us if China can find 30 scumbags who want to create a professional football league, NFL games are the only times we can still get people to watch ads, and we have a saying around here, 'If we can sell them beer, we can sell them bombs.'"

Americans are terrified at the thought of what the world would be like if Tom Brady had been tortured and brainwashed at Tsinghua University instead of Michigan.

Only time will tell whether this mass exodus is the first step in a global football system -- hundred foot statues of Urban Meyer and Nick Saban are already being erected in the Pearl River, if you believe 'Brock from China' on The Paul Finebaum Show -- or just an especially large batch of sacrificial lambs who dare challenge the American football machine. One group, however, is clearly concerned: the SEC Network just began production of a 3-hour special called, Hangyang Ain't Played Nobody!