Meat Market: Inside the Smash-Mouth World of College Football Recruiting [Hardcover]

Bruce Feldman (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 18, 2007

"One of the most insightful books ever written about college football."
- The New York Times

"Easily among the best sports books of the new millennium."
- Paul Finebaum, columnist and radio host



In this unprecedented look at college football’s secret season, Bruce Feldman rips the cover off the game’s frenzied pursuit of raw talent, taking you deep inside the SEC war room of recruiting legend Ed Orgeron,the combustible Cajun who helped build national championship teams at the University of Miami and at USC. In a stunning, blow-by-blow account of the year leading up to National Signing Day 2007, the award-winning journalist shadows Orgeron and his Ole Miss assistants as they set about hunting high school students, pleading, plotting, and inventing ways to lure them to their sleepy Oxford campus. Packed with candid confessions and outrageous off-the-field action, Meat Market makes what happens on the field seem almost tame by comparison.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A jaw-dropping book. Bruce Feldman is the John Feinstein of his generation. He has gotten inside and gained access to this complex subject better than any sportswriter in memory. Meat Market is easily among the best sports books of the new millennium. Not only was it engaging, it was at times hilarious and frightening, seeing what really happens in the bowels of recruiting. This is must-reading for any college football fan. I don't know when I have enjoyed a book more or been unable to put one down. This book absolutely blew me away." --Paul Finebaum, Mobile Register columnist and talk show host -- Paul Finebaum

"Bruce Feldman has recorded the most detailed account of a recruiting season I've read. You are taken behind the curtain of a program hungry to reach the elite and provided a revealing, fascinating look at one of college football's unique characters, Coach ÔOÕ." --Chris Fowler, ESPN College GameDay host -- Chris Fowler

"Coach Orgeron transfers his ferocious competitive spirit into all phases of his coaching, particularly as a recruiter. He's relentless in his effort and comprehensive approach to the whole recruiting process." --Pete Carroll, head coach, USC -- Pete Carroll

"Recruiting is the lifeblood of college football yet is the most mysterious, misunderstood aspect of the sport. Feldman opens doors and opens eyes in a revealing look at how the machine that drives college football really works. Playing the big boys on the field is one thing. For those outside the "traditional power" fraternity, Meat Market shows that recruiting against them is even tougher . . . even for a Red Bull powered recruiting maniac like Ed Orgeron." --Rece Davis, ESPN College Football studio host -- Rece Davis

"Tremendous behind-the-scenes look at the highs and lows of recruiting with extremely accurate portrayal of the day-to-day operation. This book captures what goes into the evaluation, scouting, tape study and on and off campus recruitment of some of the best players in the country. An unprecedented chance to get the true skinny on how high school and juco athletes end up on a college campus." --Jim Donnan, ESPN college football analyst and former Georgia head coach -- Jim Donnan

"We all knew Bruce Feldman could write. We all knew him to be a meticulous researcher. What we did not know until now is that he has the guts of an S.E.C. middle linebacker. On his next trip to Oxford he may take an Ed Orgeron headbutt for this canny and thorough page turner. This is the best I have seen on the real story of bigtime college recruiting. I loved reading this book!" --Bill Curry, former coach at Alabama, Georgia Tech and Kentucky -- Bill Curry

"What serious football fan wouldn't love to be a fly on the wall in the recruiting war room of a major college program? Feldman got to do just that, delivering a fascinating first-hand account of all the dizzying phone calls, late-night film sessions, frantic road trips, and paranoid parents that went into the Ole Miss coaching staff's pursuit of a recruiting class." --Stewart Mandel, Sports Illustrated -- Stewart Mandel

About the Author

Bruce Feldman is the author of Cane Mutiny: How the Miami Hurricanes Overturned the Football Establishment, which was ranked No. 1 among sports titles in the fall of 2004. A senior writer at ESPN The Magazine since its launch in 1998, Feldman writes a popular college football blog for ESPN.com. His articles on college football have appeared in several editions of The Best American Sports Writing, and he has won first-place awards in contests sponsored by the Football Writers Association. Feldman lives in California but on any given autumn Saturday can be found at one of the top college football games in the country.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: ESPN; 1st edition (September 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933060395
• ISBN-13: 978-1933060392
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #662,827 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Have the other reviewers actually read this book? December 28, 2007

By Dr. Teeth

Format:Hardcover

I question whether any of the other reviewers have actually read this book. It is as though Feldman took his notes from trailing Orgeron and his staff and had them transcribed into book form them without adding any real insight or conclusions.

I went to school at Ole Miss and am a fan of Ole Miss football, as well as SEC football in general. While this book enumerates the minutiae of Ole Miss recruiting in excruciating detail (wanna know how many Red Bulls Coach Orgeron drinks per day?), it offers no real insight into SEC recruiting, or college football on a larger scale. In one funny anecdote that does stand out, University of Florida Coach Urban Meyer tells a top QB recruit that Tim Tebow (this year's Heisman Trophy winner) is coming to Florida to "be a linebacker", but that is one of the few memorable passages.

The sad truth is, this book appears to be nothing more than a shameless attempt to ride the coattails of Michael Lewis excellent book, "The Blind Side." Lewis followed the progress of left tackle Michael Oher from inner-city Memphis to his eventual enrollment at Ole Miss, offering illuminating and hysterical profiles of Orgeron, Nick Saban, Philip Fullmer, and others in the process. I learned far more from "The Blind Side" than "Meat Market", and if you are looking to learn about recruiting in college football, it would be a better place to start.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Turnover on Downs November 26, 2008

By Bobby Butler

Format:Hardcover

I have always been intrigued by Mississippi football and the whole Rebel mystique. That might sound strange coming from a Midwest kid, but growing up watching Archie Manning was special indeed. However, much like those Mississippi teams from the 70's this book didn't win the big one.

Meat Market caught my eye while browsing for a weekend read and though it was interesting, truth be told it wasn't all that earth shattering.The story line had a great deal of potential and you couldn't ask for a more colorful character than Coach O. Yet despite these seemingly great beginnings the book fell short in so many areas. Perhaps my disappointment was the author never quite developed a relationship between the characters and me, the reader. I wanted to like them and I wanted then to succeed but in the end It really did not matter one way or the other. Like many of the other reviewers I question how some people can call Meat Market a classic.

I was also somewhat surprised that Feldman omitted or barely scratched the surface on a topic like racism. Here was a wonderful opportunity to explain and educate his audience on the University Gray and people like Chuckie Mullins. So in my humble opinion he missed out.

On the plus side, and yes there are positives, the book was informative about the life and times of college recruiting. Feldman was successful in pointing out the mindset of high school superstars and the games people play to secure their services. A coach or recruiter of any type can find value in the material presented and the casual fan can get a glimpse of the inside of a "War Room".

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Concept is excellent, but focus is too narrow. November 23, 2008

By BasinBictory

Format:Hardcover

The book focuses mainly on the Ole Miss Rebels during the tenure of Coach Ed Orgeron, who coached Ole Miss from 2005-2007. Coach Ed Orgeron was particularly keen on the recruiting aspect of the college game, and the book talks about all the various shenanigans, difficulties, unforseen obstacles and such that go into the whole recruiting process. Since success in recruiting is probably a good 60-65% of a college team's overall success, I found the book very interesting. The only complaint I would have about it, I guess, is that it mostly focused on things from the perspective of the coaches in the program trying to recruit high school kids. It also only took the perspective of the Ole Miss coaches, without trying to get a bead or reading on coaches from other schools also on the recruiting trail.

I thought that this book, as a concept, could have been a masterpiece if Feldman followed say - three or four programs and their various appraoches and the kind of energies and different kinds of strategies they put into recruiting. Make those three or four programs vary from a national powerhouse that basically recruits itself (like a USC, LSU, Florida, or Ohio State) down through struggling programs trying to get over the hump (like Ole Miss), and also a school or two that has never been big-time and is just trying to fill its roster with players who have any kind of talent....

On the other side of the recruiting trail, get some stories from the kids themselves who are being recruited, and just like the programs, profile the recruiting sagas of kids who are 5-star blue chippers who have been on the watch lists since their sophomore years, down through players who might be gems in the rough but happen to play for small, unsuccessful HS programs, down all the way to desperate hopefuls who have marginal talent but attend every camp they can get invited to in order to hopefully show a coach or two that the too-small, too-slow, too-short kid from the winless high school program might actually have what it takes to play CFB.

Now that would be an awesome book. This one just felt too short and too narrow a focus. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars All You Want to Know and More About College Football Recruiting February 24, 2008

By Big D VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This book seemed as if it would never end. Never.

Over and over again, then over and over again. Yes, kind of like the recruiting process but this book needed a good editor, someone who could scale it down, make it more concise and directed. More focused.

Has some good insight into recruiting, especially as it relates campus and interdepartmental stresses and strains. But it never succeeded in making the coaches real flesh and blood people. They came across as cartoon like characters while Coach O, the ultimate cartoon character, ranted and raved. The book needed more character development of the coaches. It had facts, facts galore, but it never really made the coaches real live human beings. How, for example, did the recruiting demands affect their marriages and their family relationships.

A good idea, at the wrong time with the wrong staff and badly in need of an editor. Someone to corral the information in the book and give it focus.

When Ole Miss fired Coach O, this book was most likely rendered to the bargain table. If you are a college football junkie, buy it there, don't pay full price.