Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Bruce Feldman, in his study of big-time college recruiting, could have chosen to follow the coaching staffs at, say, USC, or the University of Florida, or Notre Dame -- one of those programs whose name alone sways your average high school recruit. In choosing, instead, to follow the staff at Ole Miss, Feldman locates the reader where the real struggle is: at the bottom rung of a big-time conference, in the shadow of traditional SEC powers LSU and Alabama, in the hands of an energetic and unorthodox coach who, quite frankly, wouldn't have this job at any other SEC school.

The frank and evenhanded account that follows is worthy of the best sports books I've ever read, among them John McPhee's Levels of the Game, Kevin Kerrane's Dollar Sign on the Muscle, and Ron Luciano's The Umpire Strikes Back. It's entertaining as hell, and informative to boot. If you want to know what it's like to sit in the war room alongside the hungriest recruiting staff in America, this is the book for you. Feldman delivers and delivers.

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.

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".

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.

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.

The events in the book chronicle the 2007 University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) recruiting season and focus on head coach Ed Orgeron. It sounds great in theory - to be a fly on the wall at a college football program. And after reading Michael Lewis's fascinating The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game about Ole Miss recruit Michael Oher, "Meat Market" sounded like a perfect behind-the-scenes companion guide. But unfortunately, there's not much variation or substance to this book.

There's certainly no shortage of unrecognizable recruit names and their esoteric statistics. And this feels more like padding than real content.

Further, nearly every single recruit in the book is portrayed the exact same way - their behavior is erratic and immature. The most highly touted recruit in the 2007 class - Joe McKnight - seems on the verge of signing with Ole Miss. But, he disappears the night before signing day... and commits to USC. And another running back, after initially committing to Ole Miss, turns around and signs with rival Mississippi, saying it was because they gave him the number 2 for his jersey. What's also redundant is the sheer number of players that have academic and behavior problems.

If there's a positive to "Meat Market," it's how the football coaching profession is totally un-glamorized. I now appreciate just how hard these guys work - how much research goes into recruiting and how hard you have to pursue a recruit. Ole Miss never does anything shady, but you get the feeling that lots of underhanded tactics come into play when you're in this profession. And you know it's a thankless job, because Orgeron was actually fired in the season that takes place after the events of this book.

Overall, "Meat Market" is decent, but I preferred "The Blind Side."

Ironically, I picked up this book from the library the day Ole Miss announced that Ogeron had been fired. So, you can ignore the part of the book where he talks about 2007 being the year they would get a bowl bid.
In fact, Coach O's brilliance instead of getting Ole Miss a bowl bid got them 0-8 in SEC conference play, but I digress.

Since the author had unlimited access to the recruiting process, the book is nothing if not interesting and revealing about the real world of college football recruiting, and I think it will be a good read for a college football fan ( though probably not an Ole Miss fan since it is a reminder of their dismal situation caused by Ogeron ). The downside of the book for me was the constant repeating of the same story, ie the lenghts they were going to to recruit some player. The book could have used a lot more substance.

As a casual sports fan I thought this book would provide some insight into the world of big time college football recruiting. Instead I was subject to page after page of mind numbing details about watching game film, making phone calls and moving players names around a board. This book could have lost 90% of the 320 pages and still have been too long.

This book takes you into the heart of SEC Recruiting. It was a good read if you want to see and know how big time football programs recruit athletes. It was great to see how Orgeron tried to create his type of program from day-one on the job. If you are looking for the dirt on SEC recruiting, including oversigning, this book touches the surface on it, but never really goes into depth on any items that may be seen as infractions with the NCAA. The information on recruiting services (including online services) was a good part of the book. Overall, decent read if you like college football or are interested in recruiting just a little bit more.

Meat Market is a quick and decent read for a hard core college football fan, but it's nothing more than a very detailed account of Ole Miss's (and the now fired Ed Orgeron's) recruiting efforts in 2006-07. The book throws out the names of probably 100+ recruits, and how their athletic and academic potential were painstakingly evaluated, but never makes much of an effort to really develop a good, gripping story. The lack of a good story would not have been a big deal if the book at least contained some explosive revelations of what goes on behind-the-scenes, but that too was lacking. The book seemed to cop out on tackling the issue of cheating in recruiting, often making quick mention of "rumors" without any attempt to dig deeper. If you're looking for a truly excellent book on college football and recruiting, definitely check out Michael Lewis's The Blind Side. Meat Market pales in comparison.