Interesting interview here with Calvin Johnson. Apparently he was this close to being a Dawg, and it came down to one bad recruiting visit in Athens.

Man, this clearly wasn’t Kirby’s recruiting era, as he wasn’t even a part of the staff in Athens until 2005 (Johnson was a part of the 2003 class) as a running backs coach. Just imagine if Stafford and Johnson could’ve played together in 2006 before their days in Detroit. Dang.

If it’s possible for Kirby to provide locker room material motivation for his recruiting staff (methinks he doesn’t. See: culture) then this would be it. It’s hard to believe that a kid of Johnson’s caliber coming to Athens as a national top 100 athlete could’ve been handled so recklessly by a recruiting staff in Butts-Mehre.

My question is this…what “crazy ass club” was he referring to? Was it somewhere near here:

And who was hosting? Shockley? The freshmen he references at the time included Tereshinski, Kregg Lumpkin, Leonard Pope, Sean Bailey, and Michael Cooper, among others.

To think we got out-recruited by Reginald Lewis Ball is insane…though the mary jane intake may explain Ball’s amazing 4th down decision making in 2004. After all, it’s just a game, dawg.

Inquiring minds want to know…