Meat Market (Book 2 Review)

For my second book of the semester, I selected "Meat Market: Inside the Smash-Mouth World of College Football Recruiting" by ESPN's Bruce Feldman. The book follows Ed Orgeron at his only head coaching stop at the University of Mississippi. Orgeron is known as big recruiter; he loves the chase and the excitement of this part of college football. Feldman follows Orgeron and his Ol' Miss staff for the year leading up to national signing day 2007.

This book is great on many levels. First, it's great for sports fans that are novices with recruiting processes, lingo and the like. Feldman explains all that as you get started so you're not lost as the book goes in depth. Second, this book truly is all access. Feldman went everywhere with Orgeron and it was incredible to see a guy like Orgeron open up his program for a journalist. Feldman was in all the meetings, at all the games and at all the recruiting trips. This is even more impressive when you read about the crazy hours that Orgeron keeps. Third was something that was funny to me. During the book some of the recruits discussed include Jevan Snead, Golden Tate, Joe McKnight, John Jerry and Jerrell Powe. These are all guys that were spoken about during this past week's NFL Draft, so getting into their recruiting was fun.

This book moves very fast. I like it's quick pace because it's the exact pace that Orgeron sets. You have to stay with it and read it fast to get the experience of how Orgeron moves at a thousand miles per hour. One of my favorite parts of the book is the final chapter. It counts down with the last 60 hours until signing day. Coaches are putting in their final calls to recruits and their coaches, trying to figure out whose name is going to come in on a letter of intent. Plus, it doesn't necessarily end on a happy note. The big bombshell is the disappointing hit the coaching staff takes when they are informed that Joe McKnight chose USC over Mississippi. And as college football fans know, it was Orgeron's third and final year of a very poor run at the school.