20 most hyped college football recruits of all-time
By Dustin Hull
13. Lorenzo Booker
Besides a certain Oklahoma running back, Lorenzo Booker is the most hyped running back of the recruiting site era. And in that decade-and-a-half, there’s been plenty of other backs who’ve gained sufficient publicity.
But Booker was the one grabbing all the glory before he’d even graduated from St. Bonaventure High School in California. It was the first year of the online scouting databases Scout and Yahoo’s Rivals, and these websites brought much more attention to the scene of high school athletics.
Booker was front-and-center at the beginning of this era, crowned the number one overall player by Scout, and placed behind only future stars Vince Young and Haloti Ngata on Rivals’ list. With 99 touchdowns and nearly 6,000 rushing yards in his final two high school seasons, it’s not surprising to know how sought-after he was. Notre Dame was constantly pursuing him, as were the Washington Huskies. Despite giving heavy consideration to in-state powerhouse USC, a team (far too) aggressively in pursuit of his services, Booker surprisingly decided on Florida State.
And he did so live on ESPN, back when these type of announcements were just starting to become commonplace. This is also after Booker had already verbally committed to Notre Dame, which brought, even more, news.
It was all downhill from there for Booker, who would make it to the NFL, but only after he had vastly underperformed at the college level.
Next: Emmitt Smith