Jubal Early Johnson, 17, is more than just a student at Dudley M. Du Bose High School, not far from the Appomattox Court House in Appomattox, Virginia. A remarkably agile big man, the 6’5, 295-pound defensive tackle just might be the crown jewel of the 2015 college football recruiting class. The five-star prospect has received scholarship offers from major programs like Alabama, Oregon, TCU, Ohio State, Georgia, Virginia, Clemson, and Nebraska. After much consideration, Johnson committed to Florida State University last month. But yesterday, in a strange turn of events, Florida State’s Athletic Department announced that it has withdrawn its scholarship offer to Johnson because of a “troubling pattern of good behavior.”
Florida State football coach Jimbo Fisher told Bud Fox News:
“The final straw really came this weekend. We learned that Jubal attended a keg party at a high school friend’s house. The kid didn’t have a drop of alcohol. He didn’t mistreat any of the girls attending the party. He actually broke up a fight. And get this, at the end of the night, he gave rides to all his friends who were too drunk to drive. There’s no place for that kind of behavior at Florida State. We have a reputation to maintain.”
Bud Fox News’ Silence Bellows was able to speak one-on-one with Florida State assistant athletic director Ginger Screws, who explained the reason for the school’s decision:
“There’s no doubt that Jubal is a unique football talent. But we’ve had concerns from the outset that maybe he wasn’t right for Florida State. His parents take their Christian faith seriously. Jubal sings in the church choir. He’s had no brushes with the law. He’s an excellent student. We spoke with him and his parents and told him that he needed to develop that Florida State swagger. We tried to change his behavior, but it clearly hasn’t worked.”
When asked what the school had done to try to alter Johnson’s behavior, Screws sadly shook her head and explained:
“When Jubal visited our campus, we insisted that he come alone. We put him up in the best hotel in Tallahasse. That night, I had Jimbo bring two hookers to his room. But the kid wanted nothing to do with them. Said he had a girlfriend. I was shocked. Florida State football has used those two girls for recruiting purposes for a few years now. And they are effective, if you know what I mean. And the next day, when he was heading home, we tried to give him a little parting gift, you know, a few joints for the ride home. He said he didn’t smoke. We just can’t have him in our program. He’d be too disruptive in the locker room.”
To make matters worse for Johnson, described by Alabama coach Nick Saban as a “one-man defensive line,” most top programs, having learned of Johnson’s squeaky clean image, now want nothing to do with him. The only school currently expressing an interest is the University of North Carolina, which was recently exposed for having funneled thousands of student athletes through fake classes to keep them eligible to play. A spokesman at the school told Bud Fox News:
“Of course we want him here. He might actually be willing to go to real classes.”