Here's how things get fucked up by $9.95ers:
1) They all wrongly continue to operate under the impression that being first with a scoop matters. It doesn't.
2) They all fail to understand the failures in their personality make-ups and behaviors that landed them in the position of doing this kind of work for a sad living chasing 16-20 year old boys.
3) They then, given the blindness of their own frailty, fail to see the same flaws in $9.95ers for other schools, and project a positive image onto those other folks, and trust them frequently when they shouldn't. As a result, information is exchanged.
4) Schools use $9.95ers for info and as mouthpieces. Herman's not big into the latter, dabbles in the former. Other schools use them more aggressively. Some schools, like Oregon, literally have an agent covering their team, working for both 24/7 and a sports group. Schools like Clemson and USC have fucking bagmen working for them as $9.95ers. USC literally got busted for this with Steele this year.
5) Texas $9.95ers discover something from a parent, player or handler, calling and asking a question or texting hints, or outright laying out their thoughts. $9.95er, moron that he is, thinks "holy shit, a scoop!! it's a scoop!! I'm important and my sycophantic member base is about to love me!!!!". So they start fucking hinting around that they know something.
6) Burton and Ketchum are then woken up from late morning naps and told "hey, person at IT/TFB/wherever the fuck is talking about knowing something we don't". They shout "get on it" to the Anwars and FCBs of the world.
7) Notes are compared or hints are made.
8 ) One of these rubes calls the other school's $9.95ers to compare notes. That $9.95er, with different intentions if the issue is big, gets in contact with their program to ingratiate themselves further or get paid outright for the intel.
9) Program goes to recruit/athlete/parent/handler and actively begins a diffusion campaign from decommitting/transferring/whatever the fuck.
10) Recruit/athlete/parent/handler gets cold feet and nothing happens further.
11) You naive fucks and the $9.95er sycophants then declare that nothing was there in the first place and go on about your business, thinking it was all a big to-do over nothing.
It's rare for someone, even FCB, to so overtly fuck up a recruitment the way he did with Bonnito last year. Steps 1-11 are how it normally works.
Damage control has already begun elsewhere, so barring some real resolve tomorrow, light your cigarettes, fellas, because you've already been fucked.
As to anyone trying to dissect validity of matters around concepts like enrollment, cause for disengaging from an LOI, signing an LOI, etc., good lawyers make good claims and an org like the NCAA is a fucking coward in the face of that. If you haven't seen enough of that to believe it, that's on you to figure out.