High school football recruit has wrong hat at commitment ceremony

Even traditions from the pre-NIL days of recruiting that have made their way over to the modern game have gotten bloated and overused.

Take the "hat game," for instance.

A kid announces he's going to commit to a school (probably not even for the last time, mind you), and has a big ceremony at his high school gymnasium.

He usually sits at the center of the gym with four or five hats spread out across a table, and then he'll pretend to put one on before tossing it into the stands and picking the team he actually wants to commit to.

Yawn.

The theatrics have become so cliche that even I don't watch commitment ceremonies anymore, and I eat, sleep and breathe college football recruiting.

One high school prospect had a fun -- albeit likely unintentional -- twist on the hat game Monday afternoon, however.

De'voun Kendrick is a three-star defensive tackle from the Tampa area who had a commitment ceremony of his own, with his final four schools being Florida, Texas A&M, Louisville and Georgia Tech.

He ended up picking the Gators, but his choice wasn't the newsworthy portion of the ceremony.

Whoops!

I know they're sitting near the bottom of the NL Central right now, but I don't think they're that desperate.

I have to applaud Kendrick for giving me a laugh. These hat game ceremonies have become so tedious lately, it's great to see a little humor being injected into them.

Again, did he do this intentionally? Probably not.

But it's hilarious either way.

I don't need my defensive tackles to be Rhodes Scholarship candidates, so I am quite all right with this blunder.

Welcome to Gainesville, De'Voun!