Rowser Flips on Arkansas to Go to a 'Place'
The recruitment of 4-star safety Myles Rowser has been a strange one over the past couple of months, but nothing could have prepared Hog fans for what came down today.
While many expected Rowser would eventually flip from his Arkansas commitment, no one saw this journey ending at FCS Campbell University.
That's right, an SEC program that many believe is on the rise, just got beat out by a school that almost no one even knew was a school, and definitely didn't know it was in the hinterlands of Delaware.
You know how we know you didn't know that? Because very few people outside of Rowser know that Campbell is actually in Buies Creek, North Carolina, hundreds of miles south of Delaware and a long way from Bellville, Michigan where Rowser starred in high school.
Now this next part is 100% true. We're not trying to pull one over on the readers.
Rowser is now a Fighting Camel. That's right, the Campbell Camels, who don orange and black in a similar fashion to the Warren Lumberjacks or Nashville Scrappers.
Courtesy of Campbell University Athletics
Although, the South Arkansas locales of Warren and Nashville might as well be New York City in comparison to Buies Creek, North Carolina.
You see, Buies Creek is so small, that it is technically classified as a census designated place. Not a town. Not a village. Definitely not a city. It's literally a place.
Roughly 90% of the land in Buies Creek is tied to the university. There appear to only be three roads in place (Do we say place instead of town? This is all confusing.) that appear to not be on university property, the largest of which is the appropriately generically named Old Church Road.
It's also home to a small, but passionate fan base who will waste no time letting you know how much pride they take in their recruiting class, which, with the addition of Rowser, was the only FCS school in the 247 Top 100 until Deion Sanders' Jackson State team jumped the Fighting Camels in the rankings with a few late surprises.
Courtesy of Campbell University
If Hog fans want to catch a glimpse of Rowser to see whether Odom's defense is truly missing out, you can catch them at home games against The Citadel and North Carolina Central.
You might even get a chance to take a photo with Gaylord the Camel.
However, I would recommend traveling to Williamsburg to catch them at William & Mary in early September, which is an absolutely beautiful town with so many things to see and do.
So that's it. The signing class is closed.
It will take a hit in the rankings, most likely tumbling near the bottom or out of the Top 25 when the final tallies are complete without Rowser.
Not that you'll hear about it. As this is being written, the spin to drown out the drop in class rank will have already begun by touting how high the 2023 recruiting class is currently ranked.
That is until the big boys with the large checkbooks finish balancing their accounts and start buying up the next crop of blue-chippers.
In this new world of recruiting, anything is possible. The next 5-star to run onto an Arkansas high school football field might end up a Mulerider down at Southern Arkansas.
After all, if an SEC recruit can spurn a Razorback to be a Camel, the next guy can turn his back on Nick Saban to go ride a mule.
