Author: Billy Watkins

Dexter McCluster had committed to South Florida,  just 23 miles from his home in Largo.  He wasn’t accepting calls from any other schools.

Except one.

Ed Orgeron, then the head football coach at Ole Miss, kept calling. “Just let me come sit in your living room and talk to you,” he said.

“I finally agreed,” McCluster recalled recently. “His energy was the first thing I noticed. We talked schemes and scenarios. Next thing I know, we’re both standing up. Pillows were flying all over the room. Man, I was ready to play a game right then.