Meat Market: Inside the Smash-Mouth World of College Football Recruiting »

Bruce Feldman is the author of Cane Mutiny: How the Miami Hurricanes Overturned the Football Establishment, which was ranked No. 1 among sports titles in the fall of 2004. A senior writer at ESPN The Magazine since its launch in 1998, Feldman writes a popular college football blog for ESPN.com. His articles on college football have appeared in several editions of The Best American Sports Writing, and he has won first-place awards in contests sponsored by the Football Writers Association.

"One of the most insightful books ever written about college football."
- The New York Times

"Easily among the best sports books of the new millennium."
- Paul Finebaum, columnist and radio host

In this unprecedented look at college football’s secret season, Bruce Feldman rips the cover off the game’s frenzied pursuit of raw talent, taking you deep inside the SEC war room of recruiting legend Ed Orgeron,the combustible Cajun who helped build national championship teams at the University of Miami and at USC. In a stunning, blow-by-blow account of the year leading up to National Signing Day 2007, the award-winning journalist shadows Orgeron and his Ole Miss assistants as they set about hunting high school students, pleading, plotting, and inventing ways to lure them to their sleepy Oxford campus. Packed with candid confessions and outrageous off-the-field action, Meat Market makes what happens on the field seem almost tame by comparison.

Introduction: Banging the Drum     1
Measuring Up     13
Snap Decisions     23
Bebe-Part One     32
Bebe-Part Two     43
Rags and Riches     54
Lord of the Internet     65
Spring Cleaning     82
Summer Camp     112
The Okolona Kid     133
The Jailer     154
Face Time     176
Plan B     199
Second Season     218
Road Show     236
Home Stretch     255
Countdown     273
Epilogue: The Future is Now     305
Acknowledgments     311