A Michael Buffer wannabe proudly declared, "And now a five-star prospect from Batesville, Mississippi...Tony Conner" to a crowd of inebriated Ole Miss fans and students as Conner, the local stud, strode onto the stage.
It was Ole Miss' big official visit weekend back in January 2013, and the school pulled out all the stops. The big group of top recruits that weekend included Conner, Robert Nkemdiche, Laquon Treadwell, Laremy Tunsil and Chris Jones - all five-star prospects and all but one would go on to sign with the Rebels.
One-by-one their names were announced to the popular Oxford college bar as the young celebrities they were, the crowd begging them to come to Ole Miss. A group of older boosters hung off to the side, eying the greatest collection of recruiting talent the Rebels had ever assembled in Oxford. All the while, Ole Miss assistants quietly monitored the proceedings from upstairs, watching their top recruiting targets dance shirtless on stage to the adulation of the fans.
Ole Miss went on to sign the nation's eighth-best recruiting class that year, an achievement that generated a lot of good publicity for the school. But that recruiting class attracted the NCAA to set up shop in Mississippi and could ultimately cost Hugh Freeze, Ross Bjork and others their jobs at the school.