Four Star Auburn Recruit Flips From Texas, Posts Money Picture

I just assume that all four- and five-star recruits are getting paid. I don't blame them. Why wouldn't you get money to play football if you could get money to play football? Selling your labor to the highest bidder is the foundation of capitalism. We all do it every day. But -- wink, wink -- college football players can't get paid. Sure, I can get paid to write about them and the television networks can get paid billions to air their games and the schools can sell tickets to watch them play and recruiting sites can make hundreds of millions off their recruitment, but the kids can't get paid anything. 

Right. 

Let's be clear here: Paying top players is like steroids for college athletics. Everyone knows it exists and just pretends it doesn't actually happen.  

So when a four-star recruit named Tim Irvin, a long-time Texas commit, visits Auburn, switches his commitment because he was treated like family and then posts a picture of himself holding a stack of cash ...

Well, it's a little bit fishy.

Especially since we all know Auburn would never pay anyone to play football. I'm just thankful Alabama never pays its players.

If anything, I'm a little disappointed in Texas and its boosters. All you had to give a kid to keep him committed was a couple of grand in cash? Come on, Longhorns, what the hell are you spending your money on? The old Southwest Conference is disgusted with you.

For his part, Irvin later Tweeted the Snapchat picture and said he wanted to thank his aunt and others for the graduation money. He is related to Michael Irvin, the original playmaker. Who, I'm sure, never received any improper benefits during his time playing for the Miami Hurricanes in the 1980s. After an uproar, Irvin removed the picture completely and posted this:

The lesson? If you're a top recruit it's probably best not to post pictures of yourself holding lots of cash within days of committing to an SEC school. Unless you just committed to Vanderbilt, in which case everyone will just assume you're already rich.