Tyler Booker recalls playing against Bishop Sycamore: 'We're gonna run up the score'
One of the most bizarre sports stories of the century was Bishop Sycamore’s high school football team. A scandal that featured a made-up high school with adult football players facing off against legitimate high school football teams on nationally televised broadcasts.
Bishop Sycamore had an infamous game against prep powerhouse IMG Academy in 2021 that aired on ESPN. A game that current Alabama offensive lineman Tyler Booker played in.
Booker was a recent guest on the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast with Taylor Lewan and Will Compton, who couldn’t help but ask him about the bizarre experience and how an incident like that can even happen.
“That’s above my pay grade,” Booker said. “But I knew something was up when I got out there, a guy was like 5’4, he wore number 27, he had like a full beard. I was like okay, this is different. You know how you put the quarters in the machine and you get stickers out? They had those on their helmets instead of decals. I was like okay, we’re gonna run up the score, it’s whatever.”
Despite Bishop Sycamore’s roster featuring grown men who were not eligible to play high school football, Booker and his teammates still took care of business. Defeating the Centurions in a 58-0 win on ESPN in an experience that Booker will never forget along with most football fans.
“We were in Ohio, we were there for a week so we were just looking forward to doing that. We had at the next school called La Salle, that should have been the ESPN game,” Booker explained. “But everything happens for a reason because that Bishop Sycamore game was crazy.”
ESPN commentators Anish Shroff and Tom Luginbill questioned the legitimacy of the Bishop Sycamore team on air given their lopsided loss. Along with Booker’s father who was not in the mood to celebrate following the win.
“So I was on the way to see my family after the game and I was going to hug my dad and he was shaking his head,” Booker said. “I was like we just put up 50 (points) on this team, what’s wrong? He said, ‘I don’t know, I was listening to the ESPN broadcast and they said they can’t verify any of these players. Like they’re saying it was a fake school.'”
A federal investigation and an investigation from the Ohio Department of Education were opened up that unveiled the illegitimately of Bishop Sycamore. Revealing the school did not have a physical location for classes to meet or any teachers along with numerous legal issues like active arrest warrants against the team’s players, use of counterfeit currency, credit and debit card fraud, and computer fraud. Putting an end to the program’s coaches and players trying to live out an outlandish dream following their 15 minutes of fame.
“I don’t know what dream they were living. I wouldn’t want to get beat by high schoolers, especially by 50,” Booker concluded.