Meet Blake Carringer, a three-star offensive tackle prospect in the class of 2020 out of Grace Christian Academy in Knoxville, TN. Standing at 6-foot-6, 315-pounds, Carringer has received offers from Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, among others.
Oh, yeah. And he doesn't exist.
In a story that has quickly gone viral over the last 24 hours, recruiting websites Rivals and 247 Sports were tricked by several high school students into creating fake profiles for a student-athlete they completely made up.
To give a brief summary of the timeline of events, the students reportedly created a fake Twitter account of the supposed "recruit" and began tweeting out the list of offers he had received from some of the most prestigious schools in the nation.
Here is a screenshot of the account, which was recently taken down after being active since November:
After seeing the impressive list of offers, Rivals.com quickly made a recruiting profile for the supposed 6-foot-6 offensive tackle out of Knoxville, TN. And then with zero game footage, statistics, or proof of existence at all, Rivals decided to give him a 5.5 three-star ranking.
We've heard of the "Alabama bump" before with recruits seeing a significant jump in the ratings only because Nick Saban wants them in Tuscaloosa, but this takes that to a whole new level.
247 Sports didn't give him a ranking of their own, but did list him as a three-star in their composite rankings, which takes into account all of the rankings any given player has receive.
They did, however, go out of their way to give him a profile, which can be seen at the top of this post.
Going to his profile now will lead you to an error message, with the site directing you back to the 247 Sports home page.
PrepXtra, a high school sports website stationed out of Knoxville, actually listed Carringer as one of the top 10 recruits to watch for in the class of 2020.
https://twitter.com/prepxtra/status/1093610182754684933
Whoops. Hard to watch out for someone when they don't even exist.
The recruiting profile photo of Carringer
actually appears to be Corey Stephens, a 2017 Arizona State signee.
https://youtu.be/Dk1DANOe_UI
Carringer and Manti Te'o's girlfriend would make a beautiful couple.
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