Patrick “Speedy” Flowers: The Recruit that Quarantine Created

As I began to plug in my microphone and exchange salutations with Patrick “Speedy” Flowers, Michigan State’s newest star quarterback, excitement began to coarse through my veins. This was my first interview with someone that, in a sense, “broke the internet.”

From Barstool Sports to NBC Chicago, the name Patrick Flowers took over the collegiate sports world for a short time in the middle of April.

Before eventually making his decision to commit to the Spartans, the 6’1” 187-pound quarterback faced a very volatile experience early on in his recruitment process that led to his eventual commitment to MSU.

As a 5-star recruit and the nation’s No. 19 prospect on ESPNU’s Top 150 board, Flowers was working his way onto collegiate radars. In the early stages of his recruitment process, he received his second Division I offer from the University of Northern Illinois. Humbled by the offer, he tweeted out the big news to his followers on April 15th. What came next would shock Flowers to the core.

“I felt lied to, man,” Flowers explained. “[NIU Head Coach Thomas Hammock] offered me a scholarship. I earned it fair and square, and all of a sudden he’s messaging me it’s gone.”

Flowers was referring to a direct message he received from Coach Hammock one day after he received the offer. In the message, Hammock explained he was the only coach who extends offers to recruits and that he did not offer one to Flowers.

After a discussion with Coach Hammock, Flowers took to Twitter explaining he no longer had an offer from NIU, and that his recruitment process would continue.

So why did Missouri’s Mr. Football create such a media buzz after losing an offer from a mid-major Division I football program?

The very simple explanation is… Patrick Flowers doesn’t exist. He is, in fact, an alter ego created on the video game NCAA Football 14 by Michigan State junior, Jad Safadi.

“It became something I didn’t think it would get to,” Safadi said when describing his reaction to the instantaneous fame he was receiving.

After all, Safadi successfully managed to fool a Division I FBS head football coach into believing his Road to Glory player was a real-life high school football recruit.

“It just comes down to I didn’t have much to do,” Safadi said regarding the idea behind creating Patrick Flowers.

As Safadi’s head hit the pillow the night of April 16th, his fake player’s Twitter account had a mere 65 followers. “I thought it was gonna have like 10 followers, only followed by my close friends, it’s funny for a few weeks, and then I stop tweeting.”

The next night, his account surpassed 4,000 followers.

Even though common sense would have told him there was no way Coach Hammock would believe Flowers was real, he had to play along to see where it would go.

“I didn’t think he actually believed it at first,” Safadi said.

The biggest takeaway for the pre-law and journalism major was his take on the way social media is impacting the way collegiate coaches recruit.

“I think social media has definitely changed the world of recruiting in a big way, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing,” Safadi said. “I noticed from this experience how little some coaches pay attention to who they’re retweeting on Twitter.”

As someone who has spent the past four years working closely with college football coaches and gaining experience with the recruiting process, I have seen how essential social media has become to coaches when interacting with a recruit.

It will be interesting to see if history records this unplanned incident as a harmless and humorous punchline or will we look back on this story as the event which introduced a virus into the college recruitment process.

Author – Spencer Robb