Willie Lyles went on KCOH-AM in Houston and told Craig Shelton that a jealous University of Texas is behind the smear campaign to ruin his reputation.
According to Lyles, UT was upset because he "didn’t want to steer kids their [Texas] way." Lyles contended that he and Oregon have a good business relationship and that he earned the $25,000 Oregon paid him for his recruiting brochure.
CREDIT: KCOH-AM HOUSTON (1430 AM) / HOST: CRAIG... by sportsxbrooks
Lyles didn't stop there. He accused Texas of paying high school coaches to influence kids to come to Texas.
As for insisting that Oregon "got a great product." from him, the Daily Oregonian got its hands on the Lyles recruiting prospectus along with hundreds of other documents over the weekend, and the National Recruiting Package doesn't appear to be either national or up to date.
The Oregonian reports that the booklet was entitled "2010 National High School Evaluation Booklet." However, each profile was headlined, "2011 Player Profile" and the invoiced was also marked, "2011 National Package."
Also of note in the package:
* Of the 140 players profiled for 2011 recruiting prospectus, almost all were 2009 high school graduates.
*Over 90% of the players profiled in the "National" package were from Texas.
*Forty of the recruits profiled were from Houston.
*Of the handful from out of state, two were from South Carolina, and one each from California, Oklahoma and Louisiana.
*One of the recruits in the package dated 2011 was defensive lineman Nosa Eguae out of Mansfield Summit High School in Arlington, Texas, which when you think of it might have been helpful as a scouting report -- since Eguae signed with Auburn and played against Oregon in the National Championship game.
I also seems that Oregon and Lyles kept in touch over the last four years, thanks to over 400 emails, texts and calls.
IN 2008, Kelly, then an assistant coach, traded 12 texts with Lyles on the two days before Jan. 17, 2008, when Oregon received a verbal commitment from LaMichael James, who has described Lyles as an advisor.
So far Oregon has not made a public response to the release of all the documents.