Zach Evans is the example of why celebrating recruiting wins is the hollowest of achievements.
When TCU signed the 5-star running back in the spring of 2020 he was the highest-ranked recruit that then-coach Gary Patterson had ever landed, and he was awash in concerns.
"We will write the rest of his paragraph as it unfolds!" Patterson tweeted shortly after Evans signed.
As far as TCU is concerned, this paragraph needs to have its final period.
Evans is one of the 3,000 NCAA football players currently in a transfer portal crowded with young people who are only too sure that it's going to be a lot better someplace else.
Evans is one of the biggest college football free agents on the market, and a source of constant speculation regarding where he will play next season.
That's the way he likes it.
The schools du jour are Texas A&M and Ole Miss. Tomorrow it may be Florida. The day after that it may be Texas.
Despite what anyone is saying, Zach Evans' TCU career is over.
Let him be great someplace else, and wish him the best secure in the knowledge this pattern will repeat itself until this young man grows up, or this story will end like so many others.
He's good, and he's not that good.
According to current (and former) TCU staffers, Evans was given a wide berth in his time at Fort Worth, and while he said the right things his behavior was five-star diva.
Evans showed in the 15 games he played for TCU over the past two years that he's the most talented skill position player this school has had since LaDainian Tomlinson.
LT was a better player, hardly a headache, whereas Evans is acting like he's done more than LT did in his entire Hall of Fame career.
LT came to TCU has a young man who knew he had to work.
Evans came to TCU knowing he was already the greatest running back in the history of football, because he had been told that since he was 2.
While Evans has carried a solid grade point average, and more importantly an impressive yards per carry average, what he has done thus far in his time at TCU is consistent with his time at Houston's Galena North Shore.
There's always something.
TCU went into its relationship with Evans with its eyes open, so none of this is a surprise.
Evans' behavior is well-documented, and while nothing he's ever done could come remotely close to criminal, it still is exhausting.
This all began back in the spring of 2019, when he announced that he and his high school teammate, offensive lineman Damieon George, were a package deal. George had committed to Alabama.
Then Evans made an unofficial visit to Georgia, and not long after he was suspended by his high school coach for the second game of the season. His head coach didn't specify why he suspended Evans, but was quick to say he was a good kid and teammate.
Over the next few months, Evans visited LSU and Texas A&M.
On Dec. 14, 2019, he missed the first half of his team's state semifinal game to take the ACT. He returned in time for the second half, and ran for 176 yards on 16 carries in a win.
Two days after signing with Georgia, Evans was suspended for the state championship game for "violating team rules."
When a high school coach who has suspended you once already does it again for the state title game, that's a red flag.
In the first week of 2020, Georgia announced it released Evans from his National Letter of Intent. He was the top high school running back in the nation, and Georgia said leave. Another red flag.
Then Evans visited Tennessee, and Ole Miss. In February, he visited Florida. In March, he signed with TCU.
In 146 career carries, he averaged 7.3 yards per attempt and scored nine touchdowns. He was also "disciplined" by not starting TCU's first game in 2021.
The talent is undeniable, but almost as undeniable as the drama that he created, and apparently craves.
Staffers all say he's a good, polite and respectful kid, that he has some "noise" in his life, which normally means there is a "family and friends" issue.
Now he will go someplace else, and one day will realize what Dr. Seuss taught us years ago, "Wherever you go, there you are."
"And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go," wrote the good doctor.
Hopefully Evans figures that out.
Until then, he is just another example of winning a recruiting war that turned out to be a loss.
