Elijah Hood had just downloaded Vine, the popular smartphone app that allows users to create short videos that then play on a looping cycle. And he wanted his first post to be epic.
Then still in high school, the now North Carolina freshman running back glanced around his bedroom, saw a stack of recruiting letters from the Alabama football team scattered everywhere, and picked up the first one. The light bulb went off.
“I took out what was inside because I wanted to read what was inside,” Hood said Tuesday. “And then the Vine speaks for itself.”
In a six-second video that now has more than 52,000 views on YouTube, Hood flushed one of the many Alabama letters he received straight down the toilet.
“Dang, Nick Saban hooked your boy up,” he said of the head coach at Alabama while a shot of the letters filled the camera. “Roll toilet.”
But playing in Tuscaloosa, Ala., wasn’t the only possibility that Hood sent straight to the sewer during his high school days. The Rivals five-star recruit, and No. 1 player in the state out of Charlotte Catholic, originally committed to Notre Dame in lieu of reigning national champion Florida State, Clemson, Georgia, Ohio State and a slew of other competitive programs.
Now, the 6-foot, 220-pound freshman running back is in Chapel Hill after a change of heart, he explained via his Twitter account. The North Carolina native decommitted from the Fighting Irish and later deemed himself a Tar Heel.
“I think it was family. I love the state, I love the people here,” Hood said. “I’m really comfortable, and I could get a great education here. I know a lot of people here. I’m just as comfortable here as anywhere else.”
Saturday, he’ll have to face the very same people he turned his back on at Notre Dame when UNC travels to South Bend, Ind., to take on the Fighting Irish.
