Sometimes You Eat the Bear, And Sometimes the Bear Eats All Your Snacks and Transfers Out

Oregon won a commitment from USC Trojan former Georgia Bulldog defensive tackle Bear Alexander yesterday, a 6-3, 315 four-star defensive tackle from Terrell, Texas. The player announced it himself on social media, and within minutes a dozen Duck news outlets strove to fashion it into a scoop, although Mike Torres of On3 Sports predicted it yesterday

Alexander is so big and strong that he wears a number in the 90s, something only really big guys do, generally. It just fits, reminding football fans everywhere of the reliable adage, "You can't coach size." You can't, but in his three years of college football The Bear has cooked up 61 tackles in 28 games with 3.5 career sacks. 

His career has been a bit frustrating, more like a poorly-training circus bear rather than a ferocious Big Sky Country grizzly spearing salmon with one giant paw. This season Tosh Lupoi and defensive line coach Tony Tuioti unleashed Derrick Harmon as a disruptive inside rusher, and Harmon was so fierce and productive that he's played his way into the top half of the first round of the NFL draft, a position that will earn him a signing bonus in the neighborhood of $25 million this April. That's a very nice neighborhood, one that will grant his mother a new house in a much nicer neighborhood by this time next year.

Terrell is historically a railroad town with an Army base, 32 miles east of Dallas. Already Bear is the biggest thing to come out of Terrell other than actor Jamie Foxx, though Alexander has already had a taste of the big time, leaving home first for Denton Ryan , then Dallas Skyline High as a high schooler, then the IMG Academy in Las Vegas, then Georgia as a four-star recruit to the #1 team in the country, then the Trojans.

His mentor Torry Jones told ESPN, "We made clear what our goals are. . . That goal is to be a full-time starter and leader on the defense like we came there to be... If Bear not being a starter and playing 35 or 40 snaps, a game isn't in the best interest of the team... We need to do something different."