Ochocinco Training with Hurricane Players Just Another Recruiting Tool for Golden

For every blast against the Hurricane fan base, there's South Beach and the beautiful weather, hip clubs, and scantily-clad women that traverse both.

For each dig at the facilities, there's still that little ol' pipeline to the NFL (with Miami placing 8 players in the 2011 NFL Draft, 3rd most of all schools).

Want to slam the ACC slate?  Try regular high-profile non-conference games against teams like Ohio State, Notre Dame, Florida, Texas A&M, etc etc.

Heck, even Lebron James chose South Beach.

There's a lot for a young 17-18-year old athlete to love about coming to South Florida for his college football experience.  National exposure. Tossing winter clothes in the garbage. You name it.

However, when you have the opportunity to interact and train with NFL players, that even gets a beer-bellied 30-something geek like me ready to put on the cleats and get in the car.  Miami native Chad Ochocinco, per his twitter account, worked out with Jacory Harris, Travis Benjamin, Davon Johnson, and LaRon Byrd yesterday in Miami, which was supported by the picture he tweeted of all of them on the practice field together in workout clothes.  Maybe just another day in the life of Chad, but all Hurricane participants seemed to be pretty stoked based on their retweets, and you can imagine it would be a big sell to a high school senior.

Countless pro athletes live and work out in South Florida in their respective offseasons....more than I need to waste time putting out there.  The opportunity to line up with and learn from professionals is something that is much more likely in the 305 than, say, Manhattan, KS.....or maybe even Columbus, OH. 

If I'm Al Golden, I'm frantically putting that twitter nugget in my recruiting pipe and smoking it.  After all, haven't you heard the one about the Hurricanes and their half-empty stadium???