Bunting Talks About Recruiting Puff Thomas, AJ Davis

James Webster was the recruiting coach on Thomas. Isaiah was the son of a preacher. He had a great family. Rev. Thomas was very dynamic. Webster and I actually attended a service that Reverend Thomas conducted. People were getting charged up during the service and sometimes they would get up and take off and run around. At one point I felt like getting up and running around myself, it was so exciting.

I remember when the offering plate got passed, I think I put a $20 bill in there and I looked over and Webster’s writing a check. I was wondering to myself, "I wonder how much he’s writing that for," and "I wonder if this is NCAA legal?"

I think we had him all the way, for close to a month as a commitment. When it got down to the final weekend, we had already had him over for an official visit. We were trying to get him over for one more unofficial visit.

That weekend was the weekend of the Super Bowl. Starting on Friday afternoon, we couldn’t find him. I don’t think he was at school so the high school coach didn’t know where he was. There was no record of him being there. Saturday we couldn’t find him. Sunday, the day of the Super Bowl, we couldn’t find him. Signing Day is coming up on Wednesday.

Monday comes around, we can’t find him. Tuesday … he has disappeared. He has gone off the radar screen. We have no idea where he is, we can’t find him and obviously we are worried sick about what’s going on.

We came to find out, this was the infamous Chuck Amato "Come to me" signing over the telephone to A.J. and getting him over on campus. We later found that A.J. possibly went off campus with either other recruits or other players, to watch the Super Bowl at some undisclosed location. We were hot that all of that had taken place and now we’re going into Wednesday morning, Signing Day. Of course his scholarship papers never showed up for us. They showed up over in Raleigh.