Reaction already pouring in before new college football book hits stores

Just because the controversy swirling around Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel is calmed with a half-game suspension, that definitely doesn't put an end to the off-field melodrama that is joined at the hip with college football.

There is a major storm brewing on college football's horizon. At the eye of the storm is a book that is a must-read for hardcore college football fans who want to know the truth about "The System."

Even before it hits the stands, the forthcoming book by CBS News Reporter Armen Keteyian and Sports Illustrated's Jeff Benedict, "The System: The Glory and the Scandal of Big-Time College Football", is already having a tsunami-like effect on many involved in the sport.

Among many stories, the book tells of a $300,000 offer to Texas A&M freshman wide receiver Ricky Seals Jones. The player's father, Chester Jones, reiterated to Yahoo Sports' Dan Wetzel Wednesday that two schools, one from the SEC and one from the ACC, each offered $600,000 for the player's signature on a letter of intent. Texas A&M was not one of the schools, he says.

And that pre-action to the as-yet unpublished book may be a harbinger of numerous tales to come that could make Johnny Football's offseason calamities look like stupid, adolescent behavior that was only news because this adolescent has a Heisman Trophy.

"'The System' is what runs college football and it both entertains and builds people and institutions up and it tears them down," Keteyian says. "You can be used by it, abused by it, churned up by it. So many people have had their life changed by getting in the middle of it, for better and worse."

Keteyan, whose investigative work has been featured on CBS's 60 Minutes, did a lot of digging for this book, and not all of it was dirt.

Although it tells positive and negative stories about "The System", the book has so many intriguing recruiting tales that Manziel would not have time to read a third of them while he sits out his half-game suspension against Rice. Perhaps the reason his penalty is so light is that, based on stories in and reaction from the book, Manziel's autograph has been seriously devalued.

While some of the recruiting practices outlined in the book are hard to financially quantify -- especially those very specific tales about using "hostesses" to lure high school recruits "who only have one thing on their mind," according to one "hostess" -- Seals-Jones' father gave up some impressive numbers.

Seals-Jones was the top-rated high school recruit in 2013, a 6-5, 230-pound wide receiver out of Sealy, Texas, who originally committed to Texas before signing with A&M.

In the book, according to the players' father, the Jones family was targeted by a "top-20 program" -- not A&M -- to receive use of a luxury suite during the season, eight season tickets, $1,000 a month for the player, $500 for the family and that $300,000 in cash.

In a matter of hours Wednesday, Chester Jones verified with Wetzel that the amount was more than $300,000 -- citing the $600,00 figure -- and then, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, tried to move away from the discussion of money altogether.

"If you don't know facts, don't say that," he told the Chronicle. "People said all these kinds of schools are offering us all this. I don't know about all that. ... I put people in check and I was on top of it.

"I said, 'My son is good enough to make it without doing anything illegal.' I don't play that. Because you're putting your son in jeopardy and yourself, too. I told Ricky, 'There's three things you have to remember son.' I said, 'You have to put God first, family and yourself, and if you keep it in that order, you'll be fine. If you get it out of order any kind of way with them, then the same is going to happen to you.'"

Along with several interesting snippets from the book, Wetzel points out that, at this stage, it is difficult to think that Jones' original allegations will go anywhere, especially since there were no improper benefits received or schools specifically named for the NCAA to interrogate.

Whatever happened, A&M does have that top recruit as a huge target for Manziel, as soon as he serves that half-game suspension.

--Team correspondents for The Sports Xchange contributed material for this story.