Football families

Football families are in every state, every city, but there are a few households where the pigskin just happens to be not only in the genes, but at the dinner table. Here's a few football families of the modern era that have become household words (no pun intended).
THE BOOTY CLAN
This Shreveport, Louisiana family first hit radar screens across the South when as a junior, Josh Booty became LSU's primary quarterback in 1999. It marked the second Booty on the roster for LSU, Josh's brother Abram was a receiver. That year Abram only caught 26 for 374 yards and 2 touchdowns, second only to Jerel Myers' 854 yards. Booty's best game was LSU's 23-42 loss to #25 Ole Miss, catching 5 passes for 86 yards and 2 touchdowns.The Shreveport area had known about the Bootys for some time.
Abram, at Evangel Christian Academy, had 5,867 receiving yards and 83 receiving touchdowns, setting the national high school record.
Brother Josh also excelled in baseball as a shortstop. He is currently a free agent after being waived by the Oakland Raiders. As quarterback in high school, he threw for 11,700 yards and 126 touchdowns, becoming the first high school player in history to throw for more than 10,000 yards (all this despite missing the last four games of his senior year due to a broken hand).
As a result of his performance Booty was named the USA Today Offensive Player of the Year and was named the National High School Player of the Year by at least six associations, including Parade and the Football News.As a shortstop, he was a four-time All-State choice. As a senior, he batted .429 with 20 walks. He was also the starting shortstop for the U.S. Junior Olympic National Team that won the silver medal. He was the 5th pick overall in the 1994 Major League Baseball Draft by the Florida Marlins. Then there's kid brother and current USC quarterback John David Booty. He is believed to be the first player ever to leave high school a whole year early to play college football.


THE MANNING FAMILY
Super Bowl-winning quarterback Payton Manning and his younger brother Eli are both star in the NFL. But as kids, the Manning boys had oldest brother Cooper as a target. Cooper, a wide receiver, went to Mississippi but never played a game for the Rebels. A spinal cord disorder left him prone to serious injury. Before that misfortune, Cooper, then a senior at New Orleans Newman High, caught 80 passes from Peyton. Cooper was an all-state receiver twice.


The Faulk brood
Kevin Faulk was highly sought when he came out of Carencro High School in Carencro, Louisiana in 1993. At Carencro, Faulk rushed for 4,877 yards on 603 carries (8.1 yards per carry).
At LSU, Faulk rushed for 4,557 yards in 41 games, which was 2nd best in SEC history behind the legendary Herschel Walker of Georgia (5,259 yards in 33 games).
Although they can't discern immediate bloodlines the Kevin and Marshall Faulk are no doubt related somewhere down the line.
Marshall came to national prominence in one game where he ran all over the University of the Pacific in just his second collegiate start. In 37 carries, he racked up 386 yards and scored seven touchdowns, both NCAA records for a freshman, and built on this performance throughout the year. Faulk was drafted 2nd overall in the 1994 NFL Draft by the Indianapolis Colts, who were in desperate need of a running game. Faulk responded by rushing for 1,282 yards, 11 touchdowns, but was traded to the St. Louis Rams for two low draft picks after 4 years. In this offense he put up some of the best all-purpose numbers in the history of the NFL.

THE CLAUSEN BOYS
The Clausen boys of California are unique in that they all are quarterbacks. The eldest is Casey Clausen who in 2000 entered the collegiate world by played his first game for the Tennessee Volunteers, going 12-of-15 for 133 yards and three touchdowns in a 70-3 romp of Louisiana-Monroe.
As Casey went to the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs, brother Rick Clausen joined the LSU Tigers as a freshman and was on the squad when LSU upsets the Vols 31-20 in the SEC championship. Their younger brother Jimmy Clausen has caused the Clausen name to be uttered anew as the freshly miinted quarterback at Notre Dame. Jiimmy came to college football with several accolades, one of which is that he's never lost a game he's started (42-0 in high school).
He also holds the California state record for careeer touchdowns (144).

Let's get one thing straight: Saban didn't save LSU, Dinardo did

Lately all I've been hearing is this "Nick Saban took LSU to prominence" yada yada. Yeah, we won a championship with the guy, but we would have done that with Dinardo, I believe. Dinardo's work too often goes unnoticed when talking about restoring the luster to the Purple-and-Gold. The prized recruits didn't start with Saban, no it was Gerry Dinardo who brought in the big guns: Anthony McFarland from Winnsboro, Kevin Faulk from Carencro and Herb Tyler from the N.O. in 1995. The next year he brought in, to me, his most talented recruit and troubled, Cecil "The Diesel" Collins of Leesville. In 1997 he got Rohan Davey from Hialeah, Fla., Abram Booty (brothers of USC quarterback John David Booty, along with former LSU qb Josh) from Shreveport.
In 1998, Josh Reed was sheperded in from Rayne and Chad Lavalais from Marksville. Dinardo was ousted after the 1999 season (class of Bradie James, LaBrandon Toefield) and a Mr. Nick Saban was ushered in. Saban simply built on the foundation that Dinardo had set. Saban's 1st recruiting class was a worse dude than Dinardo's last. But by his second go-round Saban brought in a windfall recruiting class such as quarterback Rick Clausen from Woodlawn Hills, Calif., and Joseph Addai from Houston, Tx, and wideout Michael Clayton from Baton Rouge, Travis Daniels, Marquis Hill, Marcus Spears, aahhh, this is where the cement was set. We can't forget about a little known transfer by the name of Matt Mauck. But let's back up a bit: It was Dinardo that showed the LSU faithful that they too could bring the recruits like the Okahomas and Miamis of the world. It was Dinardo that showed the LSU faithful that they could have an embarrassment of riches at one position when it introduced a pick-your-poison backfield of Cecil Collins, Kevin Faullk and Rondell Mealey in 1997. Faulk was the super-producer and heralded veteran who became a possible afterthought after Cecil Collins showed he could produce in one half what Mealey and Faulk would take a game to get.(Collins was suspended for the 97 opener, and constantly in DiNardo's doghouse. Still, he was the nation's top Division I-A rusher — more than 8 yards a carry — before breaking his leg in the team's fifth game.) Actually it was at the hands of Dinardo that Saban first caught a glimpse of the SEC speed and power he would later craft into his own. At the end of the 1995 season, a 7-3-1 Tiger team rolled into Shreveport and made short work of Saban's Michigan State team, 45-26. It cemented in his mind then, that SEC speed, particularly a middle-of-the-pack team like LSU, might be a notch above the rest. Saban said about the game: "The one thing that impressed me the most, just being around the band and the whole school, you got the feeling that LSU was a high profile program. The way everybody responded to the fight song reminded me of what great pride they took in LSU. You could sense a real state pride." Lest we forget it was Dinardo that first beat a No. 1 team in Tiger Stadium (Florida in 1997, which effectively ended the Spurrier dominance of the SEC.). It was Dinardo that energized the state after the Curley Hallman years. And it was Dinardo that made it to the ever-elusive 10-win season in 1996. Dinardo was fired deep into the 1999 season and the university scoured the earth to find said Saban. He spoke about coming to Louisiana to big the big fish in the water and the "flagship" of the state, something his Michigan State Spartans never were, thanks to the maize and blue Wolverines. Saban meanwhile crosses the proverbial dirt in the sand by joining the Crimson Tide. Nov. 3 can't come soon enough, my friend.