Jake Ganus' Amazing Journey from UAB to the SEC

When someone jerks the rug out from under you, you expect to fall down. So Jake Ganus had just enough time to panic before he realized: He was falling up.

Ganus was a star linebacker at Alabama-Birmingham finishing up his junior season when school president Ray Watts told the team Dec. 2 that UAB was dropping football for financial reasons. The meeting, recorded on someone's cellphone, went viral on YouTube (Warning: Video contains NSFW language), showing players crying, yelling and making fiery speeches. Ganus remembers the feeling—which surely every player on the team had—of wondering who would want him now?

Turns out, in Ganus' case, the answer was the SEC.

Ganus is now at the University of Georgia, having "fallen" from a small college team to the world of national TV, crazed fans and, well, practice fields, a locker room and a coach's office.

"It's first-class everything," he said. "Everything is amazing. I'm sure you've heard our facilities at UAB were not…uh, let's say there were certain high schools that had better facilities than us. But we never used that as getting down and saying, 'Oh, we lost because we didn't have an indoor facility.' It's not an excuse.

"Look, I wish we had a turf practice field, yes. I'd seen how nice they are at bigger schools, and I wouldn't say I was jealous, but I'd have loved to have had it."

One of the first things you notice while talking with Ganus is that he still calls UAB "we" or "us." The players were his family, and the place was the center of his goals for so long that no matter how well things have worked out, he brings the past with him.

It's as if he fell down an elevator shaft and landed on a lost lottery ticket that turned out to be a big winner—but he's still hurting from the fall.

Most UAB players have found a new place to play. Running back Jordan Howard and receiver Marqui Hawkins went to Indiana. Receiver Jamari Staples went to Louisville. Offensive lineman Victor Salako went to Oklahoma State. They fell up, too, though not as far as Ganus. Several players went to Georgia State or South Alabama or smaller schools in Montana, Kentucky, Tennessee or Massachusetts.

It's a broken family. But while its members spread out all over the country, they try to stay close.

Ganus led Georgia in tackles in the first two spring scrimmages and, he said, former players texted him congratulations. He represents them. He is competing for a starting job.

He is the face of UAB football.

There is still so much confusion and distrust about what really broke up the UAB program, whether it was really finances or backdoor politics.

The big picture is that this is just the new way of life for smaller college teams in the world of the College Football Playoff. The top five conferences have hoarded all the money and created a more uneven playing field than existed before. That makes it nearly impossible for the little guy to find the financial means to keep up.

But the small picture is more scrambled. Even as Ganus was talking with Bleacher Report, he started getting messages on his phone from ex-teammates to look at a particular story popping up on several websites about UAB. The school had hired private sports economists to conduct a study on the football program. Then, for some reason, UAB fired that firm and boosters picked up the bill. It showed that the football team hadn't been losing money and suggested that the school's projections of big future losses were highly overstated.

Without having read the story yet, the headline sent Ganus back into the past.

"A lot of my teammates were injured and playing through injuries," he said. "They did that for UAB. I haven't read the article, but if it's true, that wouldn't sit too well with me. When Watts came in there and addressed the team—you can see it on YouTube—people are asking 'Why, why?' And he just says it's about numbers and money.

"That's all he told us, that it's all about money. If it's true, then I guess he was wrong. I don't know. There's a lot of things I would say about it, but I don't want there to be a banner headline about a UGA player ripping the UAB president. I'll just say I hope it works out."

It certainly seems to be for Ganus.

He led UAB in tackles the past two seasons, but has just one year of eligibility left. He is still holding on to NFL dreams and needs to play another season. On top of that, at 6'2" and 227 pounds, he still needs another year in the weight room to get bigger.

"I was thinking, 'Is anyone going to want me?' " he said.

Ganus was barely even recruited out of high school, so even if he's motivated by the big time, it'd be hard to blame him for wondering deep down if he's really good enough to play there.

Georgia thinks he is. The school called him the day after UAB announced it was cutting the program. And then, suddenly, everyone started calling. Ganus said at least 40 schools called.

"I had mixed emotions about things," he said. "Hot and cold. I was still angry. But I felt like a hot recruit. Out of high school, I was recruited by UAB to play safety, and Navy and Air Force offered me to play quarterback."

Those were his only major college offers. He had grown up in Georgia and Alabama with dreams of playing at a big-time school, but by his sophomore year, it was clear that wasn't going to happen.

Now, all these years later, there he is.

"I think I got my whole two-year recruiting process in about 10 days," he said. "Every coach that was calling was like, 'Hey, it's Wednesday and we've got to get you on a plane. You've got to come for an official visit this weekend.' Everything was going 100 mph."

It has slowed down now, and all for the good. By the end of spring practices, Ganus seemed to be in a three-way competition for the two starting inside linebacker spots. He said his new teammates took him in immediately and that most of his business management credits at UAB transferred, so he should be able to graduate.

Now, he has one year left to live out his dreams, ones he'd already forgotten about. He says the opportunity was created by the hard work he put into practices, weightlifting and track sessions with one goal in mind: winning a Conference USA championship on the crummy equipment and practice fields he loved at UAB.

From that, he fell all the way to the top.

Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report. All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.