Nobody ****ed up anything. They put in projections for all the top kids. All the time. They're not trying to "undo" any ****ups. They're just trying to make this all as dramatic as they possibly can. If they say "he's going to UGA, no need to pay attention", how much traffic does the site get? How many views does the stream get? How many people say "on3"? Or "247?
But if they do this, how many people click all day long? How many folks decide OK, I really need to see what's up with this kid, I'm going to push away from the dock and sign up for a subscription?
There's your answer.