In 1991, Oliver Stone’s generally well-received JFK reopened the public door to the darkest corners of our neurosis on the eponymous president’s death. Through the course of the movie, main character Jim Garrison – played by Kevin Costner before he walked off the deep end – is gradually consumed by the murder conspiracies that continue to dart in and out of the mist.

He’s never quite able to grab hold of them. In his final speech to jurors, Garrison famously asserts that the conspiracy burns up the wick to the head of the candle, to the White House and the Pentagon. Despite Garrison’s relatively coherent arguments to this point – suspicions around the autopsy, ballistic inconsistencies – the courthouse gasps. Some chuckle incredulously.

It’s such a fantastical leap to get from where he was to where he finished. Despite the fact that he might’ve been exploring in the right neighborhood, he never built a bridge to that idea. We couldn’t follow him. The mere idea that Lyndon Johnson was somehow implicated? That triggered the public conspiracy catch, and now you’re gone. He’s lost you.

The leap Garrison takes here is powerful, both for his utter conviction and our inability to follow him there. There is an inherent mental net that prevents most of us from falling into those deep conspiratorial cracks. But the idea’s germ is always born from some segment of reality. The details around JFK’s death are suspicious. Oswald’s timeline does raise unanswered questions. Ruby’s involvement is curious. But to grasp at a systemic conspiracy? CIA document #1345-1057, the smoking gun Garrison wanted to access so badly in 1966, was finally declassified in 1993. Instead of proving Garrison’s theories, it only raised more questions.

This all brings us around to present day U.S. national team politics. There is little doubt that Jurgen Klinsmann is no MLS fanboy. And there’s also little question that he chooses his call-ups based on no litmus in particular, beyond the assessment provided by his assistants, scouts and his own experience. He does not value club form, let alone European club form, like he says he does. From 2013-2014, Brek Shea played 90 minutes on the club level twice in meandering stints with several clubs in England. Twice. Over that same span, he earned 14 caps with the U.S. national team. Most of them were not particularly fruitful. There are plenty of other examples. Julian Green played in a World Cup match, for one.

This is not an indictment, just an acknowledgment that for all Klinsmann’s rhetoric about needing to test yourself against the best, it doesn’t have much bearing on your call-up status. In the end, that’s probably a good thing.

On this score, the public reaction to Klinsmann’s decision to start Stanford sophomore Jordan Morris in last week’s Mexico friendly is curious. Much of it (dare I say most of it?) has been generally positive. Morris scored. Aside from a few nervous yips common in first starts (let alone against freaking Mexico), his stint was generally positive. As a latecomer to the USMNT prospect scene (he didn’t become a youth national team target at all until 2013), all this seemed to augur positive things. There are always spots for technically able forwards with jets like these.

Ah, but there are Garrisons among us.

The conspiracies have spidered off into several directions, but Taylor Twellman’s popular tweet in the aftermath of Morris’ call-up served as a beacon for theorists willing to trigger that conspiracy catch in all of us. Twellman, of course, asked what this means in a grand sense that a college player scored a goal for the U.S. national team. Is the pool in bad shape because a college kid scored? Twellman clarified on World Soccer Talk by saying this.

“Does it say that the academy system is the right way to go? Does it say that college is completely a useless waste of time? Are there mixed messages from Jurgen Klinsmann? He’s saying the players aren’t fit and need to test themselves in Europe. Well, Jordan Morris isn’t doing that. Miguel Ibarra isn’t doing that… What’s the state of U.S. Soccer at the present time? Because quite honestly, that goal and that statement on April 15, 2015, if that’s not asking the right questions and raising the right debate, then what are we doing this for?”

The wheel turns. Klinsmann passed over MLS players to choose Morris, who notably turned down the Seattle Sounders to stay at Stanford and earn toward a degree. The dangerously potent idea that Klinsmann hates MLS and will undermine it wherever possible – a Garrisonistic idea rooted in fact that you never built a bridge toward – has taken root here. Whether or not it’s a smaller subsection of the populace, it’s virulent enough to take Twellman and others in that direction.

@WillParchman Yea, he could hypothetically be a MLS player right now. Does that mean he deserves a start over 2 solidified MLS strikers? No — Austin Moore Farrow (@CominWithMoore) April 19, 2015

Deserves a start. As if that was quantifiable to begin with.

There is no conspiracy here. Klinsmann is not needling MLS by calling up Jordan Morris. His start and subsequent goal say nothing about the state of U.S. Soccer (and U.S. soccer) as a whole. Neither is poking MLS by making the point that it has failed to corral the country’s best young players. It was not a slight to other players not picked, professional though they may be. The underwhelming but vastly misunderstood college system is not on trial by proxy. The academy alone will not save us by comparison.

This is such a blindingly individual and unique circumstance that to extrapolate it into a clarion call for soccer justice is missing the point. Morris values school. He values soccer too, but only one between U.S. Soccer and MLS allows him to do both at the same time right now. Whatever you think Morris is doing to his development, know that he was a late-bloomer anyway. Comb through our article archives on Morris if you want. We had 12 stories that mentioned Morris from 2010-2012. From 2013-present: 77. For those of us who’ve actually seen him play a fair bit for Stanford, college soccer isn’t ruining him. It’s keeping him warm.

When I say I understand where these Klinsmann-backed conspiracy theories come from, I’m acknowledging they largely don’t spring from the minds of the insane. They are rooted in the factual before tripping the incredulity wire in most of our psyches. For all his gilded rhetoric, Klinsmann’s call-up policy boils down to a single, baseline truth: if you’re good enough, you’re good enough. Whatever he says about Europe or the Champions League or winter schedules, he plays along no generational or cultural lines. There is no ageism, no favorite league, no professional playing time requirement. If Klinsmann likes what he sees, you’ll find yourself in a camp soon enough.

And that’s it. There is no Great Jordan Morris conspiracy. It’s just that he fit the requirement. He was good enough.