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If you haven't read the news, Michael over at Braves & Birds - The Atlanta Sports Blog has been reading our site and decided to write an essay on the topic of oversigning and the nature of our website.  Michael is an Attorney from Atlanta, Georgia, we on the other had are not attorneys (we didn't even sleep at a Holiday Inn, but we're going to give this a go anyways), but we did we bounce emails back and forth with Michael and he seems like a personable guy, not to mention he has been blogging since we were in diapers. 

So let's take a look at the article.

"I've been reading Oversigning.com over the past few weeks and enjoying the discussion. The authors there take a much harder line on oversigning than I would and at times, their writing devolves into unhinged attacks on the SEC from every angle. (Comparing endowments? Really?) In those instances, they come across as excuse-making Big Ten fans who want to justify the fact that SEC teams have won more national titles in the past four years than Big Ten teams have won in the last forty."

Yeah, we're pretty hardcore on the topic of oversigning.  People write about it from time to time, especially during the off-season and around signing day, but we are the first and only website completely dedicated to the topic.  Why?  Two reasons: 1.) During the 2007 during the National Championship game, we saw a graphic that showed the number of players signed in each of LSU's and Ohio State's previous 5 recruiting classes: LSU 28, 26, 13,  26, and 26 = 119 and Ohio State 16, 24, 18, 20, and 15 = 93.  A difference of 26 players, or essentially an entire recruiting class.  That raised an eyebrow.  It was the first time we could remember a broadcast ever showing those kind of numbers.  2.) A couple of months later we saw Nick Saban on ESPN battling it out with a local sports reporter over his recruiting numbers which led us to this link.  That raised a second eyebrow.  The thing that really got us going was Nick Saban saying:

"It's none of your business.  Aiight?  And don't give me this stuff about the fans need to know, because they don't need to know."

Something about that has always bothered us.  It wreaks of someone having something to hide. 

Unhinged attacks on the SEC.  Have we attacked the SEC, probably so, has it been unhinged, no not really.  If we were attacking the ACC for oversigning, then it would be considered unhinged, but to take the conference with the worst problem with oversigning to task is not unhinged attacking in our opinion.  Calling out the SEC for running off Georgia Tech, Tulane, and Sawenee isn't really all that unhinged either, in our opinion, it's more like factual history.  The post regarding endowments was a follow up on two fronts: 1.) Texas joining the Big 10, and 2.) The SEC running off academic universities because of disagreements on athletic competition, specifically football, and how that has left them poorly positioned in terms of adding a powerhouse like Texas who wouldn't consider joining the SEC back in the 90's because of the poor academic standards.  Again, those are facts, not unhinged attacks. 

Click the link to continue reading >>>

More from the essay:

"The Invisible Hand: The notion that the Oversigning.com authors like to advance is that Nick Saban has an advantage over more ethical coaches because he signs the equivalent of an extra recruiting class every five years and then weeds through the players. However, if the scenario that I'm describing above is correct, then Saban and other oversigning coaches aren't getting a boost from oversigning because they aren't the ones picking which players stay and which players go. Grades and standardized test scores are doing the culling, or at least a lot of the culling."

We agree with Michael that in some cases the coaches can't control which players are being culled; those cases are academic failures and criminal offenders, which in our opinion represents about 1/3 of all attrition, the rest being injury, transferring, being cut, or quiting football all together.  Here is an example.

We would agree with Michael's position more if all of the "uncontrollable" culling took place before signing day, but the fact that coaches sign way more than they have room for and then depend on "natural" attrition screams of a system that has failed the players.  And again, there are a number of very competitive programs that do not have these problems. 

Regardless, there is no question that coaches like Saban come in and gut the roster and replace it with 4 and 5 star talent.  They don't have a choice.  The demands to win right away dictate that coaches do whatever is necessary to win immediately or be shown the door; Nick Saban is not getting $40 Million Dollars to come in and mentor young men and gradually bring the Alabama program back, he is being paid that kind of money to win a National Championship in 2-3 years, period.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is either a homer fan of a coach that oversigns and has success doing so or someone without enough sense to get under an umbrella when it's raining. 

Quick Rant: Let's think about the big picture for just a second.   A coach like Nick Saban is going to make $40 million dollars over the next 8 years.  He has financial security, all coaches do, through contract buyout clauses, etc.  If a coach wants to leave, he can leave at the drop of a hat and go coach at another school right away, sure there might be a buyout clause or something, but usually the school a coach jumps to will cover that expense.  Regardless, the point we are making is that the coaches hold ALL OF THE CARDS.  What do the players have?  If a player wants to transfer he has to sit out a year with no guarantees, etc.  They are not being paid (outside of their scholarship which pales in comparison to the amount of revenue they generate and the amount of money the NCAA and Coaches make), and in some cases not even all of their expenses are covered.  Don't believe us, look here.  The players don't even have the security of a 4 year "contract" or scholarship.  Oversigning has been an ethical issue for decades and decades, but there is just something even worse about it now when you have coaches making MILLIONS of dollars in the process.

Back to the essay:

"The rest is done by Saban, but it's important to determine how he's doing it. There are two possibilities, each that would lead to a separate judgment. In Scenario One, Saban tells a player that he has been passed on the depth chart by younger players and that it is unlikely that the player will see the field at Alabama. The player is welcome to stay, but he will be making all of the sacrifices of a college football player in terms of time and physical commitments without getting the benefit of playing on Saturday. The player then decides to transfer. Take Nick Fanuzzi, for example. Fanuzzi knows that he is unlikely to be a starter at Alabama. He has the chance to transfer to Rice, where he's likely to be a starter and get a great education. He is aware of Joe Flacco's career path, in which Flacco transferred from Pitt to Delaware so he could see the field and Flacco ended up as a first round draft pick. Why wouldn't Fanuzzi transfer? And what's wrong with that result? Should we punish Saban for being honest? Would we prefer it if he strung players along with the promise of playing time, only for some of those players to wake up as upperclassmen, knowing that it's too late to transfer and they have lost their chances at seeing the field?"

Here again, we agree with Michael.  There is nothing extremely evil with this scenario but there are two things we don't like: 1. Fanuzzi has to sit out a year if he transfers, and 2. what if Alabama was his dream school and he passed up other scholarship offers to come to Alabama?  Why should Fanuzzi be punished for the University hiring a new coach and that new coach bringing in better talent or deciding to go another direction that didn't include certain players that were already at the school?  Our position is that if Fanuzzi is taking care of business in the classroom and abiding by all of the team rules, he should be given the opportunity to finish what he started at Alabama if he so desires.   To bring in more players than you have room for and then rely on a guy like Fanuzzi to transfer out just doesn't seem like it is in line with the spirit of college athletics - fans need to remember, this is not professional sports, this is not a farm league, this is college athletics where we are supposed to be dealing with student-athletes.

Here's the real rub though, and it falls in line with the competitive advantage aspect of this topic.  It's one thing to have regular numbers and have a player transfer because he's not seeing enough playing time due to the competition currently on the roster, etc.  That is normal and 99% of the time the decision comes from the player with little or no pressure from the coach.  However, when you have a situation where the coach is over his numbers and he needs to start shedding players to get under the limit it causes unnecessary attrition.  So not only was Fanuzzi competing against the talent currently on the roster, he was completing against potential recruits coming in (and not necessarily guys at his position), and further, these were recruits that might not have been able to come in because of scholarship limitations but were able to get in due to oversigning.  Nick Fanuzzi did not have to leave Alabama, but by Saban oversigning, when Fanuzzi did leave Saban was not left with a hole in the roster, instead he gained a spot to fill with new talent.   Why should Saban have that advantage?  Since Fanuzzi's departure from the team, Alabama has signed 4 QB prospects, one of which was 4 star AJ McCarron.

That said, in Fanuzzi's case, he did land on his feet at Rice and he will get a good education in the process - good on Fanuzzi for not quiting football and continuing.  Many others don't go that route.  Most get bounced down to division II or eventually fade out.

The second possibility:

"In Scenario Two, Saban either tells a player directly that he needs to transfer or implies it with something along the lines of "we're going to make your life very difficult." If that's the case, then the Oversigning.com authors are absolutely right that Saban and other coaches like him in the SEC are deriving a competitive advantage from bringing in large classes and then cutting players who don't pan out. I don't see any evidence of that occurrence, but maybe some media outlet will do some reporting on players in the Alabama Diaspora. I can't imagine that it would be very hard to get a former player to say bad things about Saban and his staff is they are indeed cutting people. I don't see any media outlet in the State of Alabama taking up the cause, but ESPN? Yahoo!? Sports Illustrated? If the story is there, they would be foolish not to take it. Media attention to cutting players should be one of the two checks on oversigning. The other is negative recruiting from rivals. If Alabama really is intentionally cutting ten players per year, then that would be an awfully effective recruiting tool for Urban Meyer or Mark Richt."

We just posted a piece on oversigning by ESPN's Outside the Lines, so there is reporting on the topic and Saban is called out for his recruiting practices.  There are also organizations such as http://www.ncpanow.org/ that are working hard to fight for player rights.  Also, Saban has been called out on this publicly by local media and beat writers, we posted a link to that above.  This topic will continue to have light shined on it and media outlets are more alert to the problem now than ever before.   Another thing to consider is that if a player comes out and publicly criticizes a coach for cutting him, too often fans will take it as the player whining.   Who do you think the Alabama faithful are going to side with, a cut player or Nick Saban?  This could change though, as we have seen this year, a lot of coaches were fired for mistreating players.  If Mike Leach can get fired for putting a player in a closet, then why shouldn't a coach get fired for intentionally running players off to get better talent?  Here again, this is not professional sports, this is college athletics and these are not paid professional athletes with contracts and bonuses, these are student-athletes and 18-20 kids.

Wrapping up:

"One legitimate criticism of Alabama and LSU is that those two schools have the recruiting cache to be more selective in taking players. To come back to the Ole Miss example, one can see why Ole Miss would go so hard after Jerrell Powe. Ole Miss does not have a huge recruiting profile, so they can't afford not to go after a five-star defensive tackle from the state, no matter how marginal his academics. (And before you mount your high horse, Oversigning.com, be prepared to defend some of the players that Michigan State has signed and then retained over the years. Desperation isn't the sole province of the SEC's middle and lower classes.)"

Michael is dead right here, Alabama and LSU have absolutely no business being so high on the list.  Not that we agree with it, but we can see why Ole Miss and Michigan State (although Michigan State numbers are far less)  sign more players or take more risks on borderline recruits.  They are trying to keep up with the elite programs who benefit more from tradition or better recruiting territories.  The problem is that oversigning is not the answer and the problem is exacerbated when coaches like Nick Saban use oversigning at a school like Alabama.

In terms of defending Michigan State's players, we're not sure what Michael is referring to, we looked at Michigan State's Fulmer Cup points and they have 3, Ole Miss has 10, Alabama 37, Penn State 38, and Ohio State 6, for whatever that's worth.  If Michigan State is having character issues they don't appear to be throwing guys off the team and replacing them, but again, our guess is that Michael knows more about this than we do and we do agree with him, desperation is not the sole province of the SEC's middle and lower classes.

Great stuff Michael, we really appreciate you writing and taking the time to share your point of view.  It appears that we agree in principle in some areas, but there is no question that we feel a little more strongly about oversigning and tend to see the evil in it more than you do.  But hey, we're the ones with the obsessive compulsive website named oversigning.com, we would look like idiots if an Atlanta Sports blogger felt more strongly about oversigning than we did...lol.

Cheers!