1. 

   Trent
   June 17th, 2010 - 07:51

   I can tell you that LSU’s Medical Hardship’s are truely that. Thomas Parsons has a neck/shoulder nerve injury and he can’t take another hit there. He was one of our starting fullbacks and is not being run off the team. In addition, John Williams has sufferen numerious concussions and it is in his best interest to get his degree and focus on planning for a future in the workforce. Also, of LSU’s 27 signed LOI’s for 2010, it appeares that 2 will not have the grades to qualify. That means LSU should be on 85 when fall camp begins. If anyone leaves the team over the summer, LSU will have an extra scolly to award a deserving walk-on.

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   • 

     Tre
     June 17th, 2010 - 10:17

     Zeke Knight was the same way at Bama. The kid collapsed on more than one occasion, had heart issues, and while everyone knew he wanted to play, he wouldnt listen to anyone telling him that he was risking his life to play.

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     • 

       James
       June 17th, 2010 - 10:34

       Medical hardships are slightly different than other forms of players leaving the program, in that once the player leaves, he can’t play for anybody else. Because they’re a last resort, I’m less suspicious of schools handing them out, though still suspicious in the wrong circumstances. I have no reason to believe that LSU is doing wrong, and only the slightest of reasons to believe Alabama is doing wrong. Testimony like yours about why the hardship scholarship was granted gives the school credibility.

       Be that as it may, I wonder: do coaches think about who they could get counted as medical hardships as buffers for oversigning? It’s almost impossible to know what they think, but I could see that influencing how many spots over 85 a coach goes and, if natural attrition doesn’t knock enough players out, he can “hardship” enough players to get to the limit.

       As it so happens, a player who could have been removed from my school’s team due to brain surgery last year has been cleared to play this year. I’m not totally sure on the details, but if he had been given a medical hardship scholarship, he couldn’t play. He stayed part of the team, and now we have one of our captains back.

       http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2010/06/moeller-cleared-to-play.html

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       • 

         deepsthboy
         June 17th, 2010 - 11:16

         Once again, you are engaging in idle speculation. Stop it.

         You have absolutely no idea what is going on in the event of a medical redshirt, but the NCAA does. As it should be. A fully licensed physician, who has no reason whatsoever to falsify an athlete’s medical history has to document and attest to the fact that the player is phyically unable to perform. The NCAA oversees this process. This is the reason that they haven’t asked you or anyone else to become involved with the proceeding. They have it covered amply.

         As for Tyler Moeller, he wasn’t declared a medical redshirt. Great. I hope he plays. What does have to do with another player who ISN’T able to play? Nothing. If Moeller’s doctor believes he is ready to play, that’s awesome. If some doctor that oversees the livelihood of the players at LSU or anywhere else determines they can’t play, then they can’t. It’s really as simple as that.

         As fo the average kid in the Big Ten vs. the average kid in the SEC and their grades, I urge you to look at both current as well as historical APR and GSR scores for SEC and Big Ten schools. That’s right. Look at ALL of the scores. DO that instead of heaping MORE idle and inane speculation on top of what you already have. It makes you look silly. Stop it.

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         • 

           Joshua
           June 17th, 2010 - 19:05

           No, they don’t (the NCAA) know exactly what is going on. All the NCAA does is gather the required paperwork and file it. They do not have a physician on staff to oversee the evaluations and they don’t conduct an exit interview for the players that are placed on medical waivers – all they do is shuffle papers and count to 25 and 85.

           It amazes me how you hold up the NCAA like it is the best run organization in the country – I would have loved to hear your comments on the NCAA and its ineptitude during the Alabama investigation on the Albert Means case – I’m sure you where hold them in the highest regard then as well.

           As for the doctors, surely you are not naive enough to think that just because a doctor is “fully licensed” that he or she is completely above board and completely ethical. What about all of the doctors that have supplied athletes with steroids or actors with pain pills – they must be a different brand of doctor than the ones that work for universities. I’m not saying all doctors are corrupt; I’m just saying that if your argument is that everything is on the up and up because a doctor is on call then you need to reconsider your position because you look like a fool.

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           • 

             deepsthboy
             June 17th, 2010 - 21:37

             So let me get this straight. You think that:

             1) Every time a kid gets a medical redshirt, the NCAA should get involved directly, to provide a second medical opinion, or to somehow ensure that the university didn’t hire a bogus doctor to perform the physical, even though the athlete and someone from the SID office is also swearing, by signing the paper that they agree with the doctor’s findings.

             2) The NCAA should perform a separate exit interview even though each university performs such an interview and no one from the athletic department is eligible to be a part of that interview.

             3) The NCAA just turns a blind eye to all of this “obvious abuse”.

             4) Universities like Alabama run around looking for Michael Jackson’s doctor to sign off on all their medical redshirt cases because, since there are people in every walk of life that are scumbags, surely school like Bama must have no problem finding those same scumbags to authenticate all of their cheating.

             Josh, it is you that looks like a fool, buddy. I would love to live in your alternate universe, just for a little while, to see what it’s like. Must be one helluva good buzz.

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     • 

       DP
       June 19th, 2010 - 10:21

       The author of this website obviously suggests with words like “cut” that Saban and others just lop off the kids who are down the depth chart. Zeke Knight was a starter at linebacker the year before his heart issues surfaced. The Alabama team doctors wouldn’t clear him to play, prompting the medical scholarship. If they cleared him to play and he died on the field, I have little doubt the author of this website would be pounding on Saban for putting wins and losses ahead of a player’s life. Darius McKellar is a medical hardship who was a highly recruited lineman that never practiced or played at Alabama because of recurring shoulder injuries. He was not cleared by the doctors after shoulder surgery, which is not uncommon. A good friend of mine has a son at Georgia who was a preferred walk on as an offensive lineman. He had a shoulder injury his senior season in high school, had surgery and rehabbed his first year at Georgia. The Georgia team doctor recently checked out his shoulder, said it had healed but his shoulder joints were too loose and it was inevitable that he would have more shoulder injuries (he had previously had surgery on the other shoulder). So they wouldn’t clear him to play, and he’s now out of football but still at UGA as a regular student. Had he been on a football scholarship I presume he’d have gone on medical scholarship.

       The author of this site lists players who are physically unable to play as “cut”. For a guy who claims to care about integrity, that’s a lack of integrity on his part.

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2. 

   deepsthboy
   June 17th, 2010 - 08:38

   But Trent, if Perkins’ neck can’t take another hit and he had to take a medical redshirt, then that implies that Miles did the right thing by oversigning. That seems to justify the practice. Imagine that. Same goes for taking into account the possibility that one or two kids might not make it with grades. And we know it’s not just SEC kids that have trouble with grades:

   http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/2358/ohio-state-recruit-hyde-likely-to-miss-season

   So in all of these cases, oversigning was a good solution, for both the affected kids AND the school? Wow!

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   • 

     James
     June 17th, 2010 - 10:11

     Once again, you’re acting in bad faith. Stop it.

     When a school oversigns, they are doing it with the knowledge that, if there are more than 85 scholarship athletes on the roster by the start of the season, they HAVE to cut players then and there, which gives the school lots of bad publicity. Therefore, if a school oversigns, it has a strong incentive to nudge (or shove) players out of the program. Whether you like it or not, schools that habitually oversign face greater scrutiny than those who don’t and even those who oversign less frequently, because schools that don’t oversign have no reason to want attrition, while schools that do oversign need it to avoid the bad publicity. This means that every Alabama departure, like transferee Star Jackson, has a question hanging over it: would this athlete have left the program if Alabama didn’t have five other quarterbacks? Would this student have taken the medical hardship scholarship if LSU hadn’t oversigned, instead of taking up a roster position and not playing?

     You point at Carlos Hyde failing to qualify his freshman year as evidence that Big Ten recruits (or at least Ohio State) have trouble with grades, too. You’re right that it happens up north too, although I’m pretty sure the average Big Ten recruit has better grades and is more likely to go straight from high school to college than the average SEC recruit. The answer, however, is not oversigning. The goal should be to have 85 scholarships on the roster at National Signing day, and if/when attrition occurs, the answer is to grant scholarships to walk-ons or just play below the maximum number of scholarships allowed. For example, let’s say Central Michigan starts off with 85, but has one arrest, two academic wash-outs, and one medical issue. They would certainly drop the academic issues, but they might keep the arrested student and medical issue student on the roster, with the hope that the first student would get his act together and the second student would heal or at least continue to be part of the team. Because they don’t oversign, there is less attrition. On the other hand, let’s say Akron starts off with 90 and has the same scenario. In that case, they would absolutely drop all four, because they have to get down to 85 and their excuse for cutting the arrested and medical hardship players is good enough.

     I wish you cared about academic integrity and competitive fairness. If you did, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

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3. 

   DP
   June 19th, 2010 - 10:34

   “There’s that medical hardship scholarship again. It’s becoming the perfect solution to solving number issues with the roster; the player gets to continue his education on scholarship which helps the school avoid APR issues and it frees up a football scholarship to give to a new player that is not injured or injury prone. There is no limit to the number of players you can place on medical hardship scholarships and all the NCAA requires is a signature by the player agreeing to take the medical waiver and a signature from a doctor.”

   There’s your axe to grind and lack of integrity rearing its head again. When a player goes on a medical hardship scholarship he can’t play football again at that school. Why would a kid who was physically OK (as you imply) take a medical scholarship instead of transferring and playing at another school? Take a look on YouTube for Ivan Matchett, a running back from Mobile, who was a member of Alabama’s 2008 recruiting class but never played because of physical problems (a severe back injury if I recall correctly). Watch that video and tell me Saban ran him off before he ever played at Alabama. And the same goes for Darius McKellar, a highly recruited offensive lineman who was recently placed on a medical hardship scholarship because his shoulder did heal well enough after surgery to allow him to play again.

   Speaking of integrity, could you explain why Ohio State hasn’t handed back its 2002 national championship in light of the payola and academic scandals with Maurice Clarett and other players? Your concern about the integrity of college football programs appears to be very selective.

   http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=1919059

   “Clarett says that while he was at Ohio State in 2002 and 2003 head coach Jim Tressel, as well as certain members of his staff and boosters, provided him with improper benefits. He says he covered up Tressel’s improprieties during the NCAA investigation and afterward, Ohio State “blackballed” him from the football program.

   According to Clarett, Tressel arranged loaner cars for him and Tressel’s brother, Dick, found him lucrative landscaping jobs that he did not even have to show up for. He says members of Tressel’s staff also introduced him to boosters who’d slip him thousands of dollars, and the better he played, the more cash he’d receive. He says boosters eventually began inviting him into their homes or would meet him out in the community.

   “When you’d leave, [the booster] sets you straight,” Clarett told The Magazine. “They say, ‘You got any money in your pocket?’ They make sure your money’s straight.”

   Clarett also says he likely would have been ineligible for Ohio State’s national title season of 2002 if the football staff had not “aligned” him with an academic advisor whose goal was simply to keep him eligible. He says the academic advisor enrolled him in Independent Study courses and also put him with hand-picked teachers who would pass him whether he attended their classes or not. He says his advisor also introduced him to a tutor who prepared outlines and told him what to write for assignments.

   Another former Ohio State player, linebacker Marco Cooper (2000-01; Spring 2002), corroborated many of Clarett’s comments. Cooper, who was suspended from the team following two arrests for drug possession, says he also had bogus landscaping jobs, that a booster helped furnish his apartment, and that he was able to borrow cars from local Columbus dealerships in exchange for signed OSU memorabilia.

   In a story separate from the Clarett issue, another former Ohio State player, current Maryland running back Sammy Maldonado, says he was placed in so many courses that did not put him on the road to graduation that only 17 of a possible 40 credits earned would transfer to his new school.”

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   • 

     Joshua
     June 19th, 2010 - 11:56

     The NCAA investigated Ohio State regarding the Clarett situation and the found that there was no wrong doing by Ohio State. Pretty cut and dry, there were accusations of wrong-doing, those accusations were investigated to the full extend by the NCAA and they found that Ohio State did nothing wrong.

     It is duly noted that you guys continue to want to make this about Ohio State vs. Alabama – the topic here is oversigning, but if you want to dig up the case logs for NCAA violations and go back in history and look at who has cheated the most we can gladly do that – it’s just not the focus of this site.

     Lastly, we never claimed any coach or program is completely clean, we have provided examples of recruiting practices with regards to oversigning.

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     • 

       DP
       June 19th, 2010 - 17:42

       Yeah, I’m sure Ohio State was squeaky clean on Clarett. He’s a fine young man who never had his hand out for anybody. And I’m sure he was a scholar in the Ohio State tradition, like Andy Katzenmoyer. And Jim Tressel was a paragon of virtue at Youngstown State even if the NCAA did hit them with “lack of institutional control” during his tenure.

       You skip over the issues that have been raised about the bias and lack of objectivity you exhibit in much of your commentary here. You have not identified an abuse of medical hardship scholarships in even one case that I’m aware of, but having implied there’s abuse repeatedly you can now just jump to “There’s that medical hardship issue again. It’s becoming the perfect solution….” That’s the way Joe McCarthy did it.

       How about pointing to a specific abuse on ONE player who has been granted a medical hardship at Alabama or anywhere else? Do you really think guys like Ivan Matchett and Darius McKellar, who had scholarship offers from plenty of BCS schools, weren’t really seriously injured but took medical scholarships and quit football before they’d ever played a down at Alabama? How about Ezekial Knight, the starting linebacker with the heart condition?

       If you’re going to refer to players as “cut”, how about finding ONE player who says he was cut?

       Saban must have been lying when he said that Alonzo Lawrence (another highly regarded recruit) was dismissed for an unspecified violation of team rules. But now a year later Lawrence has left Southern Mississippi.

       You pretend you care about integrity but don’t exhibit any yourself.

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       • 

         deepsthboy
         June 20th, 2010 - 07:38

         With all the problems we are seeing with Carlos Hyde, Jamel Turner, and Duron Carter, it’s becoming more and more clear that Jim Tressel is hardly a paragon of purity when it comes to recruiting. We can talk about recruiting budgets and academics and so on until the cows come home, but as long as there are these blatant examples of obvious corruption in the examples that Josh is holding up as virtuous, the whole concept that he is trying to put out there is highly dubious. It just suggests that Tressel bends whatever he has to bend to get the best players on his roster. The conference dictates what he must do in terms of numbers, but clearly this hasn’t stopped him from recruiting the Claretts, the Turners, the Carters, and the Hydes.

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         • 

           Joshua
           June 21st, 2010 - 07:12

           Blatent examples of corruption? You have fallen off your rocker again dsb.

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           • 

             deepsthboy
             June 21st, 2010 - 08:01

             The fact that the entire OSU fan base is able to hold Tressel up as a paragon of virtue is one of the funniest examples of hypocrisy in all of sports. All you have to do is look at prima facie evidence to see that this is not the case. One of this biggest targets of last year’s recruiting class gets SHOT–TWICE–and is a proven thug. Tressel comes out with some platitudes about how his thoughts are with the family, and so on. Instead of people wondering why he recruited this thug, that was kicked out of TWO schools in less than a year and was in TWO gang-related shootings, they are “touched” by what a great guy he is for being concerned about the kid.

             Gimme a break.

             Tressel wants to win football games too. This is why he recruits Jamel Turner, and Carlos Hyde, and Duron Carter, and Maurice Clarett. Do you really believe that these kids were all “clean” before Tressel recruited them? If so, then you are the one with a serious screw loose, bro.

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