Tressel on Oversigning
This is a video we posted a long time ago of Jim Tressel talking about his 2010 recruiting class. Oversigning.com has had over 4 Million hits since its creation last February, but the vast majority of that traffic has been in the last 6 months or so, and as with any blog site content often rolls off the front page and gets buried in the archive somewhere.
With National Signing Day approaching, we thought we would revisit Jim Tressel's press conference from last year that took place just days after sign day. The video below is about 8 minutes long, but we are only concerned with the first 2-3 minutes.
In the video, Tressel announces to the media that Ohio State had 20 vacancies they could fill with the current recruiting class. That number, no doubt, was based on the number of seniors graduating and the number of juniors leaving for the NFL early, plus any scholarships that were banked from the previous year.
Tressel explains that one thing you never want to do is go over the limit but in order to sign everyone they wanted to sign they would have had to sign 30 guys. The limit he is talking about is not the limit of 25 guys per class, he is talking about the 85 limit. It is important to note that he treats signatures as enrolled players. When he says "right now we are at 18" he is referring to having 18 kids signed not 18 kids enrolled. Ironically, one of the kids he signed did not make it into school and that scholarship was given to a deserving walk-on for his senior year.
The 19th player he had hoped to sign was Seantrel Henderson. Ohio State did not land Seantrel and since they were not able to sign more than they projected to have room for they couldn't heavily recruit Seantrel and several other top OL prospects for fear of landing more than they would project having room for or having to turn someone away after an offer had been given. Ohio State could have easily pursued 5 OL and found some pour soul(s) to cut on the bottom end of the roster, but that didn't happen and won't happen under Big 10 recruiting rules.
Notice there is no mention of medical hardships, grey shirts, cuts, transfers, etc. Notice that he doesn't get upset with the media for asking questions about his numbers, in fact he is as transparent as the NCAA will allow him to be with regards to roster management.
Let's compare that to Nick Saban's current recruiting class, ranked #1 in the country.
Saban has roughly 8 scholarship seniors and he announced this week that 3 Juniors are leaving early for the NFL. That is roughly 11 scholarship openings. Let's be generous and say there are 15 openings. His class right now has 22 verbal commitments plus two players that accepted a grey shirt offer from last year and are expected to enroll this year. That makes 24 total scholarship commitments this year and only 15 at most openings. There was no room to back count players to last year's class so everyone is going to count towards this year.
But Nick Saban is not finished recruiting yet. National Signing Day has not arrived and Nick Saban is still pursuing recruits such as #1 ranked DE Clowney.
Defenders of Saban's recruiting practices and even Saban himself will probably tell you that they have a plan and that everything is on the up and up with the NCAA. What they won't tell you is that his plan is to exploit every known loophole in the NCAA rule book for recruiting. Players will be moved to medical hardships, transferred, or asked to greyshirt in order to make room to get down to 85, room he didn't have when he accepted their signed letter of intent.
There is something drastically wrong when a coach like Jim Tressel has 1 greyshirt and maybe 2 medical hardships in 10 years at Ohio State and Nick Saban has 12 medical hardships in 4 years and is looking at giving out 10 greyshirt offers this year. It's a problem and it's real. And LSU is no different - it's not just Alabama.
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January 8th, 2011 - 18:41
Tressel is not the humanitarian many Buckeyes imagine him to be since, with those 85 scholarships, he has the ability to give far more underprivileged football-playing kids the opportunity to taste one or two years of college education, but isn’t doing so. Instead, Tressel is being selfish in limiting those scholarships to only players who will attempt to use them – monopolize them – for four or five years to obtain a college degree.
Actually, what is the real deal with Tressel? Seems he’s just alright in properly preparing players to play in BCS bowls, to win league championships, to reach BCS championship games, or to reach the NFL. But, fact is, if Tressel worked his players harder, something more similar to the special regimen that Nick Saban has pioneered, then Tressel would actually have many more serious, career-ending injuries to contend with each season. He would then be forced to frequently use a small handful of medical scholarships for those players each year. Of course, as demonstrated in the prior paragraph, Tressel wouldn’t have the good sense to not monopolize those freed up roster spots with degree-seeking student athletes.
As well, it appears Tressel is not a good manager of his and his coaching staffs’ time. Why for instance does he waste valuable time attempting to identify prospects who are likely to be accepted for admission? Does this make sense to anyone! Isn’t he better served casting a wider net, and allowing the players themselves to sort out who it is will get the opportunity to have a taste of college education for a year or two, maybe three? Doing so would allow Tressel and his staff more time to work on keeping up the morale of the medical scholarship recipients by providing spirit-lifting perks such as tickets, paid graduate school tuition and coaching opportunities.
And why are you attempting to mislead readers with that video of a loquacious Tressel, since we know he has that Senator Tressel label for a reason? Fact is, it’s clear that football business is really not the fans’ business, as we are much happier not being troubled by the details of the goings on of the football program we follow. There’s a reason some say that “ignorance is bliss”. Saban understands this, and perhaps Tressel, as he grows as a coach and comes to accomplish some things in his career, will come to understand this better, and not go on, and on, and on, and on about recruiting. What a waste of words.
Surely one of the lessons Tressel will come to learn is that sometimes players have difficulty recognizing just how unhappy they are playing football for him. In those instances, a real humanitarian of a coach would take the initiative to approach the player and counsel him about his happiness, and how deceiving it is to the player. That a change of perspective would help the player look back at his former school, realize that the coach did him a favor by encouraging a transfer, and in fact, helped the player come to true enlightenment, by becoming acquainted with the concept of the “greater good of the team left behind”. But it’s the rare coach who can master this, so certainly don’t hold out too much hope that Tressel can pull this off.
While the challenge of getting players to understand the greater good of sharing four or five years of a scholarship among two or three players may be too challenging for a faux humanitarian like Tressel, perhaps he could pull off something far more simple: like teaching youth a hard lesson for their own good.
The wise coach understands that football-playing youth these days are simply too full of themselves anyway, thinking rules don’t apply to them, and that they’re infallible, and always the exception. A man like Nick Saban understands this, and knows just which kids need to be taught this hard lesson – which, coincidentally, are those kids who will later have the most difficulty recognizing that happiness is deceiving, and that they really are instead unhappy at Alabama.
Saban, mercifully, approaches these callow, gullible youth and tells them to come to Alabama and work for that one-year scholarship, and if they’re good enough… But he knows…he knows. His years of experience in recruiting and managing rosters enables him to know that this, this, is the kid who will most benefit from a year or two of that Alabama education, before then fully blossoming when he receives the departing “greater good of the team” lesson from this most generous man.
Give me a sec here…I’m tearing up.
That, my friend, is a humanitarian!
Tressel could learn a thing or two from this man.
January 8th, 2011 - 18:54
Is this sarcasm? I hope so.
January 8th, 2011 - 19:40
I’m not a big fan of Tressel but I think he’s being too hard on him
January 8th, 2011 - 21:22
He’s not being hard on him. He is not even talking about Tressel
January 8th, 2011 - 21:55
I’m not the biggest fan of Tressell either, but that guy is acting like the SEC coaches are saints for doing this. It’s really bizarre.
January 9th, 2011 - 09:37
Maybe the next task the author could take up would be the firing of anyone, anywhere from a job. How ethical is that? These people have families, mortgages, and all sorts of commitments. When you take a job, you think that as long as you go to work every day, follow company policy, and so on, that you are an employee for life. But yet it doesn’t work out that way! Maybe the author could petition the Attorney General and ferret out all these employers that lay people off just for the sake of profit. It’s highly unethical. Surely there are companies ion Ohio that have established some kind of Shangri La where workers can stay forever if they so choose.
January 9th, 2011 - 10:44
That’s a straw man. Do you expect to be taken seriously as a commenter when you don’t understand the basic fallacies?
January 12th, 2011 - 17:41
Do YOU expect to be taken seriously when you refer to oversigning as an “atrocity”? That is the most absurd thing I have seen in a very very long time.
January 9th, 2011 - 11:57
IT WAS TOTAL SARCASM
January 8th, 2011 - 21:22
+1
January 8th, 2011 - 20:28
It may actually be good when the author of the website posts this sort of thing. It seems to back up the fact that he is nothing but an oddly and disturbingly over-zealous Ohio State fan who would seem to be willing to go to any length to promote his own program and tear down those of another.
But having had an opportunity to go back and read some more of this website’s entries, the notion that this guys is any kind of a “journalist” is laughable. No journalist finds one topic and writes non-stop on that one topic, or at least doesn’t circle back with the same concepts again and again. It kind of reminds me of those psychological tests where they ask you the same question 5 different ways to see if you will answer it consistently. The author writes the same opinion again and again and again, ad nauseum. It’s simply mind-numbing.
It would seem that this individual’s distaste for the SEC is so intense that he is willing to devote an absurd amount of his time to the notion that he is on some sort of a Quixotic “mission” to bring down a conference. That sort of delusional thinking is reserved for the tiniest sliver of disturbed people. Usually celebrity stalkers, political assassins, and that sort of nut job.
When I first found my way over here I thought the 8-10 articles I saw were the sum total. I have no idea that this guy has written essentially the same article about 100 times or more. Reminds me of that scene in “The Shining” where Jack Nicholson has written “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” about 10,000 times. Hope this guy’s not married, but if he is I sure hope his wife has a good attorney.
January 8th, 2011 - 21:49
I don’t know – it kinda makes sense that the author of a single-topic website is actually consistently writing about that single topic.
Kinda makes the task of challenging his assertions easier, doesn’t it? Well, assuming that one stayed on-topic and commanded the facts to mount a strong counter-argument. But that would require a discipline equal to the author’s – both to collect the unassailable facts, and to keep to the topic at hand.
I’m not sure I saw a direct challenge in your post, but look forward to reading what you specifically have on the topic of oversigning.
Of course, there is the option to remain silent and let the “nut job” carry on in his nutty ways, since – if there is no merit to anything he’s doing here – then both he and the issue will quietly go away. Surely oversigners have nothing to fear – or even to defend – if the practice is fair, ethical, forthright, legal, and at every step promotes the best interests of students who participate in intercollegiate athletics.
Right?
January 9th, 2011 - 06:56
You know Scratcher, you may be correct. I think his choice of oversigning.com as a web address is at the root of his problems. The name itself makes it difficult for him to branch off into all of the more varied subjects that his journalistic talents could explore. Let this be a lesson to us all when we are naming our websites.
January 9th, 2011 - 09:31
Well Lee Roi, I suppose it could have been monotony.com. It would have been just about as interesting.
January 9th, 2011 - 10:52
Yet you find it so entertaining that you actually take the time to visit the site, read it, read the comments and then leave your own comments. Which is more pathetic: someone taking the time to fix unethical behaviors that greatly affect student athletes or someone complaining on a blog they actually are too young to be reading? You tell me
January 10th, 2011 - 20:23
I’ll tell you what’s pathetic. Referring to oversigning as an “atrocity”, as though you were hoping to bring to mind the Holocaust, Darfur, or something like that. Hyperbole much?
January 8th, 2011 - 21:25
I’m not going to participate in your arguments, but I will say that the arguments have been had over and over, and it’s clear that oversigning is a serious problem for a host of reasons. A lot of us get tired of beating back your arguments, so I’d avise you to re-read previous articles’ arguments. The numbers don’t lie. The ethical problems are real. That’s all I’m going to say.
January 8th, 2011 - 23:14
“Previous articles’ arguments”? They’re all the same. I believe that’s what Mr. Scratcher is saying. That is wearying to read the same thing over and over dressed up in ever-so-slightly different clothes. Surely you’re not suggesting that somewhere embedded in all this hogwash is a more novel argument than the same one he’s made here over and over.
What’s that line in “I’m Henry VII I Am”– “Second verse, same as the first.”
January 9th, 2011 - 10:50
It’s kind of like those arguments people made over and over, day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year about, well, every atrocity that was ongoing in history. What happened? Eventually people listened. Were it not for those people who took the time we’d be a lot worse off than we are today.
January 9th, 2011 - 22:27
Every atrocity in history? You have got to be kidding us. Why don’t you break out some of your best examples for us so that we know what you mean? I have an idea, but it would be great if you just went ahead and spelled it out.
January 11th, 2011 - 09:07
Atrocities? You’re acting like these kids aren’t going to the program that will get them the best hardware, that will put them in the best spotlight for the pros.
The fallacy of this website, is ever considering that for the vast majority of college football players (especially the “poor uneducated ones”) are even going to school for an education. They’re going to the NFL minor leagues.
I won’t deny the facts, but the motivation makes this a poisoned well. The creator of this website has such an ingrown hatred of all things SEC, that his objectivity is very much in question.
January 14th, 2011 - 07:57
What you identify as a fallacy of this website isn’t one at all: it’s a symptom that many of us highlight to to show what’s wrong with universities and how they administer college athletics – the very wrongs which allow for oversigning to occur.
And while you do admit the obvious, “they’re going to the NFL minor leagues”, you can’t stop there, and not examine what is wrong with that concept.
For the sake of argument let’s say the universities just tossed aside the charade of amateur athletics and offered sports majors, where it offered actual degrees for participation in sports, and also in a curriculum designed to prepare athletes for life in and after sports. Even in this scenario – where the clear purpose of the university is to support these sports majors through four or five years of education so that it can grant them their sports degree – would the universities dare allow a coach to cut a student from the program for not being the great player the coach expected? Would the universities allow the coaches to usurp the power of deans and professors to reconfigure the student body?
Of course not. No university in the country could survive if word got out that it was ejecting fully qualified and eligible students from their degree programs on the whims of its athletic coaches. Yet, as currently configured within the elaborate charade of amateur college athletics, that’s exactly what is happening to what universities insist are student-athletes.
So taking your defense of the status quo out to its logical extreme serves to highlight that there simply is no legitimate defense for the practice of oversigning – and the cutting of students that it engenders.
January 14th, 2011 - 08:25
So, you advocate having roster dead weight? Kids that can’t understand a Cover 2, or a zone defense, and aren’t meeting the expectations of the coaches? So, it’s fair to the teams to have to drag along millstones, instead of cutting them free for someone better and more talented? I don’t think that’s fair to the coach.
And what about medical hardship scholarships? Nothing wrong with those, your bad player gets a free ride, and the coach can go get a better kid. Win win.
And what you call unfairness, I call “being exposed to the rigors of real life”. In everywhere but your utopia of athletics, a person is canned for not being up to snuff.
January 9th, 2011 - 12:00
DSB, you used that Herman’s Hermit’s verse before. It was as just as stupid then as it is now.
January 9th, 2011 - 13:46
Don’t feed the trolls – it only encourages them.
January 11th, 2011 - 08:03
Anyone who treats this issue like it isn’t serious is not in tune with reality. The SEC is screwing kids over and running like a pro league. They haven’t won 5 straight national championships by accident. Yes, they have size and speed but if they have 10% more players it makes a difference. Apparently 85 does not always really mean 85 if you want to win bad enough.
January 11th, 2011 - 09:51
Welcome to capitalism Comrade.
January 11th, 2011 - 09:50
So, to those of you who hate it that a kid is getting screwed out of an education, what is so bad about a Medical Hardship? The kid just isn’t simply cut loose, they get a college education, but if they’re not a performer they don’t count against the 85.
What exactly is wrong with that?
January 14th, 2011 - 08:10
Nothing – if it can be determined that the injury is legitimately career-ending, and that the continuing rate of occurrence isn’t out of line with the accepted level of occurrence across all of college football.
Anything else suggests something is amiss. Looked at in aggregate with other highly active roster management practices, it’s quite easy to determine just what is wrong.
Of course, if a number of those receiving those medical scholarships are protesting that they believe they could still be playing – as some former Alabama players have, then the evidence of wrong-doing is much more direct.
January 14th, 2011 - 08:27
They may be ABLE to play, but if they could play at Alabama, they’d be on the field. They should be glad that the coach found a way for them to keep their education going.
Those who complain, clearly didn’t understand that they aren’t as good as they think they are.
January 11th, 2011 - 09:58
Oh, and let us not forget what an honest guy Tressel is. He played guys that should have been ineligible for their bowl game, but deferred it to next year. Guess what, players are already skipping out of their senior year for the NFL. Anyone who claims that Tressel is surprised by this, is clearly a Buckeyes homer.
January 11th, 2011 - 11:52
He played guys that were deemed eligible by the NCAA. How is it dishonest to follow the NCAA rules? Which player’s are you referring to that are already leaving for the NFL?
January 11th, 2011 - 12:20
Ah, so it’s OK to follow the NCAA rules then? So the whole point of this site is then moot. Since no rules are being broken.
But otherwise, they were deemed to have to play a five game suspension. It was up to Tressel to determine when they served it. He made a “deal” with the players that they had to come back next season and he’d let them play the bowl game.
According to reports, Pryor is gone to the NFL.
January 11th, 2011 - 16:53
The Cure Auto Insurance commercial goes like this:
Client asks agent: “So how do you determine insurance rates?”
Agent: “We use the applicant’s socio-economic data.”
Client: “But isn’t that illegal?”
Agent: “Turns out – it only immoral.”
January 11th, 2011 - 17:08
I would say that your argument MIGHT hold water, if the player was actually going to school to get an education.
There’s a reason kids pick schools like Alabama and LSU. Best chance to get a spotlight on them and to get hardware. They’re not going there to be the next great American Novelist.
Most of the kids who are being “defended” by those who are anti-signing, view college as a minor leagues for the pros. Well, they’re getting an early taste of what it’s like to BE a pro.
January 11th, 2011 - 19:41
So then, it sounds as if you’re okay with the oversigning schools adulterating their true missions – to educate and grant degrees. This is quite the sad commentary that at every level of such institutions – from win-loving fans to the Ph.D.-holding college president – all are on board with running a de facto quasi semi-pro sports organization in the place of what should be the extension of a privilege to participate in an intercollegiate athletic program for eligible students.
It’s easy to see that once an entire university has lost sight of this, how dismissing concerns about the well-being of an individual – whom the university will describe with great emphasis at every opportunity is a student – is such an easy thing to do.
But as it turns out – it’s only immoral…
January 13th, 2011 - 07:56
Grant degrees in what? You HAVE seen some of the majors that these student-athletes take right?
You’re deluding yourself if you think that anything other than a minority (no pun intended) of players are actually there for an education. That seems to be the sticking point here.
You’re defending their right to an education, when they aren’t there to get that.
January 14th, 2011 - 06:30
The point you miss is that if the universities were fulfilling their missions just as I described above there would be NO semi-pro athletes skating by – and NO coaches doing annual roster cuts to benefit the “franchise”. Beyond my defense of a right to an education – it should be the college presidents and and academics who should be vigorously defending the obligation to provide ONLY a legitimate education to bona fide students-athletes.
January 14th, 2011 - 08:04
And that’d be the most boring football ever. Like Vanderbuilt boring. There’s a reason they suck.
So, just to summarize, the “student” part of the student-athlete is more important to you. So if the athlete isn’t up to snuff, the school is just stuck with them? That’s hardly fair. Some kids are just not cut out for college ball, and you don’t know that till they’re in your system.
I fully support roster cuts. It’s always a pleasure to see the fat trimmed, and only the best on the field.
January 14th, 2011 - 08:15
You sir, get graded “A” for chain-yanking, as this cannot be a serious response.
Seriously, you don’t value your time more than that?
January 14th, 2011 - 08:28
Which part do you not find serious?
January 14th, 2011 - 13:15
No really, which part do you think I’m not serious about?
January 14th, 2011 - 20:13
Jason, don’t try to use firm logic, because it doesn’t get you anywhere on this site.
January 13th, 2011 - 10:36
reminds me of when Robert Smith of OSU wanted to do pre-med, but his coaches changed his classes to easy ones, so that he could spend more time on the practice field. Good to see that the coaches were looking out for his post-football career. I can see how basketweaving and dance would benefit him later in life.
January 13th, 2011 - 11:51
And he was one of the rare ones who actually DO want an education too. Funny that it’s not just the SEC.
January 12th, 2011 - 01:16
If a coach ever publicly took this position in a media setting, the NCAA would have its arm so far up that coach’s ass that they could shine their teeth. NCAA preaches education and the idea of the STUDENT-athlete…but then again outside of Florida and Vandy the rest of the SEC schools are community colleges with a large football budget. At least your SEC degrees are job capable in Atlanta, because anywhere else they are the equivalent of a transfer degree to a real educational institution.
Dont worry gents…this will come to fruition, the NCAA will mandate a scholarship budget declaration for recruiting, and the SEC will have to find another way to gain an advantage…it is inevitable…and now the mainstream media is starting to slowly but will surely catch on…
Keep fighting the good fight!
January 12th, 2011 - 13:13
This is a slap in the face of some of the other anti-oversigning zealots! Someone previously raised the argument that transferring away from SEC schools was/is detrimental to student athletes because the student athletes are likely to transfer to inferior schools.
Also, ad hominem much?
January 12th, 2011 - 11:42
What reports? Please provide a link that claims that TP is going to the NFL. Thanks
January 13th, 2011 - 10:25
I am still waiting for one of those reports.
January 14th, 2011 - 13:16
Well apparently I had bad information about T. Pryor. I reserve the right to reiterate my previous argument if indeed he does go pro, but I’m a big enough man to admit I was wrong on this one.
January 31st, 2011 - 23:07
Could you provide a link to any reports that say Pryor is going to the NFL?
What is the deadline to declare?
January 12th, 2011 - 07:44
It’s OK for OSU to “follow NCAA rules” so long as it suits their fanbase. This has been clearly established by the author of this website.
Tressel = one set of rules
SEC = another, and arbitrarily assigned by author, set of rules
January 12th, 2011 - 11:59
“How is it dishonest to follow the NCAA rules?”
Thanks for the ammo OSU’76. I just wanted to reiterate what JasonH said… OSU’76 just defended OSU by making an argument that can just as easily defend oversigning. If following the rules is the measure of honesty, oversigning is completely legitimate.
OSU’76 just proved himself intellectually dishonest. Here are the options:
1) I now see logic. Oversigning is not wrong.
2) I misspoke; I was simply trying to defend OSU/Big10 and attack the SEC with such blind ambition that I forsook logic.
January 12th, 2011 - 14:44
Nice try DSB. What you are defending is that the NCAA doesn’t have a rule (yet), so why not exploit that even though the practice is dishonest and unethical? However, there IS a rule that allows deferring suspensions in some circumstances. tOSU suspended the player’s for the Sugar Bowl and the NCAA reinstated them. There is nothing dishonest or unethical about that. The only rule (for now) is having 85 at the end of the signing period. There is no rule on how you get to that number. For the Big Ten, no rule is required as they see the practice as flat out wrong.
Take your options and shove them John.
January 12th, 2011 - 14:54
I’m not DSB or John. Your attempts at discrediting me by association with DSB are not working.
You can try to retwist your own words, but you said, “How is it dishonest to follow the NCAA rules?” You definitely tried to justify OSU’s actions with an argument that you claim is invalid.
January 12th, 2011 - 16:05
Sure you are. Your attempts to discredit Josh and this site by associating him with Ohio State are not working either regardless of which name you post under. I didn’t twist my words. Nothing was dishonest about letting the player’s play as per NCAA rules. Oversigning is dishonest in every possible way and while you claim it is within the NCAA rules, it is only because the NCAA has no rule (yet) that bans it. The rule is 85. Screw how you get there as long as it’s 85 at the end of the period.
January 12th, 2011 - 16:17
Fact: I am not DSB.
Fact: I am not John.
What reason do you have for believing that I am DSB? Blind conjecture devoid of logic. Everyone who agrees with OSU’76 regarding my identity raise your hand. Now… if your hand is up, you are wrong.
January 12th, 2011 - 16:29
Everyone who reads your posts knows who you are.
January 12th, 2011 - 18:02
I’ll let you have this wild fantasy regarding my identity. I am still very happy that you blew up your whole argument because you were wildly flailing for an excuse to exonerate OSU.
January 12th, 2011 - 19:42
Ohio State was not exonerated. Perhaps you didn’t know that the players got a 5 game suspension from the NCAA. The wild flailing is from you and the other apologists trying to compare players who sold some of their possessions to a practice that is flat out not allowed in the Big Ten.
January 13th, 2011 - 09:34
Is it not unethical to not suspend a player immediately, but keep them on the field because it offers you a competitive advantage? OSU did that, but it’s ok, because this is a Big 10 friendly site.
What’s dishonest? The scholarship is for one year, TO PLAY FOOTBALL.
January 14th, 2011 - 08:29
Sorry Charlie,
OSU 76 owns you.
January 12th, 2011 - 14:45
The past two national champions (Alabama and Auburn) have signed more players in their respective four-year cycles than any other schools in college football. Is this at all an advantage, Mr. Mandel? If your conference is winning, what incentive does a conference commissioner have against curbing this practice?
– Simon, San Diego
Of course it’s an advantage — not the overriding reason Alabama and Auburn won national championships, but certainly a factor in those programs’ turnarounds. When you sign more players than your opponents — from 2007-10, Auburn signed 119 players, Oregon 100 — you can afford to take more chances in recruiting, some of your mistakes aren’t as impactful and you can more easily trim the dead weight off your roster. Now, those four-year numbers predate the SEC’s 2009 rule that set the limit per signing class to 28 (previously there was no limit), but it’s still three more letters-of-intent than scholarships a school can offer and not the same hard cap under which Big Ten schools, among others (including SEC member Georgia), choose to operate.
The oversigning issue is finally starting to get more media scrutiny, starting first and foremost with the invaluable site oversigning.com. Right now you can go on there and see a real-time count of which schools are currently most over their “budget” for 2011. Surprise, surprise: Alabama is at the top of the list once again, currently committed to 12 more players (including verbal commitments) than the 85 scholarships it has to provide. Over the spring and summer, a few veteran backups will quietly transfer, a few will suddenly be deemed medical hardships (they get to keep their scholarships but can no longer play and don’t count toward the limit) and perhaps a few incoming players will be asked to grayshirt. This goes on year after year and no one seems inclined to do anything about it.
On the other hand, one could argue that as long as it’s within the rules, schools like Alabama and Auburn would be stupid not to sign every recruit possible. Coaches like Nick Saban and Gene Chizik are ultimately measured by how many games and championships they win, not how many upperclassmen they keep on scholarship. Ohio State’s Jim Tressel is one of the staunchest proponents of not overpromising scholarships, but that doesn’t seem to win him any sympathy when his team loses to Florida or LSU. Personally, I’d like to see the NCAA and/or conferences step up with some more stringent rules — Randy Edsall, then at UConn, once made the logical suggestion that schools not be allowed to sign a player until he’s been admitted academically — but I’ve heard of no such plans.
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/stewart_mandel/01/11/wednesday.bag/index.html#ixzz1Ar48eD00
January 12th, 2011 - 19:53
“Ohio State was not exonerated. Perhaps you didn’t know that the players got a 5 game suspension from the NCAA. The wild flailing is from you and the other apologists trying to compare players who sold some of their possessions to a practice that is flat out not allowed in the Big Ten.”
First, I am not comparing OSU’s cheating players to oversigning. I was stating that your argument defending OSU is a great argument for defending oversigning. I was merely pointing out that you are logically inconsistent.
Second, you were flailing to exonerate OSU not from NCAA rules and regulations, but from the charge of dishonesty. You wrote, “How is it dishonest to follow the NCAA rules?” You seem to forget that you wrote that.
January 13th, 2011 - 10:23
I didn’t forget anything I wrote. And I stand by my comment that there is nothing dishonest about allowing the player’s to play in the Sugar Bowl. One of the reasons the Big Ten does not allow oversigning is because it is dishonest and unethical regardless of what the “rules” say.
January 13th, 2011 - 14:35
“And I stand by my comment that there is nothing dishonest about allowing the player’s to play in the Sugar Bowl.”
That’s not what you wrote the first time; you wrote “How is it dishonest to follow the NCAA rules?” You justified the actions by hiding behind rules. Your logic invalidates arguments against oversigning.
“How is it dishonest to follow the NCAA rules?” – OSU’76
January 13th, 2011 - 16:11
And I stand by my comment that there is nothing dishonest about allowing the player’s to play in the Sugar Bowl when the NCAA ruled them eligible to play (based on rule created by the NCAA). Oversigning is not following NCAA rules as there is no rule (yet) that places a hard cap on the number of players that can be signed, only that they end up with the 85. Oversigning just exploits that loophole. The Big Ten has chosen to create their own rule because they consider the practice dishonest, unethical and sleazy even though not doing it is a competitive disadvantage. Score one for the good guys
January 13th, 2011 - 17:14
Laws do not state everything that is acceptable to do. They typically limit people/entities by saying what entities are NOT allowed to do. Let me know when I can throw rope down to you… at some point, you may want out of that gigantic hole that you are digging. Seriously, take a step back and think about all the different illogical ways in which you have framed this discussion.
“How is it dishonest to follow the NCAA rules?” – OSU’76
Charlie9
January 13th, 2011 - 07:59
Nice try, but Stewart Mandel is a huge Big 10 homer. That’s a poisoned well you’re dipping from.
January 13th, 2011 - 10:18
LOL That is hilarious
January 13th, 2011 - 11:47
I guess it is hilarious when a homer sides with you.
January 13th, 2011 - 12:03
No, it’ hilarious that you would try and paint a writer for SI as a homer with an agenda.
January 13th, 2011 - 14:22
Like writers don’t have agendas. Don’t be naive.
Lou Holtz is a commentator for ESPN, and there isn’t a bigger Notre Dame homer around. Same with Herbstreit and OSU.
Mandel is historically very bullish on Big 10.
January 13th, 2011 - 15:55
Herbie voted Ohio State #9 in the AP along with Chris Fowler. No one else ranked them below #5. So much for homer-ism on his part. Mandel is one of the most objective CFB writers out there, he just happens to believe like many others, that over signing is a bad practice. I have heard Pat Forde say the same thing more than once and there is no way in hell he could ever be confused for a Big Ten homer. How about Gregg Doyel? Face it, this issue is getting looked at for what it is: wrong and has no place in CFB.
January 14th, 2011 - 08:04
No, Pat Forde, if anything, is Pro-SEC.
January 13th, 2011 - 12:33
Let’s see I get to choose from 85 players times 4 years or 340 players. You get to choose from 100 players times 4 years or 400. Whose team will be better, mine or yours. Simple as that. It’s wrong and most conferences have limited or eliminated it. The fact that the SEC hasn’t is wrong. Why are you SEC fans defending it?
January 13th, 2011 - 14:20
If it was wrong, it’d be in the rulebooks.
These are one year scholarship agreements, for football.
Why are you assuming that football players are actually going for an education? That seems to be the key point here. Anti-signers seem to think every player wants to be a Rhodes scholar, while pro-signers realize that those players are few and far between, and just want to get to play pro ball.
January 13th, 2011 - 16:24
It is wrong and there will be a rule against sooner than you think. For some schools, it doesn’t have to be against the rules to be wrong.
January 13th, 2011 - 19:02
Yes, it will also be a rule that no school can spend $30-plus million on its football program, as OSU, the “spendiest” program in the nation, does. I hope you realize that taking a haughty holier-than-thou attitude toward all of this in no way makes your silly argument any stronger.
January 14th, 2011 - 07:59
It’s SUBJECTIVELY wrong.
January 13th, 2011 - 14:39
“Whose team will be better, mine or yours. Simple as that.”
Being better is suddenly wrong?! Having a competitive advantage is wrong? The tired argument that the SEC has a competitive advantage because of oversigning is LAME. Big 10 has imposed the rule on themselves. USC has some advantages because of geography, weather, etc. Ohio State spends more money on its football program than any other school in the nation. That certainly affords OSU some advantages. Every school should try to gain and maintain a competitive advantage; it’s called “strategy.”
January 13th, 2011 - 14:48
Of course being better is wrong! In Mother Russia, everyone is the same.
January 13th, 2011 - 16:26
Yes, the Big Ten imposed honesty, integrity and decency on themselves. What a bunch of shnooks.
January 13th, 2011 - 21:22
Yeah that’s right. Since someone posted Stewart Mandel’s thoughts earlier in the thread, I thought I would post this cut and paste from Ivan Maisel’s article currently on Page One of the NCAA Football page on ESPN.com:
‘The NCAA ought to look at closing the “unique opportunity” loophole through which Ohio State’s “Tattooed Six” escaped to play in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. The message it sent is not one that any parent would recognize. You do the crime, you don’t do the time when it’s convenient. You should just do the time.’
Note he calls it a LOOPHOLE. Note he refers to the thugs who sold their gear as the TATTOOED SIX. I tell you, it’s surprising any of you guys has the gall to keep going down this path after what those punks just did.
January 14th, 2011 - 13:13
Was there a loophole in there somewhere for Cam Newton and his dad?
January 14th, 2011 - 13:16
Agreed Kevin. . .almost a crime not to sell your kid to the highest bidder now if you have an athletic 18 year old. It is technically not wrong. . .similar to oversigning.
January 31st, 2011 - 23:30
Cam Newton gave too much information out and it eventually became known. Is Newton’s situation unique? That is doubtful, but without evidence to the contrary then it is speculation as to how much of that type of thing goes on.
The scholarship limits, however, are designed to eliminate or at least control a practice that was widespread before the limits were imposed, i.e. the practice of the schools with the largest budgets signing as many players a they could and thereby limiting the schools with lesser budgets from signing enough quality players to compete. Woody Hayes used to do that at Ohio State and Bear Bryant did it at Bama as well, and so did many others.
The more things change the more they stay the same. Having said that, it seems that the use of oversigning is a loophole in the scholarship limit that not everyone practices. The scholarship limits are rules that affect every NCAA institution. In the case of oversigning it appears that only some are willing to accept that. Think scholarship limits are wrong? Man up and accept that, and work to change it, instead of trying to justify why it is right to break those rules by using loopholes and/or sail on the river of denial. IMHO.
March 29th, 2011 - 19:23
Here’s a link with even more info:
http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/ex-auburn-players-claim-systematic-pay-to-play-29592
If anything claimed in the HBO piece can be corroborated by the NCAA, it could get very ugly for Auburn and Ohio State…possibly others.