Chess not Checkers
Our overall take on the situation:
This proposal was a reaction to all of the bad publicity (which to be honest started right here at oversigning.com), and while it does attempt to curb some of the excesses it does not address the core issue of oversigning, which is preventing schools from signing over the 85 limit. Ridding a conference of the abuses that place because of oversigning is a process that requires building a culture throughout all of the conference sports; clearly the legislation that was passed today does NOTHING to address oversigning in baseball which is just as bad, if not worse than football, and proves that if the SEC University Presidents truly believe in what they say about oversigning and its morally reprehensible actions they would not tolerate it in baseball. Baseball was never addressed by the SEC because we never addressed it here, well we did once, but that was a long time ago.
You see while they have been playing checkers by floating out a Red Herring with their 25-28 rules, we have been playing chess by getting them to admit that oversigning is wrong, morally reprehensible, and not to be tolerated in college athletics. Eliminating exploitation through oversigning is a cultural and ethical decision, and if you don't believe in it then you put things in place to eliminate it everywhere in your athletic programs. SEC officials told the world today that they don't believe in it, yet they never addressed it in regards to baseball, and that is because we never attacked it here and there was no bad publicity regarding oversigning in baseball. There is no argument that can be made against that statement. Their move today was based on bad publicity, not a desire to rid the conference of a culture of oversigning and exploitation.
Update: The main point we were trying to make here is that the new "roster management" legislation is the result of bad publicity, not because the SEC administrators woke up one morning and decided to reshape the conference's philosophy on oversigning and player exploitation. Although we started the ball rolling in a major way by launching this site, it took national and local sports writers, ESPN's OTL, bloggers, sports-talk radio hosts, fans posting on message boards, and a lot of other people to make this happen.
Going forward:
Another tactical error on the SEC's part today was demanding that the NCAA institute their new oversigning rule nationwide. This opens a whole new can of worms. Just like the SEC would not allow the Big 10 rule to be pushed on them, the Big 10 should not allow the SEC to raise the bar nationally to allow more oversigning than the Big 10 currently allows under their rules that address the 85 limit. This is the first step in getting the NCAA to the table and to start discussions about true national, NCAA rules on oversigning.
It is our hope they can find a happy medium that first addresses and eliminates the exploitation and morally reprehensible actions, and secondly creates a completely level playing field where every conference is signing players the same way. It's going to be a tough task, but with everyone at the table it can be done. Had the Big 10 pushed for this it would have been rejected because no one would want their ultra restrictive rules pushed on them, but by Slive, out of fear that they might lose their competitive advantage, demanding that the NCAA adopt their new rules nationally, he has opened the door for more substantive discussion. Surely the SEC doesn't think it is going to do what it wouldn't allow the Big 10 to do, push its rules on everyone else, right?
From here on out we'll be focusing on the national discussion to come up with new national rules for oversigning, rules that won't allow what these will when a school has 16 openings and can still sign 25 guys and cut 9, but instead provides for fair and equitable treatment for the players and competitive equality for the schools and conferences.
We're probably going to start talking about oversigning in baseball now too.
Stay tuned...
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June 3rd, 2011 - 20:18
If you had left out the self-serving praises (I think you greatly overestimate your influence, though I guess I could be wrong), this may have been you best write. I agree with the letter of most of these statements, though not the intent of most. This rule does not address the real harm in oversigning, and the only real effecct it will have is less academically suspect players will get assistence into college. This is mostly window dressing meant to appease the media (who I also think don’t reeally understand the real problem).
Glad to see you are finally focusing on the national aspect. Hope you are open to some of the good sugestions that have been floated around here for some time. Perhaps if yhou are and have the influence you think, we could actually help some players.
One more time, I have to ask where your explanation is as to why proper oversigning is so unethical. This accusation has ramped up again this week, though noone has attempted this task.
June 3rd, 2011 - 20:31
I’ll be absolutely shocked if 90% of the focus doesn’t remain on the SEC, particularly Alabama.
June 3rd, 2011 - 20:32
That didn’t take long (about 10 minutes). Just saw your latest tweet about SEC baseball. Guess the SEC is the only conference that plays baseball.
June 3rd, 2011 - 22:56
The Big Ten is barely a blip in baseball, but if the author wants to get his jollies by going after baseball, that’s great. At least it will be NEW baloney, and not the same rotten stuff he’s been trotting out for so many months.
June 3rd, 2011 - 20:47
Well, congratulations on the vote today. I was waiting for you to post something along these lines to pass that along. Also, I never expected you to declare victory and go home. You’ve made clear that you intend to keep pushing buttons.
But perhaps you should have slept on aspects of this. I got to be honest, it’s a bit…. I guess I’ll have to sleep on that one myself.
June 3rd, 2011 - 20:51
congratulations! all you did was weaken a conference today. no matter, best players, best coaches, best of everything, we will still kick the shit out of whatever BIG10 team we play in the BCS NCG. oh, and it won’t be OSU, as they appear headed for the trash heap of history…all that cheating,and they still got waxed by UF and LSU.
June 3rd, 2011 - 21:50
While this is far from a solution, it is a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, change is slow, and it has to be made in small steps most times. While I dont hope the NCAA or other conferences take our suggestion, I hope the NCAA does pass its own rules regarding the situation soon.
June 4th, 2011 - 00:36
Truly a homer blog.
June 4th, 2011 - 06:58
My ideal baby step rule for the NCAA conference to hand down would be that all schools must provide data on all students who were on scholarship the previous year and those they signed to their conference office at the beginning of the fall schoolyear. I know the B1G already does this, and it doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request. If a student transfers, the school has to have in writing who intiated the transfer conversations, whether a hearing was requested, whether the transfer student is in his new school, etc. It won’t solve all problems overnight, but at least it will get things moving in the right direction.
June 4th, 2011 - 09:20
First, I have gone back and re-read the Hawley interview post, and what you have taken from it is not what he said. If you have seen the actual rules and it says what you say, I will stand corrected (and would like to see them as well, they haven’t been provided here) but here is Hawley’s quote:
According to this, only institutions that oversigned (ultimately, that means at the end of the period, not at NSD) must do what you say every team has to do. Huge difference.
Another thing I noticed: we have discussed a lot lately that Hawley said only one team from the B10 is oversigned. That is also not what he said. Here is the quote:
As has been shown here, by Josh and Vesper, several B10 schools (at least half I believe) oversigned by the definition of this site (on NSD). Hawley’s definition is obviously different, as he doesn’t count until the end of the period. This means that a B10 school can sign more LOIs than they have room for, but as long as they “trim the roster” before the end of the period, they don’t have to do the things you list. Only if they end up grayshirting a player do they do these things – which is where that one school comes from, OSU announced around NSD that they were grayshirting one player this year. I figure that is the on school Hawley was referring to, as they are the only school to make it official already, the others are still weeding through their scrubs I guess <-Devil's advocate, that's how the SEC is looked at.
As for your proposal, I really don't have a problem with it, though it seems like a lot of meaningless paperwork – you know every transfer, medical, etc will always be at the student's request, right? These things can always be spun to look however people want them to, just like the way Hawley led us all to believe noone in the B10 oversigned. One last question about it, though. What do you do if a coach says, "yea, the kid transfered, I told him to cause I didn't want him on my team anymore"? What then?
June 4th, 2011 - 10:17
Actually, that doesn’t say only institutions who oversigned have to supply the data. I believe all the institutions have to provide that data. Though the wording is nebulous, it does not prove one way or the other. So you can’t say with certainty that all schools don’t submit that data. Perhaps josh can clear this up?
You’re taking an conclusion – only schools who oversigned have to submit the data without sufficient reason. The wording is nebulous enough. So all your reasoning should come with a big IF The reason Mr Hawley has not got the official report yet, is that sometimes B1G schools give scholarships to walk ons, and that doesn’t always happen on signing day. Sometimes that happens late spring/summer.
June 4th, 2011 - 08:47
I love how Josh calls what a bunch of highly-accomplished university presidents did in these meetings a “tactical error”. I would have scoffed at this if Pat Forde or Stewart Mandel called it that, but an anonylous blogger? Puh-leeze.
June 4th, 2011 - 10:11
I don’t get the usage of “chess vs. checkers” in this instance. I mean, I get your general premise, I just don’t see how “chess vs. checkers” applies. Using feints and misdirection to gain a desirable position sounds like chess to me.
/tangent.
June 5th, 2011 - 13:55
This post shouldn’t take you too long to remember, Marc, because it is only a few INCHES down the page:
We can’t seem to get the video player to embed in our page here so here’s a direct link to the video on Brook’s site.
http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/saban-sausage-factory-facing-expiration-date-29698
There are several key elements in the video. The money shot comes at 1:35 mark when Saban tells Ian Rapoport the numbers are none of his business and no one needs to know and the fans don’t ask. My how times have changed. Why didn’t Saban defend his oversigning practice as good for kids at this point?
Another key element in the video is Mark Richt’s comments about oversigning where he claims that other coaches are not being ethical when they oversign.
So when would you say it’s OK to say enough is enough? After the 50th time he posts this garbage? The 100th?
I repeat, do NOT wag your finger at people that bristle at this same freaking petty horseshit from Josh. If he had a truly noble cause, he wouldn’t have to stoop to this crap. He is still so unconvinced of the worthiness of his own goal, or he is so single-minded in his goal to take down Alabama and SEC football, that he simply can’t resist.
Why don’t you speak to Josh and see if you can get him to quit this shit? Then maybe the responses will cool down as well.