What We Learned Today
Today was, by far, the busiest day for oversigning news since national signing day. As you already know, the SEC coaches met today in Destin, Florida and briefly discussed how to divert the attention away from oversigning by having Steve Spurrier announce that he and a few other coaches think they should pay 70 players on each team $300 per game. Didn't see that coming did you? We didn't either, but nicely played by the old ball coach.
“They can give it to their parents for travel, lodging, meals. Maybe they could take their girlfriend out Sunday night or Saturday night and so forth,” Spurrier said. “A bunch of our coaches felt so strongly about it that we’d be willing to pay. Seventy guys, 300 bucks a game. That’s only $21,000 bucks a game.
“I doubt it will get passed. But as coaches, we make all the money, as do universities and television, and we need to give more to our players. That was just something we need to get out there.”
http://www.ajc.com/sports/sec-meetings-notebook-964500.html?cxtype=rss_news_128746
It's statements like that from Spurrier that remind us that coaches should stick to the X's and O's of football and leave the rest to school administrators, conference commissioners, and the NCAA.
Back to what we learned today.
Yes, the SEC coaches did meet today, and yes, they did discuss the topic of oversigning and conducted a vote on the proposal drawn up by the SEC athletic directors and approved by the conference commissioner, Mike Slive.
12-0
Typically that indicates an undefeated regular season and a trip to the SEC championship game for the right to win the next National Championship, on this day, however, it meant that all 12 SEC coaches are against the new legislation that would attempt to curb oversigning and address the other roster management areas that have become a concern.
Not that we expected them to vote in favor of the new legislation, but for those of us who are against oversigning and want to see it removed from college athletics there is still hope. The coaches are not going to be the ones giving the final vote, and for good reason because if that were the case Houston Nutt would vote to set the signing limit at 80, Spurrier would vote to pay players out of his own pocket, and Saban would vote to have the bump rule reinstated. We have no idea what Les Miles would vote for because it is impossible to figure out what goes on under the hat.
Instead, the university presidents will get the final vote on Friday and that will be the one that counts. If we had to guess, the coaches already know which way this is going to go and they are just making sure all of their fans know that they did not vote to have restrictions placed on their recruiting habits. Kind of sets up nicely down the road should the new legislation pass and have the affect that Saban thinks it will have on the conference:
"In my opinion," Saban told ESPN.com, "it (cutting signee numbers) would really affect the quality in our league."
http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20110601/SPORTS/106010303
Mark Richt
For all of the tough talk on oversigning that Mark Richt has been giving lately and all of the praise he has received for said tough talk, when he voted in favor of the status quo today it could only mean one of two things:
1. He already knows the outcome (that the presidents are going to vote in favor of it) and he doesn't want to piss the rest of the other coaches off by being the one guy who voted in favor of the new legislation, or...
2. He has been talking out of both sides of his mouth in order to project a certain image.
Either way, Richt missed a golden opportunity to be regarded as the second coming of Bobby Dodd and we are moving him out of the list of people against oversigning. It would have been perfectly acceptable for Richt to say that the same thing Muschamp said today, but instead Richt went back on his previous stance by saying he's okay with oversigning as long as everyone knows what's going on up front. We have always had a lot of respect for Mark Richt on this site for his previous stance on oversigning -- it would have been nice for him to take a stand, publicly, in front of his peers.
"We don’t over-sign," Muschamp said. "That’s a policy we have at the university. We’ve been successful, so it’s not an issue for us."
http://www.alligatorarmy.com/2011/6/1/2200334/will-muschamp-at-sec-spring-meetings-day-1
We'll be moving Muschamp to the "against oversigning" list.
Nick Saban
This should probably go in a separate post, but we'll put it here to help curb the outrage from Alabama fans. Saban raised some very interesting points today with his remarks to the media after the meeting where he blamed them for the increased scrutiny saying:
"You all are creating a bad problem for everybody," Saban told reporters. "You're going to mess up kids' opportunities by doing what you're doing. You think you're helping 'em but you're really hurting 'em. It took one case where somebody didn't get the right opportunity. You need to take the other 100 cases where somebody got an opportunity."
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/06/sec_football_coaches_favor_kee.html
So let's get this right, by the media analyzing what is going on with oversigning and documenting the stories of guys like Elliott Porter, Steven Wesley, and Chris Garrett, just to name 3, and how those kids were completely screwed by oversigning, it is now responsible for creating a problem for EVERYONE. Really?
The general consensus of the media is that oversigning has to go, both for reasons of ethical treatment of players and competitive equality. Georgia's AD and Florida's President both support this position and have done so publicly, so it's not just the media.
Essentially what Saban is saying is that to not oversign is harmful to kids -- those are his words. That should be taken as a direct shot at the Big 10 Conference and its coaches -- in Saban's view they are hurting kids and robbing them by not oversigning.
Ironically, Saban coached in the Big 10 for several years and there is no record of Saban lobbying to put an end to the injustice and harm that not oversigning was doing to kids while he was in the Big 10. And based on how strongly he feels about this injustice, it's odd that he hasn't started a campaign to rid the rest of college football of the injustice of not oversigning kids. Surely if he feels this strongly about it he would call out coaches around the country for not oversigning, "look guys, you are ruining lives by not doing this -- you can't do this to the kids, it's not right!!!!"
That's what he is selling -- are you buying? We're not.
Oversigning was probably never even on Saban's radar until he landed at LSU and found out what a powerful tool it is for roster management. Gerry DiNardo didn't realize what a constraint the B1G rules were until he came to Indiana from LSU -- he was the one that lobbied to have the rules relaxed in 2002 so that he could oversign by 3, not Saban.
Regardless, Saban wants everyone to believe this is a problem created by the media; he's dead wrong, this has been an issue for decades, the media is just finally bringing it to the forefront.
SEC University Presidents
It all comes down to the university presidents. In 1964 the SEC university presidents were faced with the exact same dilemma, yes we've been down this road before, oversigning is not something that just starting being an issue here recently, and they voted in favor of not changing the rules for oversigning. The numbers were slightly different back then, but the general principles were the same. Coaches were signing way more guys than they had room for and then kicking the ones they didn't want to the curb.
The SEC presidents at the time were torn over the issue with the vote being split down the middle.
A vote was to be taken by the presidents of the colleges on the issue, and Dodd made it clear, Tech would have to leave the SEC unless the rule was changed. Dodd said he would live with 10, 20, 30, 40, or even 50 recruits per year as long as he did not have to chase any of his players off.
The presidents were split six for Dodd’s position and six against. Bear had promised Dodd he would get his president to vote for Dodd’s position, which would have changed the rule.
When the meeting was held, Bryant did not show up and the Alabama president voted against Dodd’s position and the 140 Rule was upheld. Tech’s president immediately walked to the podium and announced Tech was withdrawing from the SEC. Bryant never told Dodd why he reneged on his promise."
http://oversigning.com/testing/index.php/2010/02/14/why-did-georgia-tech-leave-the-sec/
The SEC Presidents have an opportunity to send a message and right the wrongs that have taken place since that decision in 1964. Oversigning is not an issue that Nick Saban created, it's a systemic problem that is as old as the conference and has resulted in countless kids like Elliott Porter and Chris Garrett getting screwed out of their scholarships to make way for new, better players.
On Friday we'll find out who really is in control of the SEC, the coaches or the Presidents. For the sake of college football let's hope it's the Presidents and they vote to push through the new legislation.
Arkansas AD Jeff Long Joins Nutt, Saban in Fight to Keep Oversigning
Based on the comments coming out from SEC coaches, and now Athletic Directors, it is very unlikely that the new legislation on oversigning is going to pass. The only way it passes is if the university presidents make it happen.
Here's te latest from Arkansas' AD Jeff Long.
http://tinyurl.com/3rjklws
The overriding theme from all supporters of oversigning is that they are doing it right, others are doing it wrong, there's nothing wrong with it if it's done right, and there is nothing wrong with treating a kid like a piece of meat as long as you tell him upfront that you are going to treat him like a piece of meat.
Most prognosticators have the oversigners willing this battle 8-4.
One thing is certain, if this legislation doesn't pass it will send a clear message to the rest of the college football world. If you want to compete with the best conference in the country you are going to have to get on board with oversigning and start treating your roster like an NFL roster.
Nick Saban Joins Houston Nutt in the Fight to Keep Oversigning
It appears the battle lines are taking shape as the SEC meetings draw near. On one side we have the chronic oversigners clamouring to come up with excuses as to why oversigning should remain in tact, reasons such as “It’s a very difficult job to try to manage, to keep two, three deep at every position” (Houtson Nutt), or "oversigning is 'helpful' because so many of the players in the state come from underprivileged backgrounds and may not qualify academically" (Steve Spurrier), or "I don't see it as a bad thing unless you're being dishonest or waiting until the last minute, which eliminates their visit opportunities with other schools" (Bobby Petrino).
Nick Saban added his name to the list of coaches that will fight to keep oversigning alive and well in the SEC on Thursday.
"The innuendo out there is that all these things are being manipulated in a negative way," Alabama coach Nick Saban said. "But nobody has ever really brought to the forefront the positives by doing it the right way. People hang onto all the situations that aren't done the right way and act like in every situation that somebody is getting screwed in some sort of way, and that's just not the case."
Shouldn't the situations like Elliott Porter, Chris Garrett, and Steven Wesley be the situations that everyone holds onto, not the positives? Did he even mention any positives other than the competitive advantage aspect? The stories of kids having their scholarship offers pulled the day before signing day by Spurrier and their High School coaches being irate about it, shouldn't that be what we hold on to?
If just one kid gets screwed by oversigning, isn't it enough to seriously crack down on the practice? Think about it in terms of the way the NCAA creates its rules. Often times, an NCAA rule is created not because the area in question is nefarious, such as the rules regarding selling personal memorabilia, but rather because of the potential for abuse. The rules regarding selling personal memorabilia are in place to prevent a booster from buying a jersey from a player for $100K, not because they don't want some kid selling his ring at a fraction of its value. Even if you believe that oversigning only harms a few and only when not done right, shouldn't it be addressed in the same way as the rules regarding selling memorabilia? What's more harmful, a kid getting a few extra bucks or some poor kid losing his scholarship at the last minute because a coach oversigned his class to bring in better talent so that he can keep making his millions of dollars?
Those positives that Saban refers to by the way are the competitive advantage that these coaches gain by exploiting this practice. Nearly every coach that oversigns has stated that it provides them with an advantage.
"In my opinion, it would really affect the quality in our league," Saban said. "You can't know the attrition from signing day until August, which guys who're going to be fifth-year seniors that decide they don't want to come back and play football. Well, you can't count those guys. You're going to have to tell those guys they're going to have to decide in January.
This is where the competitive advantage issue comes into play. By oversigning, coaches can bring in a few extra guys and work them through the spring while at the same time working the 5th year guys that have eligibility remaining, and then after spring training is over coaches can make a decision as to whether or not they want to renew a 5th year guy who may or may not have graduated yet, knowing all along they have an ace in the hole and will end up with the best 85. The coaches want their cake and eat it too.
Why is it that 5th year guys can't make a decision as to whether or not they want to come back in January, but Juniors leaving early for the NFL can? Are Juniors that much more prepared to make a life-altering decision than 5th year seniors?
Furthermore, if the question is whether or not they want to come back, isn't their participation in spring practice an indication that they would like to come back? Just recently Alabama had a 5th year RB Demetrius Goode participate in spring practice, indicating he hadn't given up on football, but then after spring practice decided he wanted to go to UNA instead. Perhaps he wanted playing time, fine. But can't that decision be made in January at the same time Juniors make decisions to go to the NFL?
On the other side of the battle line you have Florida and Georgia who have both been very outspoken about the abuses of oversigning and greyshirting. Mark Richt has been especially outspoken about the abuses taking place:
Georgia coach Mark Richt is in the opposite camp. He said that it was an "awful thing to do" to bring in players to participate in the summer strength program and then ask some to leave or wait until January to sign based on which ones performed the best.
He didn't stop there, either.
"These other coaches have been oversigning, trying to make sure they never come up short of that 85 number," Richt said earlier this month at a Georgia booster club speaking engagement in Greenville, S.C. "But in doing so, have they done it in an ethical way?
"I'd say the answer is probably not."
It has become extremely clear that the coaches that want to continue oversigning all want you to believe that there is nothing wrong with the practice as long as it is done the right way. Again, there is nothing wrong with selling your jersey for a few bucks, so long as you don't sell it to a booster for $100K, right?
At the end of the day it all comes back to the competitive advantage aspect of the argument and the pressure on these coaches to win. These coaches are under more pressure to win than anywhere else in the country, so of course they want you to believe their practice of oversigning is okay as long as it's done right, they can't afford to live without it based on the pressure to win.
Houston Nutt is already starting to feel the affects of the 28 rule, named in his honor, and he knows if further rules are passed that he could be in serious jeopardy of losing his multi-million dollar job, so of course he's fighting for the right to continue to exploit the spirit of the signing process and the loopholes inherent to the NCAA's 25/85 rule.
Quick Note Regarding the Medical Hardship Aspect of the new Legislation:
The new legislation that is on the table includes a proposal to address the issue of medical hardships and how those are being used to game the system and fudge the scholarship numbers. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, Nick Saban's medical hardship numbers are way above the norm, and then when former players were asked about those medical hardships and whether or not they felt pressured to take them the players revealed that they were pressured and that they thought the medical hardship was loophole used to bring in better players.
Three Alabama players who've taken these exemptions say they believe the team uses the practice as a way to clear spots for better players by cutting players it no longer wants. These players said they believe Mr. Saban and his staff pressure some players to take these scholarships even though their injuries aren't serious enough to warrant keeping them off the field.
"I'm still kind of bitter," said former Alabama linebacker Chuck Kirschman, who took a medical scholarship last year. Mr. Kirschman said Mr. Saban encouraged him to accept the scholarship because of a back problem that he believes he could have played through. "It's a business," Mr. Kirschman said. "College football is all about politics. And this is a loophole in the system."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703384204575509901468451306.html
That is THREE former players coming out and saying they believed the team used the medical hardships to clear roster space for better players, one of which says he's still bitter about it calling it a business and a loophole.
Here is what Nick Saban had to say about it.
Saban is also quick to defend the charge that he pressures players into taking medical redshirts or dismisses players who aren't contributing on the field in order to open up more scholarship room each year.
"First of all, I've never gotten rid of a player who didn't create his own circumstances for why he had to leave the program, whether it was academic, whether it was behavior, whether it was drug-related, whatever," Saban said. "Really, I've always given guys more rope than they deserve, and I think the innuendo out there is that I'm just picking and choosing which guys to run off, and people bring it up that I've medical-ed more people. Well, yeah, I medical them so they can stay in school and graduate, where other people just get rid of them. I don't make those decisions, either. The doctors make them, and we have great doctors."
In one breath Saban says, "I medical them so they can stay in school," and in the next breath he says, "I don't make those decisions, either. The doctors make them, and we have great doctors." Which one is it? Who is making the final decision to issue the medical hardship? Hard to believe everything is on the up and up when you have 3 players claiming they were wrongly pressured to take those medical hardships to clear roster space and another player calling it a loophole.
The new proposal on the table includes a measure for medical hardship monitoring, but is it enough?
Giving the SEC league office more oversight concerning those players placed on medical scholarship. In other words, the league would be involved in reviewing outcomes. A team doctor, trainer and athletic director would need to sign off on each case.
http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/23199/proposed-sec-oversigning-legislation
The new legislation would require 3 people to sign off on the medical waiver, does anyone in their right mind believe that a trainer or an athletic director are going to go against the decision of a doctor? And if what we read above from Saban is true, it appears that he has great influence on whether or not a medical is issued to a player. The details are still unclear, but you have to believe the athletic director would only be signing off on whether or not to grant the medical hardship or to just not renew the player -- if coaches are allowed to continue oversigning and continue to be in a numbers crunch, is there an athletic director out there that is going to refuse to sign off on a medical hardship and have his school face NCAA violations for going over the 85 limit?
Unless there are more details regarding the medical hardship oversight, what we have on the table doesn't appear to be anything other than window dressing in reaction to the WSJ piece on Alabama's medical hardships.
We have a couple of suggestions: 1. many of these medical hardships are the result of a numbers crunch because of oversigning, eliminate the oversigning and you would see a drastic decline in the number of medical hardships issued by schools that oversign, 2. have the NCAA conduct an exit interview with the kids placed on medical hardship so that guys like the 3 Alabama players who told the WSJ that they thought they were being pushed out to make room for better players can tell the NCAA and have the NCAA conduct an investigation.
New SEC Proposal on Oversigning and Roster Management
Details of the new SEC legislation proposed by Mike Slive are starting to come out. The Athens Banner-Herald has obtained a copy of the new legislation aimed to curb some of the abuses that have been rampant in the SEC over the last several years. Actually, these abuses have been taking place as far back as Bobby Dodd's time in the 1960's when GT was a member of the SEC before leaving the conference because the conference refused to address the roster management issues and oversigning. Here is what has been made available to the public:
- Limiting the size of a football signing class in each academic year to 25, down from the current level of 28. The 25 limit would cover those who sign from Dec. 1 to August 1.
- Making football signees who attend summer school on athletic aid before the fall semester count against a school's scholarship numbers for that next academic year.
- Giving the SEC office more oversight in medical scholarship exemptions to review and determine outcome for cases. A team doctor, trainer and athletic director would need to sign off on each case.
- Keeping early enrollees from signing an SEC financial aid agreement until they are enrolled and attend class at the school. Currently, recruits can begin to sign a financial aid agreement after their junior year of high school, which keeps other SEC schools from recruiting them.http://staugustine.com/sports/2011-05-24/oversigning-secs-football-priority
This is definitely a comprehensive package covering more areas than just oversigning, but the proposed legislation that addresses oversigning is still lacking and does not address the root of the oversigning issue. The current SEC rules allow for 28 recruits to be signed between February and May 31st; the new rule is 25 between December 1 and August 1. Neither of them address the 85 limit, which is the core issue.
This is nothing more than more window dressing, unfortunately. Slive and the SEC are still hung up on the annual signing numbers and the 25 limit for an incoming class. The root of the oversigning problem is the 85 limit, not the 25 annual limit. What good is a limit set at 25 when a school only has 16 scholarship spaces available??? It is worthless at stopping oversigning.
The current Big 10 rules are based on the 85 scholarship limit first, then the 25 annual limit. If a Big 10 school has 16 scholarships available, they can accept up to 19 signed letters of intent, but there's a catch. The school has to petition the Big 10 office for permission to accept those 3 extra signed letters of intent and they have to explain why they are going over. But there's more, before they petition to accept the oversigned letter of intent, they have to petition for permission to issue a written offer that is over the 85 limit. That's right, the Big 10 office controls the number of offers the school can issue and just like the number of signed letters of intent a school can accept, Big 10 schools are only allowed to offer 3 more scholarships than they have room for under the 85 limit. So despite the NCAA allowing a school to sign and bring in 25 new players each year, if a Big 10 school has room for 16 new recruits the most they will be allowed is 19 by the Big 10 office and the three extra have to be documents.
If you think those rules are tough, prior to 2002 there was no waiver to go over the 85 limit. That changed when in 2002, Gerry DiNardo, having spent time coaching at LSU and realizing the advantage of oversigning, was hired at Indiana where he inherited a repeated roster and started lobbying for the oversigning waiver. DiNardo got his wish and the oversigning waiver was accepted into the Big 10 rules, but he was later fired from Indiana after a few years and never being able to turn the program around.
The net result of the Big 10 measures on oversigning is that there is very little oversigning in the Big 10. Associate Commissioner, Chad Hawley, says that despite the option to oversign by 3 that very seldom do schools petition for the oversigning waiver. In fact, according to Hawley, only 1 Big 10 school oversigned this year.
The bottom line is that this appears to be just more window dressing -- Slive is reducing the number from 28 to 25, but he is increasing the window from Dec 1. to August 1. His legislation, at the end of the day, does not address the root of the problem, going over the 85 limit, and any legislation that does not address the potential for a coach to sign 8-10 guys over the 85 limit is severely lacking. Scholarship and roster numbers fluctuate every year, some years a school will have room for 25 other years they will have room for 16, the rules on signing players need to work in accordance with that fluctuation.
We'll have more on the rest later.
Houston Nutt Fighting to Keep Oversigning in the SEC
Houston Nutt is, whether he likes it or not, one of the reasons oversigning has received the attention it has over the last two years. Why? Simple, you can't blatantly rape the spirit of the NLOI process and then laugh about it to the media.
“There is no rule that says we can’t sign 80! All I know is we have to have 25, we got to have 25 come ready August”
Those were Houston Nutt's exact words, words that lead to the Houston Nutt rule that limits SEC schools to only signing 28 players between the months of February and June. Words that Houston Nutt would probably take back if he could. When asked if he would sign 37 players again, Nutt told Ole Miss reporter, Kyle Veazey, he probably wouldn't:
"And as for that 37, he thinks it unfairly characterizes him in a bad light. He knew going in that many of those players would go to junior college, but he felt that if he signed them initially that it might give them incentive to improve at juco — and give the Rebels an inside track two years later should they be eligible. But even after saying all of that, he said he wouldn’t have signed 37 if he had it do over again (and the new rule wasn’t in place)."
http://blogs.clarionledger.com/um/2011/05/24/entering-destin-nutt-plans-to-fight/
According to Veazey, Nutt plans to fight for keeping oversigning in the SEC, along with the morally reprehensible practice of grayshirting, as Florida's President Bernie Machen would describe it.
Nutt thinks those who criticize him on grounds of oversigning just don’t get the difficulty involved in the number juggling in a college roster. “It’s a very difficult job to try to manage, to keep two, three deep at every position,” Nutt said. He says he hasn’t ‘run off’ players just to meet his numbers, isn’t dishonest and said that he doesn’t ‘non-renew’ a scholarship player unless he’s involved in disciplinary issues. But he says if a player comes to him and says his goal is to start and Nutt doesn’t see it, he might suggest that it’s not a bad idea if he goes somewhere else. When I told him critics counter that by saying coaches should be accountable for their talent evaluations, he said this: “Until you’ve done it, until you’ve actually done it, it’s one of the most difficult things, ever.”
http://blogs.clarionledger.com/um/2011/05/24/entering-destin-nutt-plans-to-fight/
Houston Nutt's defense for oversigning is that it's tough to evaluate talent, brilliant! But isn't that what he is being paid millions of dollars to do? Veazey also mentions that he will have more on Nutt's defense of oversigning later in the week, but at this point, it's pretty clear that Nutt plans to dig in and fight this thing out until the bitter end. Perhaps he has no choice, perhaps oversigning is the only thing that is enabling him to field a team. Despite all those large numbers: 31, 37,26, and 28 in the last four years, Ole Miss is on track to have way less than 85 scholarship players next year. That is a lot of recruiting misses...maybe it is as hard as he makes it sound.
Pat Fitzgerald would probably disagree with his ultra small classes of 18-20 players each year with virtually no attrition, excellent graduation rates, and conference best APR ranking.
Needless to say, things are going to get very interesting in the coming weeks as the SEC deliberates over the oversigning issue. One thing is for sure, Houston Nutt fully intends to fight to keep oversigning alive and well in the SEC.
Say it ain’t so!
For anyone who wonders where I stand on the issue of oversigning, here goes. As you may know, my undergraduate alma mater is Indiana University. In yesterday's Bloomington (IN) Herald-Times was a story describing the way IU head basketball coach Tom Crean is rebuilding the Hoosiers after the debacle that was Kelvin Sampson. It's not a pretty sight.
For three straight years Crean has struggled to recruit players who can compete on the floor and represent the university's values, while simultaneously passing college courses. Virtually everyone agrees that the kids he's brought in are doing a great job in their off-the-court responsibilities. But there's always that W-L thing. Last season the once mighty Hoosiers won just 3 Big Ten games. Out of 18.
It appears that Crean is turning the corner on big time recruits with the signing of Cody Zeller boy,who is Indiana's reigning Mr. Basketball and a national Top 10 high school All America. Crean's 2012 recruiting class is being called the best at IU since 1975 and perhaps the nation's #1 recruiting class for 2012. The class is strong in both quality and quantity. Therein lies the rub.
IU basketball is currently oversigned by 1 (sadly, this is allowed by the Big Ten conference) but the problem coming down the road is much bigger. I have been watching this looming oversigning status unfold and reading numerous IU basketball fan forums. The consensus of Hoosier fanatics is that Crean is going to have to orchestrate an exodus of players he recruited in their darkest days . . . players who cannot compete at the Big Ten level. Hoosier fans seem entirely OK with that. Many openly state, "That's the way big time sports operates. No player is guaranteed a 5 year career. If they can't cut it, be gone!"
In my opinion these are kids who chose to play for IU when Crean couldn't get top flight recruits to commit. Those kids forsook attending lesser programs where they could have played and probably starred. But commit they did. If those kids are jettisoned when Crean's big time recruits show up, I for one am going to have a big time problem with it.
IU's AD should have told Crean that his mission was to rebuild the Hoosiers slowly but steadily without compromising what's right. Shucking those first two signing classes now that they have better players coming in is just wrong. Moving more slowly by signing fewer top flight recruits for 2012 would have taken big cojones but it would have been the right thing to do. We'll see how this thing shakes out.
Kelvin Sampson was corrupt; let's see what Tom Crean is made of.
Chris Low Believes SEC Coaches Will Fight To Keep Oversigning
Chris Low, ESPN's SEC Blogger, was recently asked if he thought anything would come of the recent movement to have oversigning banned.
We'll find out a lot more at the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla., but I can tell you that a number of SEC coaches have made it clear to their ADs and to SEC commissioner Mike Slive that managing numbers in terms of scholarships has been one of the best things the SEC has done in football and a big reason the league has had so much success. In other words, the coaches will fight any kind of hard cap (similar to what the Big Ten does)in a big way.
We'll see what happens in Destin, should be interesting. Mike Slive has a real opportunity to step up and be forever known as the man who ended oversigning in the SEC, something no one has been able to do for 40 years.
Spurrier Likes the Current Oversigning Rules
Perhaps without them he would be playing golf instead of pulling scholarship offers at the last minute.
But hey, time heals all wounds, right? Are academics in South Carolina really that piss poor?
Hope Mike Slive is proud.
Florida, Muschamp Will Not Grayshirt or Sign and Place
Things are starting to heat back up a little on the oversigning topic. The last few weeks have been slow, but with the conference meetings coming soon, as well as the forced attrition to clear roster space via medical hardships, grayshirts, and coerced transfers to lower tier programs, we will start to see a lot more news on the oversigning front.
Will Muschamp got things going today during a teleconference with all 12 SEC head coaches when he had this to say when asked about oversigning and grayshirting:
Muschamp also addressed the oversigning and grayshirting of athletes that has become a recent subject of concern in some areas.
"I think there is some gray area involved with all of it," he said."Now, you're able to sign players back (previous year) as long as you're under your 85 (scholarship) total. So does that count against the 28 you signed in February? Right now it doesn't.
"Again, at Florida, we don't grayshirt. That's not something that we do; it's not a policy of ours. We don't place students; that's not a policy of ours. That's not something that I'm going to cross that bridge on right now because it's not something that we do or is part of what we're going to do."
Wonder what Huston Nutt, Les Miles, and Nick Saban had so say to that during the conference call? Kudos to Muschamp for going public with their policy on signing and placing and grayshirting, and Kudos to Florida for making it a policy (not sure if that is an actual written policy or not) not to exploit these two loopholes in the system.
Mike Slive Prepares for the Annual SEC Meetings in Florida
Mike Slive took a few minutes to answer questions about the upcoming annual conference meetings and as expected the topic of oversigning came up during the conversation (see below). The million dollar question is which athletic directors are in the group that is studying the oversigning issue??? Will Georgia and Florida have enough pull to force the rest of the conference athletic directors to seriously address the oversigning issue or will it be another round of window dressing with another toothless rule named after a coach? Or, will the SEC shock the world and come up with a set of conference rules that are the toughest in the country on oversigning and grayshirting?
Q: Will the SEC re-examine its rule, which has now become an NCAA rule, setting a limit of 28 football signees per class? Do you believe it has adequately addressed the issue of oversigning or does it need to be toughened, possibly even looking to the Big Ten model (which allows its football programs to sign only three over the number of scholarships it has available under the 85 limit)?
A: I don't think there's any particular model out there that we would care to emulate, but we're going to take a look at all these issues. It's more than just the question of oversigning. It's a question of looking at all these issues that comprise how teams develop their ultimate roster. We have put together a group of our athletic directors who have been working on this now for several months and we anticipate looking at their report in Destin, when we do our business. We expect the First Amendment to be alive and well in Destin and I actually anticipate that we would do something more than we have done up to now.
There are a lot of things that go with it -- the question of oversigning, the question of grayshirting, the question of early admission, the question of pre-enrollment in summer school. We are working to take a very comprehensive look at all the different elements, not just the one issue of oversigning.
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/04/mike_slive_talks_oversigning_b.html
Alabama Blacks Out Scholarship Numbers Citing Federal Privacy Laws; Legal Experts Disagree
This is somewhat old news, but Marquavius Burnett at The Crimson and White just wrote a nice article about the situation at Alabama regarding their refusal to disclose scholarship numbers, including an image of the document where Alabama blacks out the scholarship numbers in their annual report. Alabama officials are saying that federal privacy laws prevent them from disclosing the number of scholarships, but law experts disagree and question why the schools that do release this information are not in violation of the federal privacy laws.
From the article:
Deborah Lane, and assistant vice president for University Relations, said in an emailed statement that privacy laws prohibit them from disclosing scholarship numbers because they can be used by a reasonable person to find out personal information about individual students.
But law experts disagree.
“This information is not confidential,” said Frank LoMonte, the executive director of the Student Press Law Center. “In fact, Alabama routinely announces the names of star athletes it has signed to scholarships…. Other schools are comfortable releasing the numbers. There is no practical way that you could match up the number of scholarships with particular athletes and, even if you could, it would not compromise any private information.”
http://cw.ua.edu/2011/04/13/university-blacks-out-scholarship-numbers/
It is really unclear as to why these numbers are being hidden. Cecil Hurt at the Tuscaloosa News has filed a Freedom of Information Act request in order to try and obtain the official scholarship numbers, hopefully he will hear something soon so we can get this all cleared up.
The irony in all of this is that Alabama goes out of its way to have a fax cam streaming video of the recruits names as their faxed LOI to receive a scholarship comes in on national signing day.
The article goes on to cite the Wall Street Journal article on Alabama's oversigning:
The entire SEC, especially Alabama, has been under fire recently for oversigning in football. Under NCAA rules, it is legal to sign more players to scholarships than the limit of 85 as long as teams are not over that limit by July 31. However, The Wall Street Journal reported in September of 2010 that former Alabama players said the school tried to gain a competitive edge by encouraging underperforming players to quit the team, allowing the Tide to not exceed the limit of 85 scholarships per season.
Because the deadline to get down to 85 football scholarships is July 31, when 2010 expense reports were filed, it would not have been a violation to be over the limit of 85. In fact, LSU and Mississippi’s 2010 athletic expense reports show the schools had 91 and 89 scholarships, respectively, allotted to football when the reports were filed.
http://cw.ua.edu/2011/04/13/university-blacks-out-scholarship-numbers/
Help Us Plan the Future & Make a Real Difference
As you might know, I recently launched two brand new advocacy sites/blogs, Parents of Players and Reform the NCAA. For quite some time as Oversigning.com has grown, Joshua and I have been discussing whether we should broaden our focus to cover many other (and far more serious) examples of exploitation of high school and college players.
One way is to have separate and distinct web sites/blogs for each problem/exploitation (that's the road we're on right at this minute). The other way would be to transform Oversigning.com into Oversigning & More.com. We could have a navigation bar at the top of the page with tabs for Oversigning, Truth in Recruiting, Academic Problems, Money Problems, Player Attrition, etc. Clicking one of these tabs would take you to a blog focused on the specific problem area. The benefit of this approach would be that it make it easy for highly interested people (like you) to stay informed on a wide range of NCAA problems & suggested reforms without putting a bunch of sites in your Favorites/Bookmarks.
From a business standpoint, this would enable us to aggregate our traffic and perhaps one day put us over the top in page views so that we might be able to begin covering our operating costs with a few inobtrusive ads. If things got really cranking we could afford to begin paying some talented writers to research and write highly professional pieces on each problem topic.
Last night I had this amazing epiphany (for you guys from Mississippi that means the light bulb went on. Whoa, don't get pissed off, I'm just kidding around!). My bright idea is this: Why not ask the passionate people on Oversigning.com what they think.
So, I'm asking. No holds barred. Tell us what you think. And if you'd like to nominate yourself to research & write on a topic please send an email to me at marc@oversigning.com or marc@reformthencaa.org. Thanks!
SEC’s Greg Sankey: Grayshirting Not Appropriate
In a very well written article by Tim Twentyman, the SEC's Associate Commissioner, Greg Sankey admits the practice of grayshirting by some of his member schools is not appropriate. Our position all along has been that for a coach to go out and offer a ton of kids and tell them all that they might have to grayshirt depending on how things work out on signing day is fraudulent, at best. It is nothing more than a tactic to string kids along and keep them away from competing schools and offers no guarantee of a scholarship; there is a reason why the NLI's Susan Peal doesn't support grayshirting.
The SEC's Sankey admits that the practice of grayshirting by some of his member schools is "not appropriate" and says the SEC is considering adopting stricter measures on how recruits are counted.
"This year, we saw a couple circumstances where there was really late notice to student-athletes about programs' desire for them to defer enrollment," Sankey said. "Those circumstances are not appropriate. We don't want to see that type of thing happen.
"Part of the discussion is, 'Is there a way to manage grayshirting that should be out in front of folks?' In a similar way, should we be managing early-enrollment issues in a different way? All of those things mix into this discussion and that's why it takes some time to do some analysis to figure out some reasonable solution for our conference. We've been after this issue since the fall and we have an annual meeting in late May and early June, and I'd expect some potential solutions would be considered."
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110406/SPORTS0203/104060302/Big-Ten--Oversigning-gives-some-schools-‘competitive-advantage’#ixzz1IkROTHrA
The article also includes quotes from several coaches, other conference officials, and recruited players who admit they had no idea what oversigning was until someone told them about it.
Madison Heights Madison defensive back Valdez Showers, who signed with Florida in February, said he never once thought about oversigning during his recruitment. He didn't even know such a thing was allowed.
"All I looked at was how many people they signed at my position," he said. "I never really thought about oversigning and I can tell you by experience that recruits aren't really looking at that, either."
Showers did say he was going to make sure future recruits at his high school are aware of the practice and ask the right questions during their recruitment — especially when dealing with some SEC schools.
"I think (oversigning) is real immature and unprofessional by a coach," Showers said. "Why would he recruit this many guys knowing that he's going to mess up another kid's chance of getting another scholarship from another school? I think recruits should start looking at that now."
Saginaw's DeAnthony Arnett, who'll also play in the SEC next season for Tennessee, said he didn't have to worry about having a spot on the team, due to his stature in the recruiting rankings. He is ranked the No. 8 receiver in the country by Scout.com and the No. 12 receiver by Rivals.com. But he said he could empathize with those players that find out too late to do anything about the fact that they are no longer wanted on campus in the fall.
"Some schools like oversigning kids and then giving them grayshirts or telling them to leave, which is wrong," he said. "Whatever your maximum is, that's how many you should be able to sign and not go over that."
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110406/SPORTS0203/104060302/Big-Ten--Oversigning-gives-some-schools-‘competitive-advantage’#ixzz1IkSi2svm
Michigan State's Mark Dantonio says that they have never had to tell a kid that he doesn't have a scholarship; he also believes in Jim Tressel's method of giving open scholarships after the spring and summer natural attrition to deserving walk-on players who have earned a scholarship reward.
Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio told The Detroit News that he's never had to tell one of his players that his scholarship no longer exists, and can't imaging having to do so. But Dantonio added that he has to protect his program, which can be accomplished with moderate oversigning.
"My feeling is that as a program, you sign what you think you're going to have, and then there are always opportunities for a non-scholarship player — who's really played himself into a position to play — award him a scholarship, which we've been able to do every single year," Dantonio said.
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110406/SPORTS0203/104060302/Big-Ten--Oversigning-gives-some-schools-‘competitive-advantage’#ixzz1Ika2GM6R
To be clear, when reading these articles and talking about oversigning, you have to remember that there are two kinds of oversigning: signing more than 85 and signing more than 25. In many cases, like the quote above by Dantonio, coaches are referring to oversigning the 25 not the 85. For example, if a school has 57 returning players on scholarship, they can take on 28 to get to 85, however, 28 is over the 25 limit for a given year. What happens is that 3 of the 28 enroll early and count towards the previous year, then the remaining 25 enroll in the current year and count towards the current class. Therefore, despite going over the 25 limit, the school did not go over the 85 limit. This is what the Big 10 rule of going over by 3 is really there for; not so much to enable schools to abusively go over the 85 limit every year, which in talking to Chad Hawley simply doesn't happen. Our issue has always been going over the 85 because when that happens cuts have to be made; you can go over the 25 and not have to cut anyone as long as there is room in the previous class and guys enroll early.
We encourage you to read the rest of the article and discuss in the comments section. It's amazing that kids today, despite all of the talk in the media and everyone on the Internet, do not know what oversigning is or that it is allowed. Marc's proposal for Truth in Recruiting would definitely eliminate this problem.
Updated: Added quote from Mark Dantonio and commentary on the Big 10 rule for oversigning.
Alabama Adds #25 to Class – Where is the Room?
Alabama had 12 scholarship players leave the team (8 to graduation, 3 juniors to the NFL, and 1 transfer prior to signing day) last year; Alabama also signed 23 new players (22 on signing day and now Duron Carter) and had 2 players greyshirt last year that now count towards this class; this puts them at 25 new players this year. On NSD, Nick Saban told the media that they signed what they could, implying they had room for 22 + 2 GS, and that they could add another player later because there were candidates for medical hardships or redshirt guys that have graduated that could be replaced. To date there have been no announcements regarding any departures, but there have been plenty of names floated around as possible candidates.
As we mentioned a month ago, the numbers just don't jive. If you have 12 scholarship players leave but add 25 new scholarship players, the only way you have room for them all is if you finished the previous season with 72 scholarship players. 72 - 12=60, 60 + 25=85.
Does anyone believe that Alabama had only 72 scholarship players last year? If that was the case, then why the 2 greyshirts last year because there wasn't room -- if you are at 72 scholarship players why in the world would you greyshirt 2? The only viable reason would be the 25 limit, but Alabama had a handful of guys last year that enrolled early and counted toward the previous year, so there should have been room. Furthermore, Alabama had a bunch of attrition last year -- we examined their roster prior to signing day and projected the number of guys they needed to lose in order to get to 85 and that was the exact number of guys they lost during the spring and summer -- so if they weren't making roster cuts to get to 85 there should have been room for the two that greyshirted last year.
We are being a little coy here, we know they didn't have 72 guys on scholarship to end the season last year. The reality is that they are over right now, and the medical hardship, transfers and non-renewals should start to emerge soon.
With spring practice in full swing, shouldn't anyone that is injured to the point that they can no longer participate already be on medical hardship? Maybe there are guys that are not participating in practice right now, not sure.
All of these questions could be answered if Alabama didn't withhold their scholarship numbers information from the media, something no school should be doing. Cecil Hurt with the Tuscaloosa News is working on this and has filed Freedom of Information requests in an effort to get scholarship numbers from the University, which is bizarre when you consider Alabama is one of the few programs around the country that runs a web cam on national signing day so that everyone can see the signed letters of intent as they come in; each time one comes in the school posts the name of the player on the fax machine so everyone can see it. Why would you go out of your way to broadcast that information yet withhold scholarship numbers from the media when asked for them?
@TheMarchTo85 I promise we are using every FOI avenue available.
We have asked Cecil Hurt to simply ask Saban if they have room for everyone right now and from this point forward if anyone leaves will it result in Alabama starting the season under the 85 limit. Those are questions that A.) should be asked, and B.) Saban should be able to answer. To his credit, Hurt acknowledged our request and stated that he would follow up with Saban this week and ask questions.
The JUCO Farm System in the SEC and Oversigning
The topic of oversigning with the intention of signing and placing recruits in JUCO schools in the southeast has been a heavily debated topic here at oversigning.com. Numerous SEC coaches have publicly defended their practice of signing and placing kids they have oversigned into JUCO schools, including Auburn's former coach Tommy Tuberville, who claimed he oversigned every year as a head coach. Huston Nutt was trying to setup his own little farm league in the JUCO system when he raped the signing process a few ago and signed 37 recruits, 12 of which he knew had no shot at qualifying.
Our position has been that coaches abuse this practice in order to hoard recruits and keep them away from rival schools. As SportsByBrooks.com is now reporting regarding HBO's upcoming special on business and ethics in college sports, we see why SEC coaches, specifically Auburn's ex-coach Tommy Tuberville, liked to oversign and place the non-qualifiers in JUCO.
Kremer voiceover: “Raven Gray was a top (Auburn) recruit in 2007, he says people affiliated with Auburn would visit him at his junior college and press the flesh there too.”
Kremer to Gray: “How much do you think you got?”
Gray: “Twenty five-hundred to three thousand dollars. Loyalty is the key. This man give me money I’m going to be loyal to him and go to Auburn.”
Kremer voiceover: “And he did go to Auburn but got injured before he ever played a game.”
http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/ex-auburn-players-claim-systematic-pay-to-play-29592
According to Raven Gray, people affiliated with Auburn would visit him and bring him money while he was in the JUCO farm system.
Folks, the entire system is broken and the sport that we so dearly love is on the brink. The writing is on the wall -- this is going to get worse before it gets better and unfortunately oversigning and the ancillary filth that comes with it is just the tip of the iceberg.
Now We Know Why Tommy Tuberville Oversigned Every Year
Gene Chizik and Auburn made a concerted effort this year not to oversign their roster. Coming off of a year (2010) where they signed 32, in large part because they were well below the 85 limit in 2009, they signed 24 recruits, which appears to be 2 less than they could have signed based on the number of players that departed last year and the number of players they had on scholarship at the end of the season.
With the numbers already low due to the dismissal of Eric Smith for violation of team rules and a checked past that included a couple of arrests, Auburn suffered a huge loss of 4 players due to being arrested for armed robbery and other felonies. This alone puts them roughly 7 under the 85 limit, and if that were not enough, yesterday Chizik announced that 4 more players are not currently with the team. If in fact they are gone for good that would be 9 players since national signing day and it is very possible that Auburn could start the season with 74 scholarship players -- unless some of those scholarships are given to deserving walk-ons on a one-year basis or unless Auburn is able to sign someone from JUCO at the last minute.
Auburn Attrition 2011
| # | Name | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eric Smith | Violation of team rules |
| 2 | Mike McNeil | Armed Robbery |
| 3 | Antonio Goodwin | Armed Robbery |
| 4 | Shaun Kitchens | Armed Robbery |
| 5 | Dakota Mosley | Armed Robbery |
| 6 | Derek Winter | Unknown |
| 7 | Philip Peirre-Louis | Unknown |
| 8 | Andre Harris | Unknown |
| 9 | Robert Cooper | Unknown |
| 10 | Jessel Curry | Unknown |
More after the jump...
Lorenzo Mauldin Signs with Louisville
Lorenzo Mauldin, former South Carolina commitment, signed a LOI with Louisville today. Chip Towers, who has been doing a great job covering the oversigning topic lately, has more on the details of Mauldin's story, which is a remarkable one. Here are a few quotes from Chip's piece that are very disturbing:
Since he already had a signing ceremony planned, Mauldin went through the motions on Feb. 2. He signed a fake LOI and put on a South Carolina cap for cameras at his school. The Gamecocks went on to sign 32 other players to national letters, including the nation’s No. 1 recruit, Jadeveon Clowney, who did not sign until Feb. 14.
Sure wish Chip Towers could ask the South Carolina coaching staff if their bonuses are based on recruiting rankings on the Rivals and Scout sites and whether or not those bonuses are prorated to account for the signing of a fake letter of intent.
“I don’t believe they thought I would make the [qualifying test] score. It kind of made me feel like they were wishing for me to not make the score."
“The way South Carolina did me was not an ideal situation because I didn’t expect it to happen. But it did, so when it came down to it, I just took it as another trial in life and decided to overcome it. So I went on some visits to see what other teams had to offer and I liked Louisville.”
Mauldin said he did not inform South Carolina of his decision and hasn’t spoke with its coaches for a while.
“I’m sure they found out through media,” he said. “They still haven’t contacted me and I haven’t made an effort to contact them either. Once again, I felt like there was some favoritism going on there. I kind of gave up on that situation.”
Here's hoping Lorenzo realizes that there is more to college than football and that he makes the most of his opportunities at Louisville. For a kid who has been through as much as he has hopefully the stability of knowing where he will be for the next 4-5 years will help him make the most of this opportunity. Hat's off to Charlie Strong and Louisville for being straight with the kid instead of jerking him around like South Carolina.
The Second Worst Article Ever Written on Oversigning
We gave you the first one a while back which came from an Alabama blog, and now we give you exhibit B of what we consider to be some of the worst articles ever written on the topic. We can only hope that there are SEC fans that are embarrassed by this kind of nonsense. Perhaps Mike Slive should print it out for the conference meetings, surely he agrees with this blogger's assessment of the oversigning situation. Allows us to summarize for you:
High School Coaches Speaking Out
Well there goes the argument that nothing nefarious is going on with oversigning because otherwise we would hear High School coaches speak out and call out the schools that are wronging their kids. Walter Banks apparently felt that South Carolina, in an effort to reduce the oversigning they were projected to have, screwed one of his kids, Jordan Montgomery, by pulling his scholarship offer at the last minute without warning.
Josh Kendall, who covers South Carolina football for The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., reported in a story that was published on Wednesday that Montgomery’s coach at South Lake High, has declared that the Gamecocks’ coaches are “no longer welcome” at the school.
“I cannot look a kid and their parent in the face and say you can trust what a University of South Carolina coach says,” South Lake coach Walter Banks told Kendall.
I’d provide a link to the story but all of The State’s online content is behind a pay wall. But if you’d like to read more about it I certainly think it’s worth it. Just go to GoGamecocks.com.
South Carolina is no longer welcome at South Lake High School because Walter Banks doesn't feel that a kid or his parents can trust a coach from the University of South Carolina, and the entire reason for that mistrust is because South Carolina coaches were engaging in the practice of oversigning, and as is often the case kids are getting screwed because of it.
South Carolina is not the only University that has lost the trust of High School coaches. Although Purdue pulling its offer from AJ King had nothing to do with oversigning, it shows that there is an increasing lack of trust between high school coaches and college coaches.
“They flew A.J. up there to Purdue, everybody wowed him, told him they loved him and all that,” said King’s high school coach, Sean Callahan. “Then, after he came home, they pulled him, without ever talking to our doctors, without ever talking to our trainers.
“It’s completely unprofessional. In all my years as a coach, I’ve never, ever seen something done to a kid like this.”
And Callahan’s letting ‘em know it. He’s banned Purdue from recruiting his high school.
What Purdue did was horrible, but it is not germane to the oversigning issue which is the focus of this site, and therefore has not been covered in detail. Purdue was not in a numbers crunch and the reason for pulling the offer does not appear to have anything to do with being oversigned and having to make numbers work; Purdue simply decided they didn't want to honor their commitment to King based on his injury and the way that they handled it was completely unprofessional and we're glad to see King's high school coach blast them for it.
Oversigning Time Machine
With the SEC meetings in June on the horizon and the topic of oversigning at or near the topic of the agenda, perhaps Mike Slive and the Athletic Directors of the SEC should use the oversigning time machine and rewind the clock back to the SEC meetings of 1964. That was the year Georgia Tech took a stand against the practice of oversigning and eventually left the conference because it would not change its recruiting rules to prevent the abuses taking place relative to signing more players than there was room for, which subsequently led to players being run off the team and out of school.
It is absolutely amazing that 47 years later this is one of the hottest topics going into the conference meetings and still an issue in the SEC. Granted, Georgia and Florida are not threatening to leave the SEC if Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Auburn don't stop oversigning, but it is clear that the battle lines have been drawn and just like in 1964 the conference remains strongly divided on the practice of oversigning.
The Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine recently wrote a wonderful article on the 1964 SEC meetings with a blow for blow account of what happened and why GT really left the SEC -- oversigning. Here is just a snippet of the article; we highly recommend you read the rest of the article.
Over the years, many have debated the reason for Tech’s departure from the SEC. Some will argue that Tech athletics had begun to slip and were no longer able to compete with the other conference teams. Others will point to a running feud with the University of Alabama as the cause. Still others will suggest that Tech wanted to be an independent all along, hoping to become the Notre Dame of the South. Tech was losing a lot of revenue generated from TV and bowl rights because of conference sharing rules. As an independent, Tech would be able to keep all the money it earned.
The true reason was over something called the 140 Rule — and Bobby Dodd’s determination to have it changed.
The SEC 140 Rule placed yearly caps on football and basketball scholarships at 45 and limited the total number of scholarships each school could offer to 140. Even with the normal attrition expected from academic dropouts and other issues, simple math shows that if a school recruited its full allotment of players each year it would be over the 140 maximum.
Instead of recruiting a smaller number of athletes each year to manage the 140 maximum, many SEC schools would simply cut the scholarships of players who had not performed to expectations. Atlanta’s afternoon newspaper, The Atlanta Journal, reported “Dodd’s chief complaint with the 140 has been the alleged practice of some schools ‘running off’ recruiting mistakes to make room for new signees.”
We have long believed that the practice of oversigning is tolerated in certain areas because of a cultural mindset that believes it's okay to treat student-athletes as pawns or pieces of meat. This is the same mindset that believes in winning at all costs because bragging rights are more important than ethics. It should be noted, both from a historical perspective regarding GT's decision to leave the SEC in 1964 because of the oversigning issue and from a contemporary perspective from the recent comments from Florida's President and Georgia's Athletic Director condemning the practice of oversigning that this is not a North vs. South issue. This is an issue about ethics in recruiting and the sides are Right and Wrong, not North and South. The Big 10 Conference put its rules in place in 1954 to deal with oversigning, 10 years prior to GT leaving the SEC, and there is no record of the Big 10 having an influence on that decision in 1964. Likewise, very little is being said publicly by Big 10 officials on this topic. Chad Hawley has provided comments and a few coaches have answered questions on the topic or provided commentary, but by and large the Big 10 Conference is not pushing its rules onto the SEC. Instead, the SEC is right back where it was 47 years ago, heavily divided along the battle lines of oversigning, and this time it is Georgia instead of Georgia Tech that is taking a stand with Florida at its side.
Correction: The SEC Presidents and Athletic Directors meet in early June, not July as previously stated above.
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- @GerdOzone imagine what that number would be had he oversigned at the rate of Saban/Miles/Nutt/Petrino.
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- @BryanDFischer @andrewjbone remind me again how many guys were in that 2008 class and how many had to be cut to make room for them all.
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