Just saw this article… Very interesting. The article unambiguously demonstrates that OSU was oversigned.

Urban had to shed an injured player to get to NCAA limits. Shame, shame. I have seen no anti-oversigning zealots criticizing this move. Pure hypocrisy.

Why doesn’t someone take the reigns and actually investigate what is going on? A school like Alabama had 103 signed recruits for the past 4 years, not including 5th year seniors. Where did the other 18 go? Around 90 would sound reasonable because of transfers, med schollies. What about schools in the Big East, Big 10? Are they signing too many? Are they not given the same academic support as those on the two deep? Are those on medical scholarships really supposed to be there? There are too many questions and not enough answers.

I understand (though befuddling as it is) that a lot of you think oversigning is fine. I think fans whose schools benefit from it are more fine with it than the general public. I don’t agree that it’s ethical or moral. It’s not illegal certainly and I agree with that.

Just close the damn loopholes and put everyone on a level playing field. I don’t care what conference they’re in. 85 on scholarship, no more than 25 signed per year at all times period, 5 maximum early enrollees. Independent examiners have the say on whether a kid should be a medical scholarship or not. No more grayshirting.

A competitive advantage does not ensure a national championship, rather, it is just an advantage. The schools you mentioned above that oversign but have not won a national championship, are all better as a result of oversigning. They still have to compete with Alabama and LSU; teams that do it much better. South Carolina and Arkansas are playing some of the best football they have in decades, maybe ever, as a result.

What is your point? That oversigning does not infer an advantage? Of course it does. To argue otherwise is silly.

Last night was the national championship between LSU and Alabama, where two exemplars of oversigning battled it out. Honestly, I was deeply impressed. Outside of a few great teams (Miami 2001, USC 2004 w/ Reggie Bush) during the last 15 years, those two teams were probably the most talented I have ever seen. Alabama’s D has to go down as perhaps one of the best Defenses ever in the 85 scholarship era. Coaching was excellent on both sides as well – particularly Saban’s Alabama squad.

Looking objectively at the quality amassed for last night’s competition, what conclusions can we draw? The SEC has won the last 4 National Titles with oversigning teams. (Florida is known not to have oversigned). So what are the possibilties?

1.) Coaches are better in the SEC
2.) Players are better in the SEC
3.) Oversigning is a competitive advantage that is significant enough to give the most competitive SEC schools an edge on the national stage.

Although the coaches and players are excellent, there is no monopoly on great coaches or players in the SEC. Talent is distributed all over the nation, not just in the south. Besides, prior to oversigning, the SEC did not dominate on the national stage as they do now.

My take away is that we are entering a new era now. Until the other conferences start oversigning (like the Big 10/12 and the Pac 10/12 and the Big12/10), the SEC will continue to win national championships. Either everyone does it, or they don’t. There has to be a national set of rules on this by the NCAA. The arbitrary conference by conference approach is creating inequalities nationally.

I feel like Josh is trying to push his version of morality on the entire NCAA while turning a blind eye to the most egregiously immoral practices in the whole nation. It’s not just zealotry, it’s hypocritical zealotry.

Josh may have convinced himself that he is fighting the good fight… but he is really motivated by hate and jealousy.

I don’t believe oversigning is necessarily unethical. I do believe that pedophilia is unethical. The SEC excels (compared to the Big 10) in not having sex with boys.

What you don’t like is the use of grayshirts… which if done with the recruits knowledge is just fine. I would agree with you or anyone else that would like to implement rules that would make it much harder to hide a grayshirt offer. You can do this without killing grayshirts as the Big 10 rule does.

Also, the big 10 rule does nothing to stop any unethical coach from running kids off or abusing medical hardships… if you want to discuss rules that would do this, I think you’ll find most posters on this site that object to Josh’s views would support you and have come up with some really good ideas on just how to do some of these things.

When you look at this site, and Josh’s post and views… it’s not hard to tell he’s not really wanting change… he wants to bash the SEC. Which is fine, it’s his site… but as you can see, once posters with knowledge started posting on this site and shooting down his views with facts… he ran away and moved to twitter where he didn’t have to deal with debate…

But still, Reggie Bush’s transgressions and Tressel/OSU’s transgressions have nothing to do with oversigning. You certainly have a right to be upset about USC’s sanctions but I don’t see how it applies here.

If you or someone else would like to create a site that you feel would be ‘less biased’ in your opinion, I think the public would welcome that.

Nice to see such a cut and dry case of hypocrisy. The only thing that would top this would be PSU admins..

Oversigning was about protecting children until Big 10 schools started truly abusing children.

Oversigning was about competitive advantage until…

Well, you see the point. And you probably see the hypocrisy.

And I realize this is not technically oversigning, but I feel it is relevant to the discussion as competitive advantage is really the main reason many are against oversigning. I would be interested in your opinion of this story, or if your view of competitive advantage has changed in this instance.