Paul Finebaum More at In his new book, "My Conference Can Beat Your Conference: Why the SEC Still Rules College Football," ESPN's Paul Finebaum writes about the Alabama coach Nick Saban he knows.
It's amazing, how treating thier scholar athletes the same way that every other schools do, the SEC does so well. http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/21733077 On the other hand, if you treat players like meat, if they have parents that are willing to gamble with their son's education, you can be better than schools that have some respect for their players.
Finebaum is an opportunistic demagogue. He will say anything to get headlines or viewers or listeners or anything that draws attention to himself. That's all. To assign any kind of credibility to anything he says is a big mistake. :x
Well you can't change demographics. The population growth is in the Southeast and the West, not the Midwest. So there are more athletes in the South and fewer in the Midwest. Midwestern teams have a problem with luring Southern athletes north. The rise of teams like South Fla, Central Fla, and a few others like East Carolina, give players who might have once gone to the Big 10 a place to play that they get noticed at and it's warmer. Not going to change either. Ohio State is in a good position because football in the state of Ohio is very good and they produce a lot of good players and most of them want to go to OSU, they only have to fill in a few good players from the South every year. Where as a few years ago I remember that one of Purdues classes was more than 50% players from the south. Irish have to work very hard to fill their classes with talented players. I think being assoc with the ACC will help with recruiting in the Southeast and the Carolinas somewhat.
Interesting chart gipper, Alabama leads the list but I see three Big 10 schools, including Michigan and Notre Dame on the list also. Seems there is over signing all over the country. However who I don't see on the list are Florida, FSU and Miami. The latter two of course are not my favorites but they don't seem to over sign.
It's another one of those articles, where no matter what the school does, it can be twisted into a negative. If a coach were to use a player that was actually hurt, what would the headlines be? So instead of "cutting" that player, the medical staff determines that player is no longer medically cleared to play football and that is unethical. Sooooo, no matter what action is taken with a player that has been hurt, it can be spun as a negative. Is it surprising that some of those players later disagree with that determination? I don't know, they can wait a few years and file a lawsuit because of the long term affects of concussions. Now I'm not saying that Alabama, and the others in the list, is not doing some of these things but take a look at the article and just consider that there may be a different perspective than the totally negative perspective that this "blogger" takes. :?: [/b]
The oversigning list is bull crap. I don't know anything about the other schools, but ND to my recollection never has oversigned recruits. There were a number of instances in the past several years where recruits who had signed LOIs later reneged and were released, some after they had shown up on campus. If you subtract them, which any half-brained writer would do (apparently this writer has less than half a brain), you would see that ND consistently has averaged less than the 25 allowable signings per year. To paraphrase kp, be careful what you believe. Like I said, bull crap. Re: the Finebaum posting, I agree 100% with kp, who described him as an opportunistic demagogue who loves to attract attention to himself by stirring things up. He's no better than the less-than-half=brained writer I cited above.
Charlie did sign 28 kids one year, but of course some of those enrolled early. We have never oversigned though in the way that has and is being criticised. I can only think of 1 incident in all my years of following ND recruiting where we accepted a LOI from a player who later was deemed not eligible to enroll. That was Tee Sheppard who actually moved into ND Dorms as an early enrollee when issued surfaced regarding academics, he was released and 3 years later he's finally through some online courses eligible to play Div1 football at Ole Miss.
The chart has ND 2 over limit going into the 2013 season. Since our QB Golson was suspended, the chart was probably incorrect. Torii Hunter was an incoming freshman with a serious injury and couldn't play all season. I'm thinking that the chart doesn't tell the real story.
No that chart has ND 2 over the limit on Feb 19th. That 24 that the chart has included Eddie Vanderdoes, who of course changed his mind and went to UCLA. But even if he did come, that chart does not consider ND players who did not return for their 5th year. Cierre Wood did not return but he declared in mid Jan that he was not going to return so hopefully they didn't include him in the 63 "scheduled" to return. One thing important about ND and Texas (at least under Mack Brown). We don't revoke players scholarships or do roster management stuff. We have attrition sure, but your scholarship is good for 4 years if you do the work in the classroom and don't get arrested like our RB Mahone did recently. He won't be enrolling back at ND. The coaches do have to balance the who gets invited back for 5th years as that affects how many freshmen you can bring into the program. It is one of the reasons why ND pushes these kids to be ready to graduate with their class on time, with many of the players being ready to graduate after 3 1/2 years due to taking summer school courses. One of the trends is to give players a lifetime scholarship, I think IU did that recently or said they were going to do that.l I like that idea as some players who might not be invited back for a 5th year and haven't graduated might find it quite a financial burden to pay their own way to finish up their degrees. So I can see that helping the players. But as I said at ND they monitor these kids pretty closely and while 100% don't graduate in 4 years it's always in the 90's. There was a time when ND didn't redshirt and didn't offer 5th years to anybody who hadn't graduated already. Not sure if it's still that way.
It's a trumped up list. A&M did sign 31, but 7 enrolled early and counted against the previous year. I'm sure it was the same with the others. Bottom line - You cannot be over 85 in August. The timing of that chart does not account for players that are known to be transferring or medically retiring before the deadline...
I do think it is a problem and one that needs to be addressed. But bottom line is that it's legal no matter what you think about it. So that some coaches take advantage of the rules better than others is not surprising, but it's all legal. If we do go to a split and the Power 5 + ND go their own way I hope they rewrite the rule book and get rid of some the petty stupid stuff, like not being able to have cakes with the players names on them or be able to put their name on a school jersey or be able to put their picture up on the Jumbotron photoshopped to show them in the team jersey or a bunch of other stupid rules.
All good explanations, and it happens every time something like this comes out. We all have explanations for our team but in a lot of cases we tend to believe the negatives about the other team(s). My point really was that the "blogger" took a negative slant on every point. If a play was hurt and shouldn't play again, then the slant was that it was a move to manage the roster...always. If a player wanted to transfer because he wanted more playing time or to be closer to home, the slant was it was a move to manage the roster. Makes for a sensational blog, but may not have anything to do with the truth. 8)
Scott, that list had nothing to do with what class a player signed with. It was how many scholarship players were on the roster and comparing it to the 85 maximum. So the only number in question was 85. And it was on Feb 19. What we don't know is how many of those players may not have qualified. However Gipper put it up as something meaningful so you might ask him why? What I might also say is those of you that think it's not meaningful for your team might keep that in mind as far as the other teams on the list. If yours is not accurate some of the others might not be also.
Here's an example of how Alabama gets down to 85 2011 The March to 85 - Alabama Player Position Reason for leaving after NSD Glenn Harbin Defensive Line Decided to play baseball; Link Demetrius Goode Running Back Transfer to North Alabama; Link Petey Smith Linebacker Transfer to Holems CC; Link Brandon Moore Defensive Lineman Transfer to East Mississippi Community College; Link Corey Grant Running Back Transfer to Auburn; Link Keiwone Malone Wide Receiver Transfer to Memphis; Link Robby Green Defensive Back Transfer to California University of Pennsylvania ; Link Darrington Sentimore Defensive Lineman Transfer to Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Link Arron Douglas Offensive Lineman Died during offseason; RIP, hate having to list him here. Kerry Murphy Defensive Line Medical Hardship Kendall Kelly Defensive Back Medical Hardship Wes Neighbors Defensive Back Medical Hardship 2010 The March to 85 - Alabama Player Position Reason for leaving after NSD Terry Grant Running Back Scholarship not renewed Travis Sikes Wide Receiver Scholarship not renewed Rod Woodson Safety Scholarship not renewed Star Jackson Quarterback Transfer, Georgia State Div 1AA. Deion Belue Defensive Back Academically Ineligible; headed to JUCO Alfy Hill Linebacker Academically Ineligible; future unknown Taylor Pharr Offensive Lineman Medical Hardship Milton Talbert Linebacker Medical Hardship Darius McKeller Offensive Lineman Medical Hardship Ronnie Carswell Wide Receiver Greyshirt Wilson Love Defensive End Greyshirt
You can slice it anyway you want and I do agree that there needs to be some rules changed in that area, but it was all within the rules even if a lot of people don't like it.
"And..." if you shitcan enough kids every year, pulling their scholarships or forcing them to greyshirt, you too can add an additional recruiting class every 2 years. You might be depriving kids of an education at the school that they chose to go to but you can still write "and..."