So Urban is at it again.... while many of the Gator fans in the comments on this article here are just ripping the kid to shreds...insinuating that he is lying and the Gators didn't really want his commitment... The rest of the story is here and the kid's story is a familiar one... Now...let me make this abundantly clear. This sucks, but it is recruiting. While what Urban did here is not my style, it works for him and it is legal so God bless.. What I want to point to right now, at this point in time, is the UF fans and their nasty, nasty tones to this kid. More fun Gator reading here. Why blast this kid like this? Because he dare suggest that Urban did him wrong? ND fans can tell you that Urban has played the 'lets just keep this our little secret' in the past when he flipped 2 kids committed to ND at the time. It's not like there is a fairly well documented past on Urban, and many other coaches, doing this.. So why the need to eviscerate this young man?? Every time I think of Gator Bill and Wendy, I just can't believe they are Gator fans... because the vast majority of Gator fans I've ever run into are much more like the ones in these forums....and it was the type of Gator Mania that drew Finebaum's attention. If you so much as suggest that Pope Urban the Gator has ever even crossed the street illegally, they go batsh*t... If you suggest he's done anything, ever that wasn't totally 'above board' you're laughed off the planet. Not wishing ill on Bill or Wendy's fortunes, but I hope this kid comes back to bite the Gators one day...the rest of their fans deserve it.
There is a new tactic in town and it's called the commitable offer. So coaches now give kids an offer that they will only accept if Player A, B, or C goes elsewhere, this type of kid when he recieves his offer can not commit on the spot, his commitment won't be accepted. It sucks but in some ways kids have brought this on themselves. There are so many kids who have verbaled (and their verbal accepted) who still want to take their offical (party hardy) visits. These kids may change their minds between the early summer and signing day so the coaches now give out 80 to 100 offers. They have to get in on a lot of kids just in case, because if in todays recruiting world late offers aren't well recieved by the kids. I hear all the time about kids who say they got an offer from SchoolX but that it's pretty late (we're talking August) and they don't know if they can find the time to get to know the staff etc. To me it's the by product of teams having 10-20 commits by the middle of July.
I never get too excited about these commitments. He sounds like a talented youngster and if he works out great for Ohio State. This recruiting is really out of hand on both sides by the coaches and the kids have to share part of the problem as well. Don
Sorry Corey, but your reaction to this is ridiculous. If you think that Notre Dame and many other fans who sit at a keyboard make similar comments. Also you obviously choose to believe what the kid says without hearing any other part of the story. Like Terry says the new term is committable offer and it doesn't appear this kid had one and he decided to move on instead of waiting. But since so often you choose to decide the Gators and Urban are bad there's not much I can say to you. I also doubt this kid is going to bite the Gators since unless we meet in the BCS Championship game, which you also hate, we won't even play. Me, even though I don't buy everything the kid says I wish him luck.
I think that this may be exactly what happened with the Lamiason kid at Tennessee except the other recruit went elsewhere so Tennessee accepted the commitment. I do believe that as young adults, a commitment made public should be a commitment written in stone with both parties LOCKED into their commitment. These guys' character is being molded by their parents, high school, and college. Some of these kids don't know the meaning of the word character because they had no strong male role model to help form them. Today, in my opinion, we have less than 1% of the strong males that we had 75 years ago... much less when you consider how many of them are in committed relationships with the mothers of their children. How can the kids build a strong character when a great deal of them had no guidance until they met their first coach? They learn by the absentee fathers that commitments are made to be broken. That chain has to be broken at some point in time before they continue on that destructive path. I say that a kid and a school should be able to sign letters of intent during their junior year. Once the letter is signed, the school must honor it unless there is a major change in the physical ability like an amputated limb or a felony conviction after the signing. The kid should then be locked in as well. When the letter of intent reaches the school, they must accept it that day, or choose not to accept it. Once accepted, the kid must stop recruiting trips and all other universities must consider that athlete off limits. The kid can't change his mind. The school can't change their mind. The only "out" the kid has is if something significant changes at the university like NCAA probation or the coach he signed with leaves. Just my utopian opinion. :roll: :? :wink:
Actually, these topics get more run then the real football topics and we're down under 40 days... so I didn't really 'choose' anything, I let the market decide This is the problem with recruiting (e.g. coaches can't speak about kids).. We have a few hundred 'experts' with 'street cred' on the internet who will 'stake their reputation' that this kid is blowing smoke. I'd be way more inclined to believe the coach/staff or believe this was a misunderstanding.. but we've seen Urban play this 'slow play' game before. He's done it with other kids to hide their commitment for a variety of reasons. I don't even have an issue with that. It goes on all over the place. My issue is with the reaction of the Gator fans....
Corey, I would agree with you that some of those Gator fans are over the top. However any message board I have ever went to, with the exception of Skybox , are loaded with over the top fans. Most of them are young and still in the in your face stage of life. All I can say to you is that if you believe that the fans you read are an indication of the general Gator fan you are wrong. And if you believe that it's only some Gator fans that act that way, then you haven't spent a lot of time looking around the net at other fans. I don't waste my time with fans like that of any school. And I might also say that those fans are not any more over the top than Finebum who you seem to support.
Actually that is what led me to start the subject... well, that and boredom.. I started at one place, saw a ton of idiots and moved onto another.. I kept going and going and the one common theme was a large number of people ripping this kid. I mean, if it were out of character for Urban to do this I could see it but the whole 'shhhh dont tell anyone thing' is a staple of Urban's recruiting arsenal. Either way, we are a little over a month from kickoff. Thank God
I guess that's it then, Gator fans are just bad. I mean you have the internet to prove it. I can't wait for kickoff.