I posted this as news. Now my opinion. The SEC may take action, but I doubt it will satisfy a lot of our critics. I believe we move from where we are not to the rules in the Big 10. But I do think we put in some new standards for recruiting. All I can say is that if fans from other conferences thinks the SEC has some advantage in recruiting and we don't make changes to suit them then there are two paths. One is, kp says, get the NCAA to change their rules, two to change their own conference rules, and three do nothing and keep bitching. From what I observed in our prior discussions of this matter most of our critics won't be happy unless we do things their way. My answer to that is just to bad. I hope we implement some changes along the line of how many can be signed and also limit taking a players scholarship after he is in school.
Bill the fact that you hope that they make some changes tells me you are not esp happy with the current rules.
Yes Terry I would like to see some changes along the line I mentioned in my last post. More important to me than the over signing is the dropping existing players because you think there is a better one this year. There can always be improvement, but one that I don't agree with a lot of the posters here about is the criticism of Spurrier and the two players he withdrew the offers for. He admitted he wasn't happy about what happened and in fact said he still expected to be able to offer them scholarships if they qualified. As long as some people take the attitude that it's a cut and dried decision as to how the SEC should act, along the line of the Big 10, I am not in agreement at all.
http://www.cbssports.com/#!/collegefootball/story/15185423/issue-of-oversigning-dominates-secs-spring-meetings I tried to fix this link but it does not work. Copy the entire address and paste it into a new browser window to to get to the article Tom McCord
That is in line with Dr. Machen's views on the situation. Oversigning is legal, not moral and it does give SEC teams an edge. Granted the other schools/conferences could do what the SEC does, but maybe they care more about being fair to the kids.
Florida won two national championships under Machen and his philosophy. It doesn't have to be a part of recruiting for the SEC to have success.
I still think some of you are missing some of the point. No Florida does not over sign. We make sure the players can get admitted and if there is doubt we move to another good player who would like to be a Gator who can get admitted. No problem for the Gators. However some other schools don't have that luxury and sign borderline players who could probably could not get into Florida and may not be able to get into any college. They over sign because if they didn't then they likely would have trouble getting full classes. Sorry but I do not have a problem with that. Now if on the other hand the Gators would start taking commitments from more players than we can take then on signing day dump some of them because a better player signed then I would have a problem with that. And I have a problem with any school that would do that. So explain to me how things should be handled for let's say Ole Miss when they have room for 20 players, they only take commitments from 20 players then 4 of them don't qualify. Now we have a team short players and we have four players who may have gone to a lower division school that could have gone to Ole Miss. This issue is not as clear cut as some of you want to make it.
Well I would say that Ole Miss should only take verbals from kids that they know will qualify and not take verbals from kids who can't qualify. It's risk/reward.
It's strange, here my team doesn't over sign and I am defending the practice to a limited extent. Sure Ole Miss can only offer to players who the are sure will qualify. That does two things, it could leave out completely the marginal player where it comes to qualifying if everyone did that, and second it would keep Ole Miss from getting some good players. What I also believe is that most times the school is up front with the marginal qualifier and the other players as to where they stand. I don't believe there is a lot of players who don't know they might be on the bubble. So I guess we will have to continue to agree to disagree. That does not mean that I am not in favor of some changes as I put forth above.
Bill when you say Ole Miss might miss out on some good players...but that's what the rest of the conferences and independents do. In a way teams like Ole Miss get to hedge their bets. It's legal, but you know that when it push comes to shove and a borderline player who is better than a player who is qualified, gets qualified the lesser player is going to have to gray shirt, find another school, something. I just think it's a rule that needs to be changed and that other schools and conferences have already addressed the issue and now Mike Slive is advocating change as well. I just feel bad for kids who are qualified, have given their verbal only to find out at a late date that well there really isn't a spot for them. BTW, I also would like to do something about the increasing number of kids who give their verbal to "hold a spot" at school A and wait and see if they can get a spot at a better school and then (again late in the recruiting season) dump school A for school B. At ND we never used to recruit kids who had given their verbal to another school but it's gotten so common that unless you do it you are guaranteed to be hurt by it. I'd like to see something that would solve that problem.
Terry, I believe that if the numbers were really checked there are very few players who lose out on their scholarships as you mention. There are quite a few players who do not qualify and I believe in most cases those that do end up qualifying get their scholarship and in many cases those that don't are helped to find a Junior College or Prep school and end up at the school later. Some of you are making this a much bigger issue with sympathy for the poor players when the real objective is to bring down the SEC.
Surely there are other motivations. That can't explain the efforts put forth by Machen and Slive does it? Surely they believe that what they are doing is in the best interest of the conference, no?
That can't be. We're told time and again that the SEC has the best talent base, fans, stadiums, coaches etc. So if SEC teams have to keep players that they recruit on their roster like other conferences do that will "bring down the SEC!!!" PLease, I'm hurting laughing so much.
Seems to me gipper that you might read more of the posts before making your comment, it really didn't address what I was saying. And I don't remember making those comments you refer to about the SEC either. But hey,a persons style is is their style right?
You know me.....I'll gladly restate that Florida has won 2 NCs since 2006 without oversigning. I don't see why it should have any effect on the best SEC schools.
The best SEC schools can win without it? what are Alabama and Auburn, chopped liver? They are amongst the leaders in oversigning.
That's my point Terry.......why would Bama and Auburn need oversigning to win it all? I don't think they do.