<p>Great! I thought the football season was over, but now I can take a seat at the fifty yard line, grab a bag of popcorn, and watch this catfight between the SEC and the Big Ten. </p>
<p>Thanks for the spectacle! Oh, by the way, any news about the Big Ten changing its name to Big Twenty? Or about the various investigations at Auburn?</p>
<p>Munch, crunch, munch! Great popcorn!</p>
<p>^^^Don’t forget your pom poms. Wave them ferociously.</p>
<p>any news about the Big Ten changing its name to Big Twenty?</p>
<p>or…Bore Twenty</p>
<p>jk</p>
<p>So just shaft some poor kid who you brought in on an athletic scholarship and didn’t turn out to be as fast or as strong as you thought, pull his athletic scholarship in favor of some new young stud who may pan out better athletically,</p>
<p>I repeat…Instead of speculating about athletes who’ve been bypassed [or who’ve had their scholarships pulled], how about providing athletes names’, their semester GPAs, their credits accumulated each semester, their discipline records, their performance records, the year that they were bypassed [or had scholarships pulled], and the reasons given. For all we know, these bypassed students could have been bypassed for legit reasons. It doesn’t matter if there have been plenty of articles written if the relevant details were not all disclosed. </p>
<p>Kids lose merit scholarships for non-compliance…not meeting minimum grade and/or credits req’ts…or maybe even discipline issues. Are you going to count those, too, and claim these kids are innocent victims of big-bad universities without providing details?</p>
<p>If you can’t provide those specifics then you could be blowing smoke…</p>
<p>I guess you must be too busy planning the next tree killing to read. Shameful attitude.</p>
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<p>I’d have to pick a side. :)</p>
<p>In the same vein, SI and CBS released a piece today regarding players with criminal backrounds at Top 25 DI football programs. Typically hysterical nonsense.</p>
<p>I recall a story several years back wherein a football player at a major program beat the hell out of several students over a dispute over the last slice of pizza. I am sure each of you has had at least one negative/traumatic experience with beaters who steal that last slice, just as you finish your crust. </p>
<p>Well, the weak sisters in the national media made a big deal out of it because two history majors and a modern interpretive art major were “seriously” injured (they were all out of the hospital inside of two months). Coach appropriately suspended the player for the first series of the first nonconference game, but amazingly that wasn’t enough for the haters in the media.</p>
<p>When school administrators start worrying about the health, well-being, and education of anonymous liberal art students, while limiting the rights of star athletes to express themselves in creatively violent ways, all is lost. As proof, there is actually a school in Tennessee, I believe it is named Vanderbilt,…</p>
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<p>Yes, well it appears that’s part of the scam. Some SEC coaches oversign players they KNOW will be academically ineligible, just to take them off the market and lock them up in a juco feeder program. Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino publicly admits that every year he tries to sign 3 or 4 who have (Petrino’s own words) “absolutely no chance” of qualifying academically. He signs them so they “feel a commitment to us” and then stashes them in juco programs for a few years, hoping they’ll get their grades up. That may not technically violate the NCAA rules, but it sure violates the spirit of the rules.</p>
<p>The SEC itself is apparently divided over the practice of oversigning, which is expected to be a contentious topic at the conference’s summer meetings. In addition to the University of Florida’s president who called oversigning “morally reprehensible,” the University of Georgia’s president has pledged his school will not engage in the practice. Georgia Tech, a founding member of the SEC, felt so strongly about it that it quit the conference in 1963, after the SEC turned a deaf ear to GT coach Bobby Dodd’s demands that his SEC rivals end the practice of oversigning players and then running their summer workouts as “tryout camps,” cutting fresh recruits long after the signing period, which meant they had no opportunity to play for other colleges. </p>
<p>You want names? Here are some: According to Sports Illustrated, LSU coach Les Miles signed 29 players in 2009, many of them with borderline academic credentials, expecting some would not qualify academically. But he miscalculated and ended up with too many qualifying. Miles had already tried to create more roster space by cutting QB Chris Garrett from the team, but to stay within NCAA and SEC scholarship limits he had to pull the scholarships of incoming freshmen Elliot Porter and Cameron Fordham. Both Porter and Fordham had turned down other scholarship offers to come to LSU. Porter was already in his dorm room and taking classes when word came down that there had been a change in plans and there would be no football scholarship. No misconduct, no academic ineligibility; coach’s decision, someone had to go and this guy was expendable, probably because he didn’t quite make the grade on the practice field. Reprehensible that colleges can jerk around young men’s lives like this, and then have the audacity to defend the practice.</p>
<p>" Reprehensible that colleges can jerk around young men’s lives like this, and then have the audacity to defend the practice."</p>
<p>…and that a fanbase accepts this practice. I say SHAME once again.</p>
<p>SI also did us the service of listing the top oversigners, schools that over a 5-year period from 2006 to 2010 signed more than the 125 football players they would have been expected to sign if staying within the normal 25-signees-per-year limit. Three of the top 4 and 6 of the top 10 oversigners were SEC schools:</p>
<p>school/ conference / total</p>
<p>Troy / Sun Belt / 164
Ole Miss / SEC / 145
Auburn / SEC / 144
Mississippi State / SEC / 138
Kansas State / Big 12 / 137
Temple / MAC / 136
Southern Miss / C-USA / 135
Arkansas / SEC / 134
Kentucky / SEC / 134
Alabama / SEC / 133
Iowa State / Big 12 / 133
LSU / SEC / 131</p>
<p>Another SEC school, South Carolina, came in a little further down the list with 129. That total seems pretty close to the expected number of 125, except that we know South Carolina deliberately engages in oversigning because coach Steve Spurrier openly defends it, saying the Big Ten is making a “mistake” by not engaging in it and thereby putting itself at a competitive disadvantage. No Big Ten schools made SI’s list. Two Pac-10 schools, Oregon State and Washington State, came in with 128 signees. And notice that some SEC schools apparently don’t find it necessary to engage in oversigning: Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt. Apart from this past year, Florida and Georgia seem to manage to be pretty consistently competitive in the SEC without engaging in oversigning, and in the past Tennessee has often been right up there, too. </p>
<p>Now it could be that the kinds of disciplinary issues and academic ineligibility problems mom2collegekids refers to in post #24 are disproportionately prevalent at SEC schools—er, at 8 of the 12 SEC schools. And come to think of it, you do hear lots of stories of SEC schools signing athletes with questionable academic credentials who Big Ten coaches won’t touch, because the Big Ten schools generally set their own admissions standards above the NCAA minimum, so that could account for some of it. As for thuggery and other disciplinary problems that might cause a disproportionate number of athletes to be kicked off the team, I have no way of comparing various schools or conferences on that score. But I will say that if the majority of SEC school need to oversign by such a disproportionately wide margin to account for extreme rates of academic and disciplinary attrition, that’s not exactly a feather in the SEC’s cap, either.</p>
<p>For those interested, I believe the referenced article is a follow up to an earlier piece Rovell wrote about this topic in the Journal earlier this year. I believe that the original piece dealt specifically with over-signing abuses by Nick Saban. </p>
<p>I recall that the Journal interviewed a few Bama players who had been adversely affected by oversigning. Not sure if it included a discussion of the players GPAs or criminal records. For purposes of this discussion, I concede, however, that the players may have been dismissed as a resulted of abnormally high GPAs and/or barren criminal records. Can’t field a team of nerds in the ole SEC. </p>
<p>Or can you?</p>
<p>Vandy.</p>
<p>personally I think oversigning is disgrace to college sports</p>
<p>Sports Illustrated has run a couple articles in the last few months on the topic … here are some … </p>
<p>[Oversigning</a> offenders in SEC, Big 12 won’t be curbed by NCAA rule - Andy Staples - SI.com](<a href=“http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/andy_staples/01/24/oversigning/index.html]Oversigning”>http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/andy_staples/01/24/oversigning/index.html)</p>
<p>[Decoding</a> Nick Saban’s defense of oversigning, grayshirting - Stewart Mandel - SI.com](<a href=“http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/stewart_mandel/02/04/saban-oversigning/index.html]Decoding”>http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/stewart_mandel/02/04/saban-oversigning/index.html)</p>
<p>[Troy</a>, SEC among worst FBS oversigning offenders of past five years - Andy Staples - SI.com](<a href=“http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/andy_staples/01/24/oversigning-data/index.html]Troy”>http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/andy_staples/01/24/oversigning-data/index.html)</p>
<p>The SEC is not college football. It is professional football disguised as college football.</p>
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<p>Except that the professional football player gets paid for his services; his contract may provide that he gets paid for some period of time even if he gets cut; the collective bargaining agreement sets a floor under how much he gets paid; and if he does get cut he’s free to shop his services immediately to another team, which will also have to pay him.</p>
<p>Every player who signs for an SEC school knows what they are getting themselves into. Many voluntarily grayshirt or accept the possibility. </p>
<p>Every single player who is part of an oversigned class can go somewhere else if they choose. They know the SEC is the best of the best and are willing to take a chance trying to make a name for themselves.</p>
<p>Elliot Porter of LSU was a late class casualty last year. He was released and went to Kentucky. A year later he decided to return to LSU as a walk-on because LSU was his dream. Had he accepted the grayshirt offer, he would be on scholarship now. The truth was he was a borderline take from the beginning, but was so eager to be at LSU that he accepted an offer. </p>
<p>Having the chance to play for an Alabama or LSU means everything to these kids.</p>
<p>The reason the Big 10 doesn’t oversign is because 3 star recruits do not want to have to compete for a roster spot at a Big 10 school when they could go to a comparable school and not have to compete. </p>
<p>Are some of you naive enough to believe the Big 10 is more ethical than they need to be? Ridiculous. </p>
<p>Ohio State and Iowa have had some of the worst disciplinary records over the past few years. Iowa is a joke actually. </p>
<p>It’s all BS, but equal BS to all.</p>
<p>Every single kid? That is truly exhaustive research. You’ve scooped the Wall Street Journal. Pulitzer.</p>
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<p>I’d restate that as “Except that the professional football player gets paid for his services … openly and legally.” </p>
<p>Considering a few recent Heisman winners, that difference is obscure at best. A difference which may explain why so many college coaches find the transition to the NFL pretty hard when managing talent becomes more important than developing competitive “advantages” in recruiting.</p>
<p>X-Man you are correct. Saban looked quite foolish when he attempted to make 6 first round draft selections in his first season with the Dolphins (in his defense, he intended to discard 5 of them once he identified the best player in the lot). Apparently the NFL has silly rules against sound and ethical business practices. Who knew?</p>
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<p>Except in most cases it’s too late for them to go elsewhere on a scholarship, because the scholarships are all used up. So they end up in JuCo programs or as walk-ons, having already turned down other scholarship opportunities at an earlier stage in return for the promise of a scholarship at their chosen school. That’s the difference in the pro game; the pros can get cut, sign with another team, and get paid. Oversigned college recruits who get cut at the schools where they were promised a scholarship can go elsewhere, but they’ll then need to pay for the privilege of playing their sport. </p>
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<p>Except that’s not what the players told SI when they were interviewed about the practice. Many of them expressed surprise that there was oversigning and that some would be cut. As have a number of HS coaches who naively advised their seniors to sign with SEC schools, unaware that the scholarship “offer” was really nothing more than an offer of a try-out. From the comments, the HS coaches seemed more bothered by the practice than the players, because to a man, each player expressed confidence that he would make the team.</p>
<p>Honestly, this tortured post-hoc rationalization for a corrupt practice is too much.</p>
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<p>The reason Big Ten schools don’t oversign is because there’s a league rule against it and there has been since the 1950s. That rule was put in place because a majority of Big Ten presidents believed the practice was unethical. As did Georgia Tech when it cited the practice of oversigning and “cut-down days” as one its its principal reasons for quitting the SEC in 1963. As do the present-day University of Florida and University of Georgia, which do not oversign even though the practice is rampant among their chief competitors in their own league. Believe it or not, and like it or not, some schools do choose to maintain higher ethical standards. That’s not to say there aren’t ethical problems, high academic failure rates, and disciplinary problems in some, perhaps even most Big Ten football programs. But on this issue, at least, that conference has consistently maintained a principled ethical stand for over 50 years, including decades in which it was regarded as the top of the heap in college football. Big Ten schools as a group do also maintain higher-than-NCAA-minimum admissions requirements for recruited athletes. Not always much higher, but higher. In my book that’s to their credit as well. </p>
<p>Nor is there a clear correlation between oversigning and bringing in strong recruiting classes. The schools with the #1 and #2 recruiting classes in 2011, according to rivals.com, are Alabama and Florida State, both chronic oversigners. But Texas, Southern Cal, and Georgia, with the #3, #4, and #5 recruiting classes respectively, do not routinely oversign. #6 LSU and #7 Auburn are flagrant oversigners, but #8 Clemson, #9 Oregon, #10 Notre Dame, #11 Ohio State, #12 Florida, #13 Tennessee, #15 Nebraska, #16 North Carolina, and #17 Cal are not. (#14 Oklahoma is a borderline case, with huge signing classes some years although its overall average is less than the expected 25/year). #18 South Carolina and #19 Ole Miss are regular oversigners. #20 Texas Tech is in the same borderline category with Oklahoma. #21 Michigan and #22 Stanford do not oversign, and #23 Washington is another borderline case. #24 Arkansas does oversign. #25 Virginia does not. (Anyone notice a pattern here? Almost all the wort oversigners are SEC schools, but the SEC as a whole the SEC shouldn’t be stigmatized because some of its members, including schools that are often highly competitive in football like florida and Georgia, don’t resort to oversigning). </p>
<p>So it is definitely NOT the case that the schools that oversign are regularly signing stronger recruits. They do, however, gain an unfair competitive advantage by bringing in a larger number of recruits than they are allowed under NCAA rules, then in effect putting them to the test on the practice field before converting what amounts to a conditional scholarship offer into a genuine scholarship offer for the best of the lot.</p>
<p>Notice also that the average “star” level of the recruits is not necessarily any higher at the schools that oversign than at the schools that don’t. For example, rivals.com ranks Florida State’s 2011 recruiting class #2 overall, even though its “average” recruit rates 3.55 stars—well below the average at #3 Texas (3.77), whose overall recruiting class ranked lower because Texas signed only 22 recruits this year, as opposed to the 29 who signed at Florida State (4 over the maximum). Florida State probably won’t be able to keep as many as 29 on scholarship, and may need to cut some if they don’t fall by the wayside for academic ineligibility reasons or due to disciplinary problems; either that, or it may need find a way to put some upperclassmen out to pasture prematurely. But recruiting college athletes is a highly uncertain game, and Florida State does gain a huge competitive advantage by having the opportunity to evaluate the talent of its fresh recruits up close before deciding which of them will actually end up on scholarships.</p>
<p>Or, as some might say, by cheating.</p>
<p>Colleges over admit students all the time. Non-Athletes-i mean …they call it a ‘Gap Year’. And thay pay the student $$$'s (thousands) to come to campus next year. </p>
<p>Of course, the NCAA would never allow this for a student-athlete. </p>
<p>Having said that, all athletic scholarships are renewed in an annual basis anyway, so nothing is guaranteed. Its not a 4yr ride as advertised.</p>
<p>I know of some High schools that won’t welcome a college recruiter back on campus, if it happens to one of their student-athletes. </p>
<p>Morally, I have a HUGE problem with this practice, but I see no problem if schools are playing within the rules.</p>