2 days before signing day, running back Matt Colburn was told by Louisville football coach they weren’t going to accept his NLI this year. Colburn had committed back in June.
http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/02/03/louisville-asks-south-carolina-rb-to-grayshirt-at-a-tough-time/
Stuff like this just kills recruiting at schools like Louisville. Very, very few schools can get away with obvious grey shirting like this without it impacting them down the road. Hope the kid finds a soft landing
And in Alabama - asking him to take a grey shirt the week before signing day, has been committed since April. Pretty late for him to start looking elsewhere
http://www.al.com/alabamafootball/index.ssf/2015/02/alabama_has_asked_hoover_defen.html
In the Alabama case, it may be that the student may not be eligible academically to play, so it may be in his best interest to agree to grayshirt now. I may be the best situation for him, academically and sports wise.
For Louisville…I think the athletic director at that school should be fired because he has NO control over his coaches. Last year, just after my daughter signed her NLI (at another school, thankfully) I started reading about the woman’s lacrosse coach there and how she treats her players. If they lose, they are punished, physically and mentally. She left one at an out of town tournament, left her! and the girl had to get back on her own. It seems harassment is rampant from the upperclassmen.
I panicked that I’d put my daughter into this type of an environment, but luckily it seems fine at her school.
Pretty close to this situation, he’s eligible. Just Nick Saban being Nick Saban and getting away with it.
This happens alot more than the public realizes. Typically a jilted recruit doesn’t want to ruin any chances at another school so he/she keeps his mouth shut and privately tries to find another interested school (quickly).
I (personally) know a handful of people where this has happened in baseball. The common thread is hyper-competitive, revenue producing programs in the major conferences. This is why it is so important to have a backup plan or two regardless of the sport or situation. JMO.
the SEC used to be notorious for grey shirting in football. A couple years ago, a kid at LSU actually was forced to withdraw from school in September because Les Miles ran out of scholarships when a kid got eligible in summer school unexpectedly. There was a ton of bad press, and the conference passed a conference rule purportedly stopping the practice. Now they are only supposed to do it for medical or academic reasons, which brings them in line with the other P5 conferences.
It’s totally unacceptable behavior. As Fenway accurately mentions, it happens a lot more than people realize. I support the Coach that said no more Louisville/Petrino recruiting at his school. Someone needs to take a stand. Something similar happened to my son at an ACC school for baseball. I later found out the coach had done it to others. Trust me, it sucks.
^ Agree completely. The only repercussion for a coach that worms out of a commitment is when the word gets out and future recruits realize what the coach’s word is worth. Nothing, in this case.
I’ve seen some websites attempt to provide coach reviews, but there isn’t really anything at scale. Could coach reviews work to help stop this behavior?
DavidRFrank,
Truthfully, I don’t see coach reviews growing legs. First, I think you’ll find most recruits/players would never publically call out their coaches under any circumstances. Second, I think it is tough to find an athlete that likes their head coach. The more competitive the college level the more these coaches are pushing their players. it comes with the territory and these coaches aren’t trying to win a popularity contest.
I know quite a few players that like their position coaches, but rarely the Head Coach. So, the data would be skewed alot with no positive Head Coach reviews. I think a recruits best recourse is research, visits to campus, networking and their gut feeling. Privately, other people will share information both good and bad about their recruiting experiences. Sites like this and others are a gold mine of information when you get to know the members. IMHO that is your best source.
@DavidRFrank, I was wondering the same thing. But knowing the issues that sites like Yelp have with fake reviews, even with a big staff and sophisticated algorithms, I think a “rate my coach” site would be very difficult to turn into any sort of credible reference. A multimillion dollar budget could go a long way toward generating lots of glowing reviews
Back to the “Coach Petrino” “Louisville football recruiting” issue - it seems a player who was released from TCU, in part because of his arrest for the alleged assault of his ex-girlfriend, became available. Petrino offered that guy a spot on Sunday and reneged on Colburn on Monday.
This guy, in my opinion, personifies the very worst of college sports.
Petrino has had a horrible reputation for years, at least since he first left Louisville for the NFL in the mid 2000s. So it isn’t like this is the first inkling he treats players poorly. But there will always be plenty of kids where Louisville is one of the biggest schools who are recruiting them, and he will fill his classes.
But I wish I had known it was a factor and researched it more carefully before my daughter signed the NLI. She had had one coach (asst) in high school who, when they lost a game, made them run suicides and do push up on the field, in front of their parents and the other team. I’m embarrassed to say I was so shocked I did nothing to stop it. My brothers happened to be there (both highly involved in coaching and reffing the sport) and both were also in shock. I will say it never happened again.
I don’t know why but it didn’t occur to me that this could be a big problem at the college level. I liked most of the coaches I met and just didn’t think to ask around to see if they were nice all the time or just when the parents were around. I’m glad it worked out for my daughter, but very sorry for these kids who are tossed aside today.
My brother had a friend/teammate who was a top national recruit in high school, the kind the college coaches come to visit at home (a la Michael Ohre in the Blind Side movie). His father crossed several teams off the list immediately just because the coach was so rude to the family. He figured if the coach acted that way when he was on his best behavior, how would he be once the son had signed? Son passed on some of the top rated schools, and you have to give the father credit for going with his gut. The father was just a steel mill worker who knew nothing about college or football, but he knew manners.
" But there will always be plenty of kids where Louisville is one of the biggest schools who are recruiting them, and he will fill his classes. "
True. As the old fable warns, “you knew I was a snake before you brought me in.”
I don’t think the ‘grayshirt’ can sign a NLI until the fall, and can’t attend any workouts, programs,training, etc, until the following spring. I don’t thin the grayshirt can even go to the University, and certainly not on scholarship, because he will be part of the next year’s recruiting class.
I believe scholarship limits kick in at the end of summer camp, so technically you can have someone grey shirt at any point up until you have to submit your list of 85 scholarship players for that calendar year. Usually, the coaches know by signing day what their numbers are, which of their returning players will not be academically eligible, which will take a “medical” (not be one of the rostered players but continue as a scholarship student) or otherwise be shown the door (a lot of fifth year seniors will disappear after the early depth chart comes out right before spring practice usually because they will be listed fourth or fifth on the depth chart). Sometimes, they count wrong and a kid becomes academically eligible, or a guy recovers more quickly from a serious injury, etc., and they dump a freshman before the date to identify scholarships. As I mentioned earlier, many teams in the SEC used to do this blatantly until a few years ago when Les Miles got a little out of hand and pulled a kid out of a dorm.
The reason guys grey shirt before signing the NLI is if an athlete signed an NLI yesterday for the 2015/2016 academic year, then the clock is ticking to use their eligibility and under normal circumstances the four years of eligibility must be used within ten semesters (four years playing plus a redshirt year). On the other hand, signing the NLI in late 2015 as an early enrollee effectively gives that same player (and school) an additional red shirt year. Back in my era, BYU was notorious for this. They would have three or four committed offensive linemen each year who would delay signing the NLI to go on a Mormon mission for two years. It always seemed like their missionary work was very close to a weight room, because those guys would show up two years later rock hard and ready to roll.
In my opinion, there is a legitimate place for this practice, specifically where a recruit is committed to a school but suffers a serious injury during his High School senior year. That recruit may not be medically ready to participate fully come the fall, and you can’t get a medical redshirt in your first year (if I remember correctly). So the kid stays home, rehabs and gets healthy and then he can come in and participate in the program fully next winter. From what is being reported, this is a far cry from what is happening at Louisville.
This happen all of the time. This is making news because of higher profile this player has. Take a student who is a recruit, but not a “hot” one and the chances of this happening at many levels occurs. I’ve seen this for year. I am hoping that with social media, forums and boards that discuss this sort of thing that the schools, ADs and coaches are more careful. It takes a while of exposure or a big time exposure to affect these situations, however, if a school is desirable, an offer is desirable. People just don’t listen if a potentially big payday is dangled in front of them.
Mormons (and those in other religions) are allowed to break their college eligibility to go on a mission. I believe military service also qualifies for a break.
Coach Muschamp moves to Auburn as DC and talks his UF recruits to follow along with him pushing out the last DC’s committed LB. Recruit was told a month ago, no place this year for him.