Scholarships

So, this story just came up today and I thought I'd get MGoBlog's opinion on it.

http://blogs.ajc.com/recruiting/2012/07/30/ole-miss-revokes-scholarship-offer-to-georgia-lb-because-of-knee-injury/

Ole Miss Head Coach Hugh Freeze has pulled a scholarship offer to a 2013 LB from Georgia due to an ACL tear. Big deal, right? Happens all the time. A coach can't be signing injured players.

Here's the thing. Freeze and his staff were completely aware of the ACL tear at the time that the offer was made, and they never indicated that the offer was condidtional on the knee healing in a certain time or way. Furthermore, team doctors indicated that it was healing properly and on schedule, and were not concerned. It's not like it appeared to be going bad. The kid played last season on it because he was mistakenly told it was just a sprain, and he was able to show enough to earn an offer even with the tear. Now Freeze is getting cold feet.

What's your feeling on this? I don't have a problem with a coach pulling an offer if a kid gets hurt, but making the offer when you know he's hurt and then pulling it later when you suddenly get cold feet puts me off.

Apparently Coach Saban will be offering 4-year scholarships at Alabama... Surprising and interesting...

Thoughts?

http://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1337082

At the end of an article defending the Alabama Medical Scholarships, there's the following line:

The report does not mention the fact that football scholarships are good for one year and then are renewable. It is a common misconception that scholarships are four-year deals between schools and student-athletes.

Is this true?  As far as I can tell, per NCAA regulations it is, but there must be more to it.  Can someone shed some light on this, otherwise I don't see the need to offer medical scholarships or make players transfer, you could just "cut" them.  Obviously I'm missing something.

Link: http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/09/castoffs_who_accepted_medical.html

So correct me if any of this information is wrong:

The BIG TEN not the NCAA put in the rule to eliminate over signing or back-counting early enrollees.

Assuming this is accurate and the reasoning is to prevent the forced attrition of Saban et. al. why would they do this to schools that don't have full scholarship classes? Couldn't they have achieved the same effect by putting in a scholarship threshold that you can't back-sign if you're over? (i.e. if you have 80 or more scholarships you're not allowed to back-sign anyone, etc.) It seems to be a pretty moronic rule anyway...I guess it serves the purpose but I think its punishment before a crime is committed. Any school in the Big Ten now is hurt doubly by any and all attrition. This affects Michigan obviously as we're severely below the scholarship max and would need several years of full classes and no attrition aside from graduation/NFL. What about the Sparties? Didn't they just kick 10 players off their team? Now they're down 10 scholarships and there's nothing they can do to recover them until the incoming classes start out numbering the attrition by leaps and bounds.

I know there's nothing we can really do about it because the Big Ten (or NCAA whomever set the rule) can and will do whatever they want but its just something that boggles my mind as nonsensical by whatever body that created this rule.

I was curious about what a "player map" of the home states of
Michigan's athletes would look like. I used the rosters of the various teams on MGoBlue to make a tally and wished I had the talent to make a map with the states in proporation to their number of athletes better than a second grader.

Sweet Wife laughed at the drawing and wanted to know the number of scholarships for each sport. They are available in the NCAA Division 1 Manual. at:

http://www.ncaapublications.com/Uploads/PDF/Division_1_Manual_2008-09e9e...

Maximum scholarship: Tuition and required fees, room and board, books and required supplies for an academic year--fall and winter. Summer is a separate deal. At Michigan, this full-ride is worth at least $21,000 in-state, $44,000 out of state--much more if summer is included.

http://www.finaid.umich.edu/Financial_Aid_Basics/cost.asp#2009-2010

It is not a requirement that full-rides be given in any sport. However, there is usually a positive relationship between cost and quality.

Men's and Women's Basketball, Football, Women's Gymnastics, Women's Tennis, and Women's Vollyball are limited by the number of scholarship recipients they can have. While the value of the scholarships can range from a token to a full-ride, the number of scholarship athletes is limited.

Most of the other sports are limited by the number of scholarships but not by the number of recipients. They may spread the jam as thinly as they believe is effective. The NCAA terms them "counter" and "equivalency" sports. And, of course, there are two exceptions--"counter equivalency" sports.

Bill Martin has often stated that Michigan fully funds all
scholarships and recruits without concerns about the difference between in-state and out of state tuition. Few athletic departments can do this across the board.

Now, the question of the hour is how in the hell do coachs allocate the fractional scholarships among their players?

So, keeping in mind that not everyone on a roster has a scholarship and starting with an exception:

Baseball 11.7 Scholarships. 27 or fewer recipients, no
scholarship less than one-fourth of a full boat.
Michigan 19; AZ 1; CA 2; GA 1; IL 1; IN 2; MA 2; MN 1; NJ 1; OH 2; TX 1; VA 1; Ontario 1.

Basketball Men 13 scholarship recipients.
Michigan 8; IN 2; NY 2; VA 1; Ontario 1.

Basketball Women 15 recipients.
Michigan 5; IL 2; MN 2; OH 2; Ontario 1; Saskatchewan 1.

Cross Country/Track/Field Men 12.6 Scholarships, unlimited recipients.
Cross Country
Michigan 8; IL 2; NJ 1; NY 1; OH 1; WA 1; Ireland 1.
Track/Field
Michigan 24; AZ 1; CA 3; IL 5; IN 1; MD 1; NJ 2; NY 1; OH 1; RI 1; TX 1; WA 1; WI 1; Ireland 1; Jamaica 1.

Cross Country/Track/Field Women 18 Scholarships, unlimited
recipients.
Cross Country
Michigan 11; KS 1; KY 1; MN 1; NJ 1; OH 3; Manitoba 1;
Ontario 1.
Track/Field
Michigan 32; CA 1; IL 1; IN 1; IA 1; KS 1; KY 1; MD 1; MN 1; NV 1; NJ 1; OH 4; PA 1; Ontario 1.

Field Hockey 12 Scholarships, unlimited recipients.
CA 4; CO 1; IL 1; ME 2; NJ 3; OH 2; PA 5; TX 1; British Columbia 1.

Football, Spring Roster 85 recipients.
Michigan 43; CA 5; CO 2; FL 8; GA 2; IL 5; IN 2; LA 1; MA 1; NJ 3; NY 2; MO 1; NV 1; OH 8; SC 3; TX 5; VA 2; WA 1; Quebec 1.

Golf Men 4.5 Scholarships
Michigan 4; FL 1; GA 1; IL 1; MO 1; NY 1; Indonesia 1.

Golf Women 6 Scholarships
Michigan 5; Az 1; IL 1; IN 1; Malaysia 1; Puerto Rico 1.

Gymnastics Men 6.2 Scholarships
Michigan 2; CA 1; CT 1; FL 3; GA 3; IL 2; IN 1; KS 1; MA 1; NH 1; NJ 5; NC 1; OR 1; Singapore 1.

Gymnastics Women 12 Scholarship recipients
Michigan 3; FL 1; IL 3; IA 1; NV 1; NY 1; NC 1; OH 1.

Ice Hockey 18 Scholarships with a maximum of 30 recipients
Michigan 17; CA 1; MO 1; NY 1; WA 1; British Columbia 2; Ontario 2; Sweden 1.

Rowing 20 Scholarships
Michigan 8; CA 3; CT 1; FL 2; IL 2; MA 2; NH 1; NJ 1; NY 2; OH 1; OR 1; PA 2; VA 1; WA 4; Ontario 2; Western Australia 1.

Soccer Men 9.9 Scholarships
Michigan 12; CA 2; CO 1; DC 1; GA 1; IL 3; NY 1; TX 1; WA 2; Sweden 1.

Soccer Women 14 Scholarships
Michigan 11; CA 2; CO 1; IL 2; MA 1; NY 1; OH 5; OR 1; PA 1; TX 1.

Softball 12 Scholarships
Michigan 8; CA 2; IL 3; KS 1; MO 1; NV 1; NJ 1; VA 1.

Swimming/Diving Men 9.9 Scholarships
Michigan 8; AZ 1; CA 1; CT 1; DE 1; FL 1; IL 4; MD 1; MA 1; MN 2 NC 2; NH 1; NJ 2; OH 2; TX 1; WA 1; Brazil 1; Isreal 1.

Swimming/Diving Women 14 Scholarships
Michigan 19; CA 2; CT 1; DE 1; FL 1; IL 4; ID 2; IA 1; KY 1; MO 1; NC 1; PA 2; VA 1.

Tennis Men 4.5 Scholarships
Michigan 2; CA 2; FL 2; KS 1; NJ 1; NY 1.

Tennis Women 8 Scholarship recipients
CA 3; IL 1; MN 1; NJ 1; VA 1; Alberta 1.

Volleyball 12 Scholarship recipients
Michigan 3; CA 1; GA 1; KY 1; IL 3; IN 3; OH 2; Brazil 1.

Waterpolo 8 Scholarships
Michigan 5; CA 15; FL 3; IL 1; TX 1.

Wrestling 9.9 Scholarships
Michigan 18; CA 1; CO 1; IL 1; MT 1; NJ 1; OH 2; UT 1.

And, as an added bonus:
Men's Lacrosse 12.6 Scholarships
Women's Lacrosse 12 Scholarships
Men's Rowing (Crew) is not an NCAA Division 1 sport. The sky's the limit.

Question: could you bring a two-sport player onto the football team and apply his scholarship to the other sport he plays? Then for the football team he could be considered a walk-on since he already has a scholarship?

This could be further exploited by just arbitrarily putting football players in other sports they can't play. For a variety of reasons, a school like Michigan probably wouldn't go that far, but I could see less self-righteous schools doing it. A Kansas State swimming team consisting of 300 lb guys with dreadlocks springs to mind.

Anyway, my guess is I'm missing some safeguard in the NCAA rulebook. Thoughts?