Case Study in Oversigning - Tennessee (Marques Ford)
I ran across an interesting article last week in NJ's local newspaper (geared towards the RU fanbase). It was an article regarding Tennessee's over-committed class last year and how they pushed out Marques Ford shortly before Signing Day in order to come below the limit on signees.
A four-star defensive end in the 2015 recruiting class, Ford had chosen Tennessee over dozens of scholarship offers from power conference programs. His official visit in January was the last step in a recruiting process that began before his junior year of high school. Ford was supposed to be able to relax in the two weeks leading up to national signing day, when his commitment to the Volunteers would become official.
But a phone call from Tennessee defensive line coach Steve Stripling two days after Ford returned home to Gibsonton, Fla., changed everything. The Volunteers had accepted more verbal commitments than they had available scholarships. With one five-star and two other four-star defensive ends already in the fold, Ford was the odd man out.
Luckily for Marques, however, he was a 4-star recruit with many power 5 offers so he was able to get picked up relatively quickly, but I could imagine how difficult of a situation this would be if the prospect is not a widely known commodity.
To give some additional color, according to 247Sports, Tennessee apparently signed 30 student athletes last year - one of them being Darrin Kirkland Jr., who was one of Michigan's star LB recruits before the Hoke implosion.
[http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2015/07/cast_aside_by_tenne…]
Tennesse --> RU. yikes. Oversigning is the worst. An early signing period and letting official visits to be conducted earlier would solve a lot of problems IMO.
Rutgers has a fanbase?
That is a large base...
does it?
"R"evolting
Hungry
Here, let me move my rarts nest out of the way.
I thought that name sounded familiar...
Stripling is an unfortunate name. I feel like it's derived from the name for an exotic dancer's child.
Thought this sounded familiar. First came up on mgoblog back in January. Initial mention is below, although there were many follow-up comments, including the one about adding their 29th recruit just days after dropping Ford.
http://mgoblog.com/content/thursday-recruitin-stocks-snake-oil
Under "etc" (which is immediately followed by the Gerry Hamilton "oops! Wrong URL!" story)
Shady stuff at Tennessee, where the coaches just yanked an offer from four-star DE commit Marques Ford just two weeks before Signing Day.
Gibsonton, Florida is also known as "Showtown, USA". For decades it has been the winter home for canival sideshow and circus performers. They once had a dwarf police chief and an 8 foot tall fire chief.
and he is dead. RIP, Tony/James.
You figure they would cut bait elsewhere if it came down to telling a four star recruit off at a position where you need a lot of depth? This doesn't make much sense.
perfectly
This probably has major holes in it, but what about a firmer policy with LOIs? Something along these lines:
Allow players to sign LOIs any time after their junior seasons (and allow them to take official visits during that year). Make the LOI count for something for both the player and the school. For the player, he can switch to a different school but then would lose a year of eligibility (i.e., couldn't play in his freshman year but wouldn't get a redshirt). For the team, the second that LOI is signed, it counts toward the school's 85 scholarships for the following year regardless of where the player ends up. If a team undergoes a change in head coaches, the LOI is no longer binding in either direction. Players can leave for other schools without penalty and the new coach is not bound to the old coach's signed recruits.
That might be a little rigid, but maybe that's not such a bad thing. It seems like that could reduce the incentives for coaches to make insincere offers to players, players to do the Tyus Battle thing to coaches, and coaches to push kids out at the last minute. It wouldn't prevent a Mike Weber type situation, but I think it's fair to effectively guarantee kids that their head coaches will be there (or they'll be allowed out of their LOIs), even if they have to put up with some position coach changes.
Once the LOI is signed that's it. The school must honor it, and the player can't switch. He can transfer the next season and sit out a year if someone will have him. Also all offers are immediately commitable, if a school offers a player he can sign that moment and bind both parties. There are no uncommitable offers.
Early signing must carry the same restrictions as signing on signing day. If you bind the school you bind the player.
After a long post, here's a short one:
Tennessee sucks.
Everything about that program pisses me off. They were sketchy under Fulmer, unbearable during the Woodson/Manning thing, and just generally gross now. It's a program that's high on my hate list despite being low on my relevance list.
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If you can avoid the tourist trap, the area is beautiful and has some of the best trails I've hiked.
Yeah, I'm talking about the football program, not the state. I'm not sure whether the state sucks. I'm sure that the football program sucks.
Makes the state OK in my book.
Hell Yes! Perhaps we can Rendevous...
I kinda love driving 441 up from North Carolina. Placid mountains, beautiful scenery, languid tendrils of fog, you drive around a switchback and then BANG! You are dropped into a valley that looks like a theme park for the movie Deliverance.
My favorite attraction is the Hillbilly mini-golf—I actually drank moonshine (acquired from Fort Mark's) next to a moon-shine themed golf obstacle.
Frankly I don't understand how Tennessee isn't raking in recruits with these facilities!
But as related to the OP: I think oversigning can mean different things in different circumstances. In the case of coaching changes it seems like a reasonable approach to hedge against roster turnover. Other times there may be a mutual benefit to underrated recruits who receive more interest from schools after "committing" to a top program. But IMO these should be outliers; oversigning should NOT be the primary tool for building competitive rosters.
I'm not particularly defending Tennessee's actions, but I would disagree that this is oversigning--Ford had not signed. That's semantic, but it is a big deal--players who have signed a commitment to Alabama cannot play anywhere except for Alabama the following year without going down in division, and then Alabama is forcing them out. Tennessee is refusing to take a signature, but the player is still free to sign at any other school.
The timing is definitely unfair to the player, and raises big ethical flags, but I think this behavior happens at a lot of schools (including probably Stanford under Harbaugh as discussed on this blog). 2 weeks notice is really little and makes it more unfair than some other cases, but I think there's a clear line that separates this from oversigning which is far more evil.
I'm honestly not sure why they all left, but UT also had 6 players leave the program with eligiblity remaining at the end of the season, and it seemed like most were of the "you should probably leave because you won't be seeing the field" type that could either be great self-awareness by the players OR a coach basically telling them they need to leave because they need the scholarships. Again, this whole situation is murky, but UT is a pretty dirty program (I mean, the Fulmer Cup is named after them) so I wouldn't be all that surprised if they had a mult-pronged approach to roster management.
between each player and the coach after the season ends. There are going to be discussions about where they stand on the depth chart. and what they need to do to get more playing time. That's going to lead to some transfers even when the coaches aren't trying to push kids out..I don't think the scholarships are guaranteed for four years at Tennessee, so the kids can simply be forced out.
The Fulmer Cup refers to players' off the field legal problems, more an indication of a poorly run program than a dirty one..
I love EDSBS, but the "Fulmer Cup" is the ultimate hypocrisy. The term was coined by EDSBS, a Florida site, during the height of Florida's frequent run-ins with the law. It could have just as easily been called the "Spurrier Cup".
So . . . well done, I guess. Getting your rival stained with a negative label that applies even more to you.
Beware of 11W coming up with some kind of "Does not attend any classes" award and naming it after a Michigan player.
Absolutely, but the assumption is that when a kid pledges to go to a school, he's there for at least 3 years (if he leaves early) or until he receives a degree. So while I'm sure some kids look at the depth chart and figure they won't see playing time, I'm guessing a couple don't mind sticking it out and trying to make an impact while the coaches say, basically, GTFO.
As for the Fulmer Cup, yes it is for off-the-field issues. I think its a semantic argument to try to distinguish between "dirty" and "poorly run" when it comes to this stuff; the schools that hand out bags of cash to kids and ignore/minimize the police blotter probably aren't above pushing a kid out if a better player comes along.
Totally agree with this and I don't believe it compares with the abuse of actual oversigning. However, when UT pisses in the pool of highly rated recruits, don't be suprised if the stain spreads and others shy away from jumping into UT"s "pool"...so to speak, in so much hyperbole that I, myself, am slightly confused. Hmmm...
Sadly the pool will continue.
I remember watching a video clip about some generic 3-star linebacker declaring his announcement at his school about what mid-P5 college he was going to play for. Classes were stopped and the entire high school was assembled into the gym to watch this guy do his hat dance. It was a major event at this school.
These guys live in a reality bubble. Everything revolves around them, 24/7. It's no wonder that they all think they will be future NFL Pro-bowlers. They don't know anything else.
They know that stuff goes on at places like Tennessee, but they don''t think it will happen to them.
The issue here is, should Tennessee take more verbal commitments than they have scholarships.
A verbal commitment is non-binding on either side, and should be taken with "a grain of salt". Hokes policy of no visits after a verbal commitment was basically saying, we are both men of our word, and this is a commitment. Most schools don't have this kind of policy,and if something "better" comes along for either side, they can opt out.
I think kids (or their parents) these days can do a little homework and figure out what kind of agreement, their "verbal" commitment is. If they need a back up plan they should know well in advance.
We may find that there will be articles like this about Michigan in the not too distant future.