Dr. Saturday Has Oversigning Front and Center This Morning....
Look at how many people Auburn and MS State have signed. It's like having an extra full recruiting class every 4 or 5 years.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:11 AM ^
The said thing is, the NCAA won't do anything about this. People wonder why the SEC has dominated college football this decade need to look no further than the fact they massively oversign recruits as a major factor (yes, there are other football-related). When a team can "replace" underperforming parts with news kids every year, it should come as no surprise that they can play at a higher level consistently.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:11 AM ^
Hopefully Kris Frost sees this......
January 20th, 2011 at 12:28 PM ^
January 20th, 2011 at 9:12 AM ^
Hopefully one day, as exposure on the issue becomes more and more prevalent, the NCAA will step in a make "rules" regarding the issue. I'm not sure what can be done if players are given "medical scholarships" as it would be hard to differentiate between what's real and fake.
That said, after the last few seasons I have lost all faith in the NCAA and their disciplinary actions and investigations and have no faith in the entire organization.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:13 AM ^
MGoBlog linked in the 4th graph.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:14 AM ^
This isn't a surprise, but I am still amazed looking at those numbers. Hopefully Frost comes to AA where he is really wanted!
January 20th, 2011 at 9:44 AM ^
Someone should make sure Kris Frost sees this article. It might help him understand the difference between Michigan (or many of the other Big 10 schools) and Auburn (or many of the other SEC schools) and the difference between a Michigan scholarship and one from Auburn. But it all comes down to what he wants. If he wants what Michigan has to offer, he can't get it at Auburn.
January 20th, 2011 at 11:21 AM ^
The problem with that though is that none of these kids think they are going to be the one that gets cut. They all think that it'll happen to someone else and they will be OK.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:15 AM ^
Glad to have watched the piece done on this by the Mothership. Even happier to have it made public that the B1G TEN (damn I hate the new logo) is the strictest conference as far as limiting the number of signings.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:24 AM ^
Which is why I refuse to accept any NC for SEC teams over the past decade. It's complete shit and everybody knows it.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:48 AM ^
Make me wonder if actor Peter Gallagher is Craig Roh's dad......
January 20th, 2011 at 9:26 AM ^
I just don't understand how this is possible. I mean, I understand that it is, I just don't get how it can be overlooked in any way by the NCAA. Players have to commit to a school and are punished if they break that commitment. Schools can do whatever the hell they want.
If someone can come up with a situation where this practice is even remotely acceptable, I'd love to hear it.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:33 AM ^
Airlines overbook tickets. You're punished in fees if you want to switch flights, but the airline has no problem telling you they are overbooked and force you onto a different flight. I'm not saying it's acceptable, but they do it to hedge against people backing out at the last minute and having empty seats on the plane. So maybe the SEC is using it as a hedge against transfers or injuries?
That's the closest analogy I can think of where a similar situation is happening and no one (from a legal standpoint) does anything about it.
That said, to your point, that doesn't make it acceptable.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:38 AM ^
Yeah, that's a pretty similar situation, except the airlines pay you back for the ticket, and often give you extra benefits as well. I'd be more ok with a system where if a college signs a kid and then lets him go, they have to pay for a scholarship elsewhere, even if he's on the football team there.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:53 AM ^
That's true. Perhaps if there's no transfer penalty for a student wanting to leave if he is cut and the college has to pay for the student's relocation to the new school as well as paying for the kid's scholarship at the new school, people would do it less. Additionally, the new school the kid transfers to wouldn't be having to honor that scholarship so they wouldn't have to use that toward their limit.
So a school like Michigan could have more scholarships than allowed for an incoming class if they recruited the max, and then, say, Frost gets burned buy Auburn so he returns to Michigan, but Michigan can sign him because his scholarship is counting against Auburn's limit not Michigan's (to use a real life example)?
That way, maybe, schools would be discouraged to oversign? Maybe? Probably not...
January 20th, 2011 at 10:03 AM ^
Without having done any research and having a very limited view of the entire situation, that sounds like a great solution. I would add that the student would be counted toward that school's scholarship limit the next year, and the next school would then begin paying for that student's scholarship.
Problem with this is that a school with a ton of money has a lot less incentive to not oversign. In terms of a total athletic budget, they're essentially paying $20,000 a year per extra shot at landing a stud. Alabama can afford that no sweat. Some smaller schools that are running a deficit probably can't.
January 20th, 2011 at 10:13 AM ^
Maybe go as far to say that if you recruit and sign a player to a scholarship, then if you cut him, that scholarship still counts against your limit for all 4 years. Of course the NCAA can bump up the scholarship limit by 3-4 slots to accomodate a reasonable amount, but making the school responsible for all 4 years would probably cut down on the oversigning?
The problem also lies in the fact that schools have to recruit and offer scholarships to more players than can actually come just so they can be sure to fill all the spots. So maybe once the class is filled according to size the NCAA can require the school to officially withdraw all other outstanding offers so the students that haven't made up their mind yet can choose other schools?
There seems to be a lot of options available to the NCAA, even if it's just for trial and error, but not doing anything will certainly never change the current practices of oversigning.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:58 AM ^
Also, the airlines suffer some consequences when their overbooking algorithm is way off. They end up with angry passengers, or they have to fork over money to volunteers. It gives them an incentive to be as accurate as possible.
With no real consequences for the offending schools, they have no incentive to not keep doing it over and over, to oversign beyond what's reasonable to cover the kids who unexpectedly stick up 7-11s or don't make grades or whatever.
January 20th, 2011 at 10:12 AM ^
as a hedge against empty slots. They are using it as a slimy way to upgrade slots that are already filled.
It would be as if you already checked in for your flight and were in your seat, and the airline bumped you anyway because they found someone even lighter who would use less jet fuel.
January 20th, 2011 at 10:21 AM ^
That's true. There's not a real apples-to-apples comparison out there. It's a tough situation regardless but the NCAA needs to have some sort of penalty, or something.
January 20th, 2011 at 10:46 AM ^
Reminded me of this:
So the SEC is like Amber, except that they actually say 'Yes' to the recruits, and then cancel at the last minute. It's complete bull.
January 20th, 2011 at 11:53 AM ^
And if Dilbert opts out he wastes a year of his life, possibly killing his career.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:45 AM ^
Oversigning is wrong, but when you listen to the Bama fans argue sometimes I find myself thinking back to Lloyd Carr throwing the transfer papers at kids and wonder is this really so different? Take the case of Alex Mitchell. Could you make the case RR ran him off to free up a scholarship? In actuality we were so low on scholarships he didn't run him off, but if he failed to live up to his responsibilities as a member of the team what do you do?
The fact that the Big Ten and the SEC work under totally different set of rules off the field, but are held to the same standard of the field is ridiculous.
I think it comes down to the fact that coaches like Carr and RR probably did find subtle ways to weed out kids that are not performing up to their responsibilities like Saban, the difference is that they are not forced to find things that are not there because they oversigned too many players. Carr and RR were in a position to encourage the player to change his ways and work thru it since that player leaving hurts their depth, where Saban is in a position he is happy he screwed up because he needs the space. I think the difference is more subtle than people make it out to be, but it is still wrong.
Just a little food for thought.
January 20th, 2011 at 10:11 AM ^
The difference is that Lloyd threw transfer papers at kids and then let them decide. Saban just throws out the kid.
January 20th, 2011 at 10:21 AM ^
It was also a motivational tactic when someone came in with a big head and wasn't doing the work necessary to start.
January 20th, 2011 at 11:33 AM ^
This was exactly the reason. I feel like almost every big name player who struggled and then had a break-out season had exactly the same story of Carr handing them transfer papers, but the athlete chose to stay and recommit himself to becoming better.
The reason is key--Carr's actions were solely for the benefit of the player--Michigan didn't benefit from the player taking those papers and leaving. Since we don't oversign, there was nobody else waiting in the wings to step in.
January 20th, 2011 at 10:20 AM ^
This is something that I have considered as well. I think the difference is that someone might get kicked off the team here for not putting in time off the field (our definition of underperforming) while in the SEC any 3rd stringer might find himself with a bad back.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:28 AM ^
Cheaters....I wonder if Les would use these tactics if he was hired at UM.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:42 AM ^
I guess we'll never find out.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:59 AM ^
Precisely why Brian and others (myself included) never wanted Les Miles to be coach at Michigan.
January 20th, 2011 at 9:40 AM ^
Also, it is very easy for the SEC to prohibit this, yet they do not, because it gives them a competitive advantage and they are more able to play in bigger Bowl games.
The presidents of the B10, Pac-10, B12, & BE could all just pressure the SEC, but don't.
Moreover, recruits still flock to these schools, even though everybody knows about oversigning. It's a problem, but recruits don't care. I guess that's why the SEC doesn't care.
EDIT: BTW, Ole Miss has 11 more signees than spots. Wow!
January 20th, 2011 at 10:17 AM ^
It is starting to happen. Even SEC fans on boards and blogs are starting to cringe about it a little.
Because it's so indefensible.
January 20th, 2011 at 10:34 AM ^
Moreover, recruits still flock to these schools, even though everybody knows about oversigning. It's a problem, but recruits don't care.
They don't care because no top-dog recruit from Anytown High School thinks he'll be the one who'll underperform and get shown the door to make room for the next lottery-ticket 4-star. The fearlessness of youth.
And the comments from the SEC (mainly 'Bama) mafia on oversigning.com make me want to vomit. I don't want to potentially overreach with a poorly-chosen analogy, so I'll just say that their defense of oversigning at their schools is laughable. Mostly, they just point out that the site is run by an OSU fan and claim that he's just a sore loser because his team can't compete with the SEC.
Apparently, many SEC fans haven't fully evolved yet.
January 20th, 2011 at 11:38 AM ^
And it happens with kids that are significantly smarter on average than a BCS-level football talent. Take a look at how many people are willing to go 150K or more in debt to go to law school right now, most thinking that they'll be the ones who get one of the BigLaw jobs that pay 145K-160K starting out. None of them think they'll be the ones stuck without a job at all, or finding a job but having it pay low enough that they can't afford to pay for both their loans and their basic living expenses.
I mean, people think this going into the lower-tier law schools where maybe one or two kids in their entire class are going to get the high-paying jobs, yet take out those loans anyway. Everyone thinks they're the best.
January 20th, 2011 at 11:24 AM ^
I am hoping recruits take this into account when selecting a school.
Knowing that you will not lose a scholarship if you do not perform well or the team recruits too many people at your position.
If I were Hoke (and other M coaches) I would definitely use this to my advantage. I would simply point out the some other schools will drop you very quickly.
January 20th, 2011 at 11:50 AM ^
from SEC fans trying to justify the oversigning is sickening and stupid.
January 20th, 2011 at 12:19 PM ^
lead to asploding heads. There are a lot of people out there that would be perfectly happy if we could return to the days of Gladiators and Lions, in Hi Def.
I know more than one person that looks at the cost of a degree and feels that there is no difference between a college athlete and an NFL athlete. Student athletes do no exist, other than in name. From there to throwing them away if they don't work out is not a long stretch.
January 20th, 2011 at 12:31 PM ^
Oversigning with no regard for the student-athlete is just wrong. In every avenue of life, it is wrong to use people with little regard for them. Whether generals in war, Industrialists in the 18th century, or coaches today, using and abusing your soldiers/employees/atheletes may lead to success in the short term, but leaves a sour taste. However, as mentioned by many, winning justifies it all for many people. Not for me, and I hope not for Michigan. I want to see things done the right way.
January 20th, 2011 at 1:23 PM ^
should make a stand on this practice and try to get the other BCS conferences to sign a pact that will put this practice front and center in the sports world & MSM !
Bottom line ... the SEC commissioner knows they are cheating and he approves of it !!!
Go Blue !
January 20th, 2011 at 3:10 PM ^
Bottom line ... the SEC commissioner knows they are cheating and he approves of it !!!
With regards to oversigning, this isn't neccasrily true (but as far as Cam Newton goes...that's another story). Because of Houston Nutt going...well, nuts with his 37 member 2009 signing class and his infamous "there's no rule that says we can't sign 80" quote, the SEC did in fact, put in a rule that says you can't sign 80. Recruiting class sizes are now capped at 28, and the SEC also pushed for this rule to be adopted NCAA-wide. The conferences voted on it, and the rule is now in effect for the 2011 recruiting class.
The SEC is also still evaluating its rules and may look to adopt a rule similar to the Big Ten's rule. The Big Ten's rule, for those that don't know, limits the number of signees to the number available under the 85-man roster limit + 3. So if you have 65 kids under scholarship, you can only sign 23. The Big Ten's rule hinders oversigning from a roster standpoint, the SEC/NCAA rule hinders oversigning on a class, by class basis.