OT: Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson on oversigning
Paul Johnson says that "oversigning creates advantages". On that same note, so does dating 5 women at the same time. Doesn't make it any more ethical!
I don't think Johnson was trying to point to oversigning as ethical; rather he was citing the unfair advantages oversigning affords the institutions that do it. I mean, it says in the beginning of the article that he's against oversigning.
On that note, I have to agree with Johnson. Institutions should be held accountable to the kids they promise an opportunity to go to school to.
I understand that scholarships are techinically only for one year, but most kids don't understand this when they are being recruited and it's never explained to them. It's assumed that a scholarship is four years because that's what it is at 95% of schools. There are numerous reasons why a scholarships is "technically" for one year, but forcing kids to battle for them every year is not one of them. I may have less of a problem with oversigning if coaches explained it to the kids during the recruitment, but they don't. Can anyone see Nick Saban telling a recruit "You have a full athletic scholarship to come play football at Alabama. Now understand that every single year you're going to have to compete with the rest of the team to keep your scholarship. If you're not one of the best 85 players on the team, I'm going to cut you."? Yeah, me neither...
On the other hand, if you suck and have a (cough, cough) career ending injury, we have a great medical program to meet your educational and healthcare needs.
Saban is the only coach that actually tells players upfront their scholarship is only good for 1 year. So he's only 99.9% asshole
I know that I will probably get blasted for this, but here we go:
If Saban makes it absolutely clear to all recruits that their scholarships are good for only a year, and if he is otherwise doing everything within the constraints of NCAA rules (big if, I know), then what is the problem?
The problem is the rule, not the rule stretcher. I know that we all like to blast the SEC for its unethical practices, but the underlying problem is the NCAA loophole that allows SEC teams to be unethical.
For the record, I do not "approve" of over-signing. I just think we need to step back and look at the bigger picture. The problem is with the NCAA rule that governs signing practices, not the SEC.