Recruiting karma strikes at LSU

Submitted by I Like Burgers on

News surfaced today that LSU got hit with some heavy recruiting sanctions due to an early enrolling backing out of his commitment.  As a result, they can't sign any early enrollees to financial aid papers for 2 years and they lose 10% of their recruiting evaluation days (which winds up being 21 days).

Considering they booted a recruit/player out of the dorms a few years a day or so before the semester was going to start because they were oversigned, this is some sweet, sweet irony.

Story via Yahoo Sports

LSAClassOf2000

February 26th, 2015 at 8:14 PM ^

The Magnolia Heights lineman committed to the Tigers during a July visit and signed a financial aid agreement with LSU in early August. Per NCAA rules, the agreement allows schools to have unlimited contact with prospects planning to enroll early at an institution. However, according to his father, LSU isn't going to act upon the agreement in case his son changes his mind.

That's from the Clarion-Ledger story actually. The direct quote later in the article has the father saying LSU would have had to report this as a violation otherwise basically and that they took this position of not using the aid agreement for unlimited contact in the event he would change his mind.

The stupid thing is that when the NCAA changed the rule to allow high school seniors to sign the grant-in-aid agreements with schools, the intent might have been to force schools to honor offers, but they themselves left the door wide open for recruits to sign multiple agreements and then be fought over with a deluge of open communication. It has already happened to a few kids of note too. They tried to close the loophole by stating that only the school with whom the recruit signed first can publicly announce the signing, but then if you're highly touted, who will turn you down and still, why not sign with a few more and listen? The NCAA did not think this one through, in my opinion. 

Tater

February 26th, 2015 at 8:34 PM ^

Stupid rule: stupid decision.  If this happened in Ann Arbor, we would be livid.  Unfortunately, the only "appeal" is to the people who made the decision in the first place.  While the penalty sorta makes up for them never being penalized for past shenanigans, it's still a bad precedent.  

It's as if the NCAA is so desperate to demonstrate what's left of their power that they are trying to find any reason they can to penalize someone.  I hope LSU litigates.

CoachBP6

February 26th, 2015 at 8:43 PM ^

Man if the NCAA enforced major violations the way they do the petty violations, the sport would be in a much better place.

bronxblue

February 26th, 2015 at 9:23 PM ^

Agreed, this is a dumb rule.  Obviously LSU deserves some of this from a karma perspective, but they only violated the terms of the agreement after the student signed somewhere else, which seems to defeat the purpose of FAA.  I suspect the NCAA will be amending the rules with respect to these financial aid agreements soon.

gwkrlghl

February 26th, 2015 at 9:25 PM ^

Widespread scandal? "Hey that bowl game from 3 years ago doesn't count anymore!"

Kid renegs on FAA? "Wow. This is serious business. You lose 21 days of recruiting time..........was he involved in any stretching activities during this time?"

readyourguard

February 26th, 2015 at 9:26 PM ^

The only way another school, including Michigan, can avoid a similar penalty would be to stick to normal guidelines for contact. This is a screw job for LSU no matter how much we dislike them. Interesting to note that the sanctions were levied by the SEC.

oriental andrew

February 27th, 2015 at 7:43 AM ^

Because the rule explicitly states that a school may have a greater level of contact with a recruit who signs a financial aid agreement. The catch is that the school is also retroactively penalized if the recruit decides not to enroll at that school.

In this case, LSU acted in good faith, assuming the kid was going to matriculate. The kid changed his mind, so LSU is penalized for excessive contact. If he enrolled, then it would not have been a violation. Stupid.

SAMgO

February 26th, 2015 at 9:31 PM ^

Okay sorry, pet peeve of mine, but this isn't fucking irony. It's actually the exact opposite of irony. They over signed and had to boot a player right before classes started, and then they paid the price for it. That's exactly what you'd expect would happen in a rational situation.




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Nitro

February 26th, 2015 at 9:50 PM ^

I'm laughing at the level of reading comprehension shown by the SEC fans in the comment section of that article who are really upset at the anonymous recruit. The violation wasn't triggered because some recruit changed his mind. It was triggered because LSU exceeded the amount of contact they were allowed to have with that recruit (the contact may have happened before or after the decommit and failure to enroll, but that doesn't matter).