SEC Drops its Ban on Satellite Camps - Let the Games Begin!
So the SEC has seen the writing on the wall and has voted to get rid of its 50-mile rule. In other words, it's open season on nation-wide recruiting:
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/05/sec_eliminates_its_ban_of_sate.html
I ventured over to Roll Bama Roll to see what they are saying about the satellite camp debate, and here's what I found:
http://www.rollbamaroll.com/2015/5/28/8677067/coming-soon-university-of-alabama-chesapeake-bay
They basically think that the B1G is going to come to regret the decision to push the issue because the SEC recruiting juggernaut will pilfer the Midwest.
In response I say....are you nuts? The best recruits in the country right now are coming from the West Coast and the Southeast. If you think we are afraid to trade facetime with Rust Belt recruits for Bible Belt recruits, you are greatly mistaken.
If they do take top recruits from the Midwest, great for them. However, to say that we have locked down the Midwest (which the author says) misses a very crucial fact...the most fertile recruiting grounds are in THEIR backyard.
As Michael Buffer used to say: Let's Get Ready to Rumble!
EDIT: A poster below noted that the policy change IS NOT EFFECTIVE UNTIL 2016, and will only occur IF the NCAA does not ban the practice before then. Given that the SEC doesn't have the votes to ban the practice, though, this just means that the SEC will wait until 2016 to hold camps.
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The sec contradict themselves so much.
Let the games begin, you are more then welcome to camp in Saginaw, Michigan, just don't forget to bring your heavy duty the north face coat with you, you scumbags.
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Well, we know Mark Richt won't be attending. Damned freezing July nights in Michigan...
Summer in Michigan
will include Brink's trucks as well. . .
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Does this mean the NCAA will rescind their recent rule change about being able to attend satellite camps but the college can not promote them using digital media? (which, BTW, in true NCAA form is stupid).
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But, by relaxing the restrictions and allowing its members to exploit the same loophole that Big Ten members so gleefully do, the SEC has signaled that it is more than willing to level the playing field for its guys.
I have this image of Mike Slive shaking his fist in a generally northerly direction and shouting, "YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU MADE MY PEOPLE AWFULLY JEALOUS!"
Like someone said above though, I think what happens more often than not at this point is that the SEC - still having every reason to focus a lot of personnel on its own talent-rich region - start invading the traditional recruiting grounds of their own conference opponents first. I tend to believe they are far more afraid of each other than of us or Ohio State or anyone else.
I love the competition. That's what drives JH.
Saban and ethical complaints... That's good stuff
ESPN saying SEC will drop camps in 2016 IF an outright ban nationally is not approved by NCAA before then.
They will still try and ban camps for now so Harbaugh is not out of the woods yet. I think by admitting this it hurts there chances on getting a national rule banning the practice in place though.
This is a non-issue. The SEC doesn't have the votes to get rid of satellite camps, so they will be joining the fray.
Whether the policy is effective in 2016 or this year, it's the same end effect.
This is like prime rib for starved dogs.
I thought this would happen eventually (if not the camps being banned by the NCAA first) and leads me to believe there is a short window of opportunity either way. If most major programs begin to offer these it really is going to lead to massive saturation - wherever they are. There are already a # of "non affiliated" camps outside of satellites and most kids are not going to go to a camp for Alabama, UM, LSU, Florida, Georgia, PSU, etc etc. There becomes a fatigue factor with it all, especially for the high end kid who is already doing any number of 7 v 7 camps / circuits or whatever.
This will probably be a positive for the diamond in the rough guys who might have gone to the Sun Belt or MAC otherwise and maybe get discovered by a P5 type team but for the high performers I see them choosing 2-3 camps and be done with it. Since this is not an invite only type of camp I also wonder what the high end kids really will get out of it other than a meet and greet. Going out and doing drills vs a guy who might be DIII or headed to Akron is not really going to improve one technically - so after they see that a few times and word gets out over the cycle of camps I think most will use these camps simply to visit with people they might already be interested in, especially if there are say 15 schools offering camps in the future.
Anyhow it is fascinating to see Harbaugh blow the lid off this thing in a short time however. It also in a perverse way could hurt Ohio at the margin as that is the 1 Midwest state I'd bother with if I was a SEC schoool.
Now that the inevitable has happened..here's the thing, which SEC (or other Coaching staff) is going to have the cajones and do anything remotely close to 9 stops in 9 days....
Its one thing to show up at ONE school (ala Meyer) its a completely different deal to do a multi-stop, cross-country road tour.
So it's a matter of, who wants to work more. Some may not - they're content to sit back and let their bag men do the work. We have Harbaugh and no one will outwork him. Because, let's face it, working these camps does take a lot of time and energy.
I don't think this matters much with midwest kids. The risk is the other states UM has been drawing talent from like NJ, Virginia, and MD. If anything, I think this hurts Maryland, Rutgers, Syracuse, UVA, and UNC more than anybody.
I'll gladly take Florida's and Georgia's leftover players.
He's so fired up to spend more time recruiting that he got Nick Saban to start talking about work-life balance and the entire SEC to start whining about competitive balance. What's next? Partner up with the engineering school in order to invent a new form of communication that he can use to contact recruits as often as he likes before the NCAA can regulate it? They can name it HarChat.
The SEC was already getting some of the Midwest's best simply because they were winning. Winning cures all things. U-M will get whoever they want when they start to put championships on the board again.
Harbaugh is working on a national reputation again, but it has been badly damaged since 2007. Put up 9 wins in 2015, 10 wins in 2016, and 11+ in 2017 and beyond and suddenly the recruiting juggernaut of 110,000 on every Saturday, #1 public university, and perennial Big Ten Champions returns.
I long for the day when UM and ND can sign more than 25 kids in class. They can have the camps, I want oversigning.
If "oversigning" means greyshirts, blueshirts, orangeshirts, etc., the SEC can keep it. Slimy is as slimy does.
Everyone always says that the SEC has more talent than the B1G. I believe it may be true, but how is that possible with Michigan, Ohio, Penn, (New Jersey), etc. having such large populations in comparrison? Is it that the population up North is all old people? Is it that kids down South aren't cooped up all winter (spring ball?) Seems like if we had more kids regression to the mean would take over and we would have more/better talent (on average.)
play football up here than down south. When you grow up in asscrack Alabama there isn't much else to do. Also, more educated parents are more likely to be concerned about CTE and other injuries, thus preventing their kids from playing.
I don't see any correlation between a parent's education and their concern for injuries. I have parents, both dumb and intelligent, taking or keeping kids out of football for injury-related reasons.
I can't post a thread yet so I'll post it here. Has anyone heard of the talk of increasing scholarships in football due to the addition of the playoffs? I thought I heard some rumblings about bumping it to 90 or 95.
Funny article by Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel..."Skeeter Saban", "Shiny Pants Spurrier", "Big Booger Bielema":
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/florida-gators/os-sec-coaches-mik…
This is a boon to stepladder salesmen everywhere.
Saban might be coming to a town near you.
The phones at your big name high schools in Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama are going to be ringing off the hook this week
the B1G and PAC pilfering of SEC-land recruits will be a path to the end of SEC over-signing, since there will no longer be such a surplus of southern recruits. HARBAUGH!
You cannot compete with us Mr. Saban, Mr. Richt, cuz we playing Harbaughlll...
I see this as more of a bluff than anything else in hopes it scares enough other schools to vote for a ban on these camps. I can see a majority of the Big 12 and PAC 12 joining the SEC in the ban to keep schools like Alabama and LSU from setting up camps in Texas and California.