Semi OT: Oversigning proposal by the SEC
Saw this article at ESPN and didn't see it posted earlier.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6615533
Looks like the SEC is considering dropping the number of recruits per year from 28 to 25, which is a step in the right direction and at least seems a little closer to reality than the 30+ classes that were the norm for some programs the past couple of years. As expected, not everyone is a fan.
Bobby Petrino:
The people that criticize oversigning, I'm not sure they understand why you do it and what it's all about and how you manage your roster and how you get to (the scholarship limit of) 85...
It's all how you manage your roster. I've always been one that oversigns, knowing that out of these six guys, three of them are going to get eligible and three are going to a junior college and then have a chance to come play for us.
Nick Saban:
[Blaming the media for the proposed change] Y'all are creating a bad problem for everybody because you're going to mess up the kids getting opportunities by doing what you're doing. You think you're helping them, but you're really going to hurt them.
Les Miles:
[Discussing the notion of grayshirts] I have a difficult time defending the immorality of you're going to be able to go to school for free, you're just going to have to wait three months to do it.
And Mr. Oversigning himself, The "Nutter Butter" Houston Nutt:
I have a soft spot in my heart when a (high school) coach says, 'All he needs is you. He's had a few problems, but all he needs is you'...If you say 25 ... you can't make mistakes
And Mark Richt said something about managing your roster appropriately and not promising scholarships to kids you couldn't fulfill..
It is left to the reader to ascertain which one of the coaches above was treated as Buzz Killington.
[I know the excerpts are large swaths of the article, but they were just too juicy to ignore.]
[EDIT: Realized I didn't make the distinction clear about the voting. They considered going down to 25, but that was shot down unanimously. The SEC remains at a VERY flexible 28 per class]
I figured the SEC's oversigning proposal was going to be "yeah... we should do that. Yes?"
Imagine not being able to make "mistakes" like each of the other five conferences...
that some coaches are actually campaigning against this. Probably says a lot about how much of an advantage they think it gives them, huh?
The Petrino comment is really striking to me.
Managing your roster? Isn't this a university? Aren't your players student-athletes?
Christ - he talks about it like a manager towards the end of spring training.
They're college kids, the overwhelming majority of whom will have to earn a living outside of professional football.
Bobby Petrino said...
Whatever Petrino's/SEC's logic (and I think you've captured it here). . .
It's not a business as to the players- it's an education!
This kind of shit almost makes me yearn to be european.
The coaches voted unanimously to keep it at 28. Shocker.
Source is an Auburn beat writer for an Alabama paper on Twitter:
Really, the Vandy coach couldn't even find his scruples? Lame.
Question... if the current recruits per year is 28, and they constantly sign 30+ classes, how would dropping it to 25 make a difference? Can someone please explain, completely genuine question.
Some of them grayshirt and some enroll early so they count for the previous year's class.
28 was just agreed upon today. I think prior to that they could sign 30 or whatever they deemed necessary.
Nick Saban doesn't even try explain how eliminating oversigning "hurts" the kids... but I guess he is right, not giving kids the opportunity to be kicked off of teams due to roster limits really is hurting them.
Eliminating oversigning would deny kids the right to be cut off a Nick Saban-coached team, that great character-building experience. It's really the guys who don't get cut that miss out in the long run!
Nietzschean!
Is it just me or do these coaches act like there is only one university on earth that would let these kids play football and give them a scholarship. If they didn't do it, the kids wouldn't be able to go to college. What a crock.
“I don’t know that it’s a competitive advantage. I don’t necessarily know that is accurate,” said Auburn coach Gene Chizik, responding to those people who say the SEC is at a distinct advantage over other conferences that don’t allow oversigning.
“I just know it’s very difficult to try and hit a home run 100 percent of the time, signing 25 guys and expecting 25 guys to be on your campus for fall practice. I just think there is too much margin for error in there with all the variables that can happen with a student-athlete.”
So lets get this straight. You think the margin of error is too high with signing only 25 guys. Yet you think it isn't a competitive advantage to be able to sign more, when others can't? I'm pretty sure that 2nd paragraph says that the first sentence is necessarily accurate. Dumbshit.
http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/23392/sec-coaches-favor-oversigni…
The best parts are that they think it's bad they can no longer sign kids who won't get in because they can't risk it, and that the article referred to them as "trend setting." Trend setting? Seriously? When will the media stop crediting the SEC with being trend setting with their scholarship limits? They aren't, and even now they still try to justify oversigning showing the very few limits they have they don't even want.
Not to mention the article doesn't even mention the real problem, and of course none of the coaches do. It's not the kids coming in that get screwed most of the time, its the kids who get cut because they are put on medical hardship, or forced to transfer, or just flat out kicked off the team to make room for the over signing.
Bobby Petrino's delightful explanation:
The people that criticize oversigning, I'm not sure they understand why you do it
Could it be . . . to gain a competitive advantage by skirting the signing limit?
and what it's all about
Is it about . . . signing more players than the limit allows?
and how you manage your roster and how you get to (the scholarship limit of) 85
Could it possibly involve that newfangled concept of cutting guys off the team who aren't good enough to make room for those who are? This sure is a head-scratcher.
Even dropping to 25 is pretty much meaningless. That's still 125 guys in a five year span. Nobody can do that in the Big Ten short of severe attrition. The rule that they need to make is that on signing day, you can have no more than 85 players on scholarship + signed letters of intent. This is what we have to conform to.