Reddit Post About OSU Oversigning
For any of you who don't use reddit, or specifically the college football subreddit r/CFB, an Alabama fan just posted a semi in-depth thread about why OSU has been one of college football's "premier oversigners."
I know Brian recently posted about why it's not a big deal, but I still thought it was an interesting read.
February 12th, 2015 at 1:23 PM ^
commit some form of malpractice and who DON'T have their licenses revoked is a far higher number. The medical profession is notorious for protecting its own. If you ever try to sue a doctor, good luck finding another doctor to act as a witness against him/her. But on the football part of this discussion, I would guess it's at least possible that there are some team doctors out there who will make these kind of medical hardship decisons in the favor of the program, especially if there is any doubt. Just saying.
February 13th, 2015 at 1:53 AM ^
there is never a shortage of lawyers to take stupid cases or other MDs willing to act as expert witnesses for either side. We are united in our hatred of lawyers but work with them anyways. We do tend to put ourselves in the shoes of the other guy, and much of the time we can say that it could happen to us too.
Malpractice suits are NOT proof of guilt. The worst MD I have ever known ( kicked out of two hospitals and off of medicare and medicaid ) has never been sued. Guess he is just one great Dr. Me, it's just an occupaitonal hazard. Like delivery guys get parking tickets, we get sued whenever a lawyer thinks he can extort us into a settlement.
February 12th, 2015 at 12:40 PM ^
There's a difference between putting one's career on the line saying someone "can't play football again" and "Player X sustained injury enough where continued use would prove detrimental to his future as a football player. It is my opinion that Player X could drastically benefit from a season off to allow his body to heal and afford time for rehabilitation."
It's all on how it is worded. EVERY player that played has to have some small injury that would benefit from extra healing time.
It is the same theory why you don't go to the Doctor being paid by your employer to see if your on-the-job injury is worthy of disability.
It is the power of the pen. With HIPAA laws I'd be surprised if we ever found out why any player was able to play in the BCS playoff/championship game and suddenly be unable to play the next season... Just for an example of course.
February 12th, 2015 at 5:56 PM ^
overselling what the doctors are risking by giving their opinions. I don't believe there's a single standard to apply on whether someone can play college football. For example, OSU could ask if there's any risk if benchwarmer X were to continue playing, but phrase the question differently when it's a valuable player. Remember Michigan was going to medical Kaleb Ringer. He transferred and continued to play. Jeff Zuttah was never cleared by Michigan' doctors because of sickle-cell anemia. He transferred to Stanford and they let him play, albeit briefly.
February 12th, 2015 at 12:35 PM ^
is that OSU "processes" players more rapidly meaning they dump lesser upper classman players when they are juniors whereas in the SEC players leaving for the NFL accounts for a natural attrition allowing SEC team's to over-sign. The error here is that SEC team's dump players as well. I found the article informative but then player dumping isn't new and all team's do it to a certain extent it just appears that Meyer is aggressively exploiting this angle more. But then what did you expect from an SEC hardened coach? Game-on!
February 12th, 2015 at 12:44 PM ^
Oh Ohio
February 12th, 2015 at 12:45 PM ^
I know I'm in the minority here on this issue but I'm sorry - the PLAYERS have got to take some responsibility for continuing to sign LOI's to schools with a well publicized history of oversigning and subsequent cutting. It's not like it's a big industry secret that only we intenet detectives of MGoBlog can feret out.
Yes I know they are all young, impressionable children with little ability to discern bullshit from fact and yes I know they schools shouldnt do it but damn - isnt that where parents are suppose to come in? Isnt that one of the reasons why an LOI must be signed off by a guardian - to ensure these naive young children dont get bamboozled by slick-talking coaches?
If players stopped signing LOI's to schools who do this it would stop fast. But until they do they aren't a whole lot different to me than smokers who want to sue somebody after they get lung cancer.
February 12th, 2015 at 1:01 PM ^
Seems to me the parents of these kids should inform themselves of such issues and be certain their kids understand the risks associated with certain program's philosophies. After all, they are the adults with the most at stake in the school choice.
February 12th, 2015 at 6:50 PM ^
I hear what you're saying, and the critic in me agrees to hold the athletes accountable for their actions. But, it's just to hard to figure out what's what. And, with so many coaches wooing them and selling them on everything shiny it's hard to tell what's real versus what's a sales pitch for a young kid. And, lets face it, few parents understand this process. Heck, we follow this stuff year round and it's hard for us to understand what's what. The reality is the governing body (NCAA) should be there to protect athletes and keep competition among schools at a level playing field. IMO it's really the NCAA that is accountable for allowing this system to go on and do nothing to educate kids. A kid is gonna be a kid and will be easily swayed by all this attention, someone else has to take on this job.
February 12th, 2015 at 12:46 PM ^
February 12th, 2015 at 2:20 PM ^
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February 12th, 2015 at 12:57 PM ^
An Alabama fan pointing this out is silly, but it is kind of irrelevant. The NCAA isn't going to do anything to stop it, and while maybe enough eyeballs seeing and voices complaining about it could lead to change, I'm not holding my breath. I never totally bought the argument that Meyer isn't an oversigner in ways that are a bit less blatant than other places, but I'm not sure there is any real evidence provided here that is conclusive either way.
February 12th, 2015 at 1:31 PM ^
In the last five classes, during which Ohio State has signed 121 recruits, they've prematurely "lost" 19 of them. They still have to clear about eight guys from the roster prior to the start of the season.
Here are the 19 who have already been "lost", their 247 composite star rating, and the reason for departure:
| Player | * | Reason for early departure |
| Timothy Gardner | 3 | dismissed by Ohio State (obstruction of police business) |
| Mike Mitchell | 4 | transfer to Texas Tech |
| Jayme Thompson | 4 | transfer to Iowa Western CC |
| Frank Epitropoulos | 3 | quit football to pursue academics |
| Jamal Marcus | 4 | transfer to Akron |
| Najee Murray | 4 | dismissed by Ohio State after tearing ACL (practice incident) |
| Joey O'Connor | 4 | transfer to Colorado State |
| David Perkins | 4 | transfer to Illinois State |
| Se'von Pittman | 4 | transfer to Akron |
| Luke Roberts | 3 | transfer to Harvard |
| Ricquan Southward | 3 | quit football |
| Noah Spence | 5 | dimissed by Big Ten (substance use) |
| Blake Thomas | 3 | medical |
| Brian Bobek | 4 | transfer to Minnesota |
| Tommy Brown | 3 | transfer to Akron |
| Jeremy Cash | 3 | transfer to Duke |
| Conner Crowell | 3 | medical |
| DerJuan Gambrell | 3 | dismissed by Ohio State (misdemeanor assault) |
| Kenny Hayes | 4 | transfer to Michigan State |
February 12th, 2015 at 7:40 PM ^
And not a single one of those players that transferred to other schools said anything about being forced out. In the age of Facebook and Social Media, not a single peep from one of them.
Meyer is very up front, even during the recruiting process, that he will constantly be evaluating each player, meeting with them and their families, and discussing how they fit in, how they're progressing, and what their future is. He's quite willing to tell someone "unless there are a massive number of injurites, or you improve to an extent that I've seen no evidence you're capable of, you're not seeing the field." Why would this be a bad thing? Isn't this the correct, ethical thing to do, if it's the truth?
Being told that, you can choose to stay or go. As the player, you have the option of whether you want to spend the rest of your career on the bench.
What would be wrong is if Meyer said "... so we're not renewing your scholarship next year." To the best of my knowledge, not a single player or reporter has ever suggested that this has ever happened.
Tressel did NOT operate this way. He did NOT get the player and his family together and tell them that the kid was going to ride the pine. It's not at all suprising that many more players would be transferring out under Meyer than under Tressel.
Honestly, this is a witch hunt. Until there's any evidence at all that he's not renewing shcolarships of players that want to stay on the team, he's done nothing wrong, and Ohio State has done nothing wrong.
February 12th, 2015 at 7:54 PM ^
However, it is not. You should not run it as such.
February 12th, 2015 at 8:19 PM ^
Are you saying that coaches should lie by omission and avoid telling kids they have no chance of playing? That seems really strange to me, but I'm not sure how else to interpret your comment.
February 12th, 2015 at 9:13 PM ^
This is pretty much the whole point.
February 12th, 2015 at 11:23 PM ^
I fail to see how they are mutually exclusive.
Saying:
You're part of our family, we enjoy having you on the team, we're doing everything we can to help you realize your potential, we're happy to renew your scholarship. Even without playing in games, you can be a valuable contributor in practice and on the scout team.
Does not preclude you from also saying:
You're 6th on the depth chart at running back. 4 of the players that are ahead of you have more eligibility left than you do. We have the #1 running back recruit in the country commited to us for next year. Based on your first 3 years here, our evaluation is that you're unlikely to improve enough to pass 4 of the other running backs to become 2nd string or 5 of them to become the starter. Unless there are a lot of injuries or you improve in a way that would be pretty much unprecedented in our experience, you're only going to see the field in blowouts, if at all.
If the second statement is your honest appraisal, don't you owe it to the student to tell him? If you were a student who loved playing football and wanted to play in some more games before your eligiblity was used up, wouldn't you want to be told?
February 12th, 2015 at 11:25 PM ^
No. They should avoid signing kids they HOPE will never have any chance of significant playing time if/when they sign the top kids they were truely targeting. Telling the kid the truth AFTER he signs the LOI is the problem...see Weber Exhibit A.
February 13th, 2015 at 12:08 AM ^
There is a 0.0% chance that UFM has ever offered any athlete that he hopes will never have any chance of significant playing time. Seriously, how do the neurons in someone's brain even configure themselves in such a way as to make that thought possible? No coach cares whether it is Jones that has 2,000 yards or Smith that has 2,000 yards or O'Conner that has 2,000 yards. They're not saying to themselves, "Wow, Jones is better right now than Smith; I hope Jones plays so well that Smith never sees the field." That thought has occurred to a coach literally zero times in the history of sports. If Jones looks better now, but Smith beefs up and finds another gear and turns into an even better player, the coach is ecstatic.
February 14th, 2015 at 12:43 AM ^
Its just that Urbs recruits the extra numbers to make the competition mean life or death to the recruit. Oh, and you're right...coach urbs doesn't care which kid rises up and knocks the other into a medical or grey shirt, as long as he had more signees than actual scollie spots he's actually counting on one making the other's scollie NOT COUNT. I mean, you can add, right??? So, its one thing when attrition happens, you know, naturally, and another alltogether when the coach is COUNTING on it after he oversigns. This EssEECee bcrap belongs, you know, in the EssEccCee....right where urbs fits in.
February 12th, 2015 at 8:38 PM ^
Jamal Marcus was originally dismissed from the team for academic reasons before transferring to Akron.
Joey O'Conner transferred to CSU to be closer to his family/ailing father?
February 12th, 2015 at 1:31 PM ^
osu welcome to the sec. just keep over hiring and you and nick will have lunch some time.
February 12th, 2015 at 3:24 PM ^
February 12th, 2015 at 4:45 PM ^
Considering the grade level of spelling in the comments, it's amazing that these universities exist for purposes other than football......
February 12th, 2015 at 5:37 PM ^
Sounds like a bitter Bama fan upset that the B1G handed them their second consecutive bowl loss.