Early Enrolless/Class Size Solved!

Submitted by JC3 on
I know there have been numerous threads on this already, but those of you with a rivals account will notice one of the members got in contact with the Big Ten Director of Compliance. Link($)
Nothing has changed, although you’ve never been able to “backdate” and count a student-athlete (SA) in a year in which they weren’t in attendance. What I suspect you’re thinking of is the fact that mid-year enrollees (except SAs receiving aid under the “mid-year replacement” rule?described below) count against the overall limit of 85, but may count against the initial limit of 25 in either the year of initial enrollment (if there’s room) or in the year immediately following.
-all of the above describe NCAA rules; the Big Ten rule is that at no time can you be in a situation where more than 3 scholarships over the limit have been offered. So, if I have room for 25 initial counters next year, I can sign 28; if I have room for 20 initial counters next year, I can sign 23.
MGoBoard
Michigan football
recruting
Early Enrollees

BleedingBlue

December 9th, 2009 at 11:17 AM ^

I think Pace is a 'maybe' depending on if there is a spot available...at least that is what is implied from the end of this article: ""I learned that I need to report Jan. 3 if every(thing) works out with their scholarship count," Pace said. "They just need to make sure all their guys graduate when they are supposed to, but they said most likely all of them are going to graduate when they need to." http://www.michigan.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1025440

Joined: 07/25/2008

MGoPoints: 2165

AC1997

December 9th, 2009 at 10:53 AM ^

Just to be clear, here are the rules as I understand them: -- No more than 85 scholarships total at one time -- No more than 25 new players per year given scholarships -- No more than 28 total players can be signed to LOI -- You can count up to 3 players toward the previous year's class if they enroll in December and if that previous year's class had enough space under the 25-person limit to accomodate them. So for example, in 2008 we signed 24 recruits. Tate could have been counted as the 25th member of that class because he enrolled early last season if we needed a spot in the 2009 recruiting class. This season because we signed 22 players in 2009 we could back-date the maximum of three players this season and thus sign 28 players as long as three of them enroll in January. Where it gets really interesting is this. Let's say we actually signed 23 players in 2009 leaving us only two available "extra" spots this year and limiting us to 27 people. What we could do in that situation is count Tate toward 2008 bringing our 2009 number down to 22 and allowing us to sign the full 28 this season. Unfortunately the 28 number is the hard cap and we can't get more than that even though we're still under our 85 limit. Ethically this frees us from guilt as well. The issue with what Alabama was doing wasn't just that they signed more than 28 guys, it was that they had absolutely no room in their 85 total to fit even close to that number. In Michigan's case the 25/28 limit doesn't bother me ethically because we're so far under the 85 limit. The whole point is whether you can show where your scholarships are going to come from when the player signs the LOI.

Joined: 09/19/2008

MGoPoints: 13762

All_In_For_Michigan

December 9th, 2009 at 11:22 AM ^

Also, do walk-on scholarships affect the total, or are only recruited players that signed LOIs counted? I believe they usually fill out the scholarship limit by offering scholarships to walk-ons. Under the "midyear graduate replacement" rule, unless we only have 82 scholarships or less used right now, the early enrollees must count towards the 2010-2011 scholarship limit, which would limit us to 25 enrollees in the class instead of 28. So, if walk-ons are counted, I don't see how we could get to 85. Based on the quote from above: 'football is a “head count” sport, which means that if a SA gets $1 or a full-ride, he counts as 1 against the limit of 85,' I would guess that walk-ons would be part of this head count, but that is just speculation. Edit: This was covered by BleedingBlue above, but his post didn't come up by the time I read the thread and wrote mine.

Joined: 03/27/2009

MGoPoints: 53

ameed

December 9th, 2009 at 10:58 AM ^

This "no change in rule" info sheds light into how/why M is still taking commitments while in on several others, de-commits and grayshirts (is it gray or grey?) aside.

Joined: 07/01/2008

MGoPoints: 186

Franke8

December 9th, 2009 at 11:30 AM ^

Finally something goes our way and we have some good news. Hopefully this news means we are heading toward the light at the end of the tunnel and more good news will continue to come.

Joined: 11/17/2009

MGoPoints: 3

ZooWolverine

December 9th, 2009 at 11:51 AM ^

This was addressed previously in the thread but was never resolved. The way I'm reading it, we can sign 31 players and enroll 28--the way I'm reading it is that we can only sign 3 more players than we have scholarships for. We have space for 28 players so can't we sign 31? "If I have room for 25 initial counters next year, I can sign 28; if I have room for 20 initial counters next year, I can sign 23." Since the signings would happen after the three students needed were actually enrolled, it would already be clear there was space for 28 people.

Joined: 02/27/2009

MGoPoints: 3698

a2bluefan

December 9th, 2009 at 12:26 PM ^

Well, of course what's going to happen here is that RR is going to sign X number of recruits, and regardless of what number that is, the Freep is gonna print that it's a violation of NCAA rules.

Joined: 12/29/2008

MGoPoints: 2754

Eyebrowse

December 9th, 2009 at 1:35 PM ^

Thank god for all of you people. This stuff sounds like insurance law to me (or any other type of law that is more dense and equally inane). Either way, I'm excited about this class, Ray Vinopal and all.

Joined: 07/06/2009

MGoPoints: 1394