ak47

January 3rd, 2016 at 2:07 AM ^

Man this rumor got out of hand quickly. Remember when like last week we were getting Delance or led for upshor? We might be getting a visit in January and there is random speculation that that person could be little and now we are on the verge of flipping him? That seems reasonable to make that jump to people?

Joined: 05/05/2011

MGoPoints: 33614

AFMich

January 3rd, 2016 at 2:07 AM ^

Can someone tell me what the "academic exemption" mentioned in the article is? I'm guessing it allows teams to take a certain amount of non-acedemically eligible recruits per cycle. Who gives the exemption - UM, the B1G, NCAA?

Joined: 03/24/2011

MGoPoints: 860

AZBlue

January 3rd, 2016 at 11:57 AM ^

Yes. This happens. This does not allow the school to go below the NCAA threshold, only the higher one a school like M does. There is no formal limit for numbers but M doesn't want this to be a habit.

I remember RR battling the school on this as many of the kids he wanted to bring in were below the M line.

Joined: 09/14/2008

MGoPoints: 16806

alum96

January 3rd, 2016 at 2:11 AM ^

I trust 3G to ferret out the dirt in the athletic department and coaching searches.  I know Brian and Seth says he only has one source but that one source seems to be a good Deepthroat.

When it comes to recruiting stuff, he is just posting for hits and extrapolating stuff hitting other places. 

Until we hear Greg Little is coming to visit AA it's all just a fun fantasy.  Also we need to flip Greg Little's mom apparently too.

I would like to hear more about this academic exception thing - maybe someone can mail Brian about it. 

Joined: 04/28/2012

MGoPoints: 82515

ThadMattasagoblin

January 3rd, 2016 at 2:14 AM ^

He was right about Harbaugh so he probably has contacts in the coaching circle. However it's difficult to know where 17 year old kids are going unless you work in the business every day like Webb and even then it's a crap shoot.

Joined: 08/24/2011

MGoPoints: 64074

Mr. Yost

January 3rd, 2016 at 7:23 AM ^

On another note, I know this kind of stuff is impossible. But I do wish there was some way as a fanbase we could keep this stuff quiet. This feels very similar to what happened to Mike Weber last year. Now I was closer to that situation and I have never met Greg Little or any of his family in my life.

But when a kid is waivering a little bit, the best thing IMO for us to do is shut up. Don't create more noise for him. The more fans start talking about it, the more pressure is on the kid. The more the school he's committed to starts noticing and recruiting him harder and negative recruiting you. The more the fan base he's committed to starts putting the attention back on him.

Before you know it, it's all too much for the kid or he feels guilty for waivering or he's just tired and says "fuck it, I'll stay where I am."

Again, we're going to talk about it, I'm not blaming anyone. But this is one where I wish we could all just play dumb and let him flip to the good guys. I shouldn't compare it to Weber because I have no idea what is going on...but I do know it happens more than you think and that is what happened with Weber. He just got tired of all the pressure and wanted people to go away. So the easiest thing (in his mind) was to just committ to OSU again and shut everything down. His heart was in Ann Arbor and still is in a lot of ways.

As for Little. I don't want Ole Miss to ratchet the recruiting up versus Michigan even higher...I'd rather go the Mork route and lay in the weeds on this one. When their fans or his local community gets wind of it...it's all people are going to talk about. And no one wants to feel like a traitor.

Maybe more than anything, I just don't wanna get our hopes up over something that right now feels like a looongshot. Or especially when we don't even have "smoke." There's one Brian guess and this Henson fella who rarely predicts anything correct when it comes to recruiting. I'd rather wait for some real material to go from.

Carry out, though, I know what I'm saying is unreasonable. 

Joined: 07/25/2011

MGoPoints: -9898220

East German Judge

January 3rd, 2016 at 10:14 AM ^

You make some excellent points about letting the on the bubble recruits take their time to flip, but in this day and age of social media/internet/recruiting sites it is hard as you point out for a fan base to just stay quiet till nsd.  There are also cases where fans "showing love" can help, but I get your point.  Let's hope they make the right decision for them - which should be for the good guys. 

Joined: 10/05/2014

MGoPoints: 190481

CorkyCole

January 3rd, 2016 at 10:25 AM ^

I was going to post some similar thoughts. A lot of times coaches put the hammer on kids when they feel/hear that their commit may be looking elsewhere. Happened to an Alabama kid that was looking Hoke's way late in the process a couple years back if I recall correctly. Obviously he never made that visit once he found out his scholarship would be pulled. The last thing Little wants to happen is Hugh Freeze telling him that if he visits here then he's no longer got a scholarship. Either that or he will soon receive a giant wad of cash stuffed into his future locker room "waiting for him to get there." I kid, but seriously. Unfortunately in today's recruiting world, things hardly if ever remain a secret. Hopefully if this rumor is true then Little still gets his chance to visit. Even if he still decides on visiting despite a scholarship getting pulled, I'd still hate to see that done for a kid. I do have a hard time seeing anyone not taking him back if he still wants to be there, but nonetheless these situations are never very easy to handle. There's a reason he wanted it quiet in the first place.

Joined: 06/13/2011

MGoPoints: 4498

Bodogblog

January 3rd, 2016 at 10:33 AM ^

this is not at all what happened with Weber. Sam Webb's source on Weber is his good friend Tom Wilcher, who was at the dinner table with the kid and Harbaugh the night before NSD, where he said he was going to Michigan. Then overnight his friend worked on him, he heard about Higdon, presumably was talked out of it by the OSU staff, and flipped back to OSU. He didn't shut anything down, given he was considering and reconsidering his decision literally hours before and the day of NSD. He had a hard choice, OSU made a great pitch, Harbaugh was someone he'd only known for a few weeks. Seemed like he was 50-50 and made a decision.

Joined: 06/08/2010

MGoPoints: 26674

Alumnus93

January 3rd, 2016 at 3:18 PM ^

"his heart was in Ann Arbor and still is"..... yet he committed to the school far from home and family, and turned down playing for a coach like Harbaugh to boot. give it a rest. his hearts in Columbus. SO BE IT. his heart wasn't here

Joined: 09/10/2009

MGoPoints: 9684

STW P. Brabbs

January 6th, 2016 at 7:31 AM ^

This is the first I've heard about LSU running a tight ship. Les certainly didn't do so at Oklahoma State. If anything, I'd bet LSU is like Ohio State -- they run a tight ship in that no one in the state is going to say a solitary word to the NCAA about any violations.

Joined: 08/27/2008

MGoPoints: 3867

StraightDave

January 3rd, 2016 at 2:19 AM ^

Ole Miss was a bizarre pick after he decommitted from A&M.   I can ask some of my Allen H.S. friends if they know anything about his Ole Miss commitment.  Little has been all over the place with his recruitment so I wouldn't be surprised if Harbaugh can get this kid to flip.  

Joined: 12/27/2009

MGoPoints: 4232