mgoblog Shout Out From Andy Staples of SI
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/andy_staples/08/05/ncaa-p…
Yahoo!'s Matt Hinton and MGoBlog's Brian Cook, two people who have written thoughtfully on this subject in the past, had a brilliant suggestion so simple that even a heavy-handed bureaucracy should be able to bring it to fruition: Make a rule that requires schools to give an actual scholarship to every player they sign to a letter-of-intent.
Cook even suggested raising scholarship limits if necessary. I disagree. If a school has 22 slots on Feb. 2, 2011, it should sign 22 players. If three of those players don't qualify, that's the coach's fault for not recruiting more academically sound prospects. He can play the season with 82 players on scholarship and sign more next year.
Yahoo!'s Matt Hinton and MGoBlog's Brian Cook, two people who have written thoughtfully on this subject in the past, had a brilliant suggestion so simple that even a heavy-handed bureaucracy should be able to bring it to fruition: Make a rule that requires schools to give an actual scholarship to every player they sign to a letter-of-intent.
Cook even suggested raising scholarship limits if necessary. I disagree. If a school has 22 slots on Feb. 2, 2011, it should sign 22 players. If three of those players don't qualify, that's the coach's fault for not recruiting more academically sound prospects. He can play the season with 82 players on scholarship and sign more next year.
I should have done that!
While the addition was perhaps desirable before he did it, it was unnecessary after he put it up.
I didn't want his response to be pushed all the way to the bottom by comments and for people to not see it. If you view comments by the newest comments first, you might not scroll all the way down.
Sorry to have disappointed you, I promise to do better next time.
/s/
I can't even fathom what your problem with adding the excerpt to the original post is.
SI article was much too easy on both LSU and Alabama, however. Recruits need to understand that at certain schools, this can happen to them. Not really true that this "happens at a lot of schools."
Rather, there are certain schools were this type of thing happens a lot
I think this goes on more than you think. I know for a fact that Texas Tech grayshirts (maybe this should be "grayshirted" now that Captain Leach is gone) one or two kids a year. However, from my understanding after reading Double T Nation, these high schoolers have always been told that a grayshirt was an eminent possibility if everyone else in the class qualified. They never told students to GTFO like Les Miles did.
If you're told going in that you may not get a scholarship this year but will definitely get one next year, that's what you're signing up for. If you're told you will definitely get a scholarship and it's yanked out from under you, that's dishonorable and frankly unacceptable.
I agree that what LSU did in this situation is dishonorable. But if you make letters-of-intent binding for both parties (which I actually agree with, I'm just playing devil's advocate because this site needs more of it instead of every post patting each other on the back for free MGoPoints) then it eliminates grayshirting, which has been a legit practice for many programs who go about it the right way ("We really want you but we probably won't have space in this class, but if you grayshirt we can guarantee you a scholarship for the next class").
when the program is really bad. They rarely ask tough questions regarding a top program. I suspect that the reason is access. They want and need access to those top programs to feed the demand for info on those programs.
If a program is down, then they are simply another media pointing out the obvious.
That being said, kudos to them for even tackling this.
I enjoy SI, just seem to have picked up on their pattern.
Great to see that the blog is getting it's due as both informative and a place for actual insight. I would like to see these schools who drop or grey shirt players have their APR take a significant drop (apologies if this is already in place)
B-rye making some cents getting some props… feelin it... feelin it
I'm just happy they're not just letting this situation fall by the way side. This is the most overlooked aspect of recruiting and it's pretty troubling. Coaches who over sign undermine the integrity of college football. When a student athlete's response to getting 'cut' is "Hey, it's a business, and I understand that." That's sad.
They should institute a new rule immediately, and retroactively enforce it from 2009:
If a player signs a LOI, and does not get the scholarship (without being warned that he would have to grayshirt), then that school is docked TWO scholarships for the year after (only 83 scholarship players allowed on the roster). That will make scumbags like [insert name of SEC coach here] think twice before they pull this crap.