OT: Alabama offers massive, soon to be 8th grader
I am sure there is some open North campus laboratory space where Harbaugh could begin growing future players
Harbaugh's next big scandal is calling out The NCAA for banning Michigan students from building him cyborg linebackers. What college students can't practice engineering?
My cousin played varsity on Lowell for three years. He for sure wasnt redshirted, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did that over there. Lowell football is like a machine.
as most of normal sized boys when I was in 8th grade back in the Dark Ages. I have to believe all the growth hormones in food today has to be having an effect.
How many times has that kid had to repeat 7th grade? My guess is five to six. Honestly, that kid looks like he's 25.
I'm amazed (though I shouldn't be) that the NCAA does not have rules in place that ban reaching out to kids who are not yet in high school. Aside from the fact that a kid's body type, maturity level, and decision-making can fluctuate drastically after going through high school (hopefully for the better), my problem with this is where do you draw the line at reaching out to kids? Or better yet, is there ever going to be a line?
At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if in 25-30 years, some private company will develop a eugenics program that creates, breeds and develops the perfect five star athletes, and those players will go to the highest bidder. And the NCAA will do nothing about it.
It'll still be busy trying to shut down Harbaugh's satellite camps, a clearly far more important concern.
It would be hard to enforce. You can't ban coaches from doing kid/youth outreach camps because the public blowback would be worse than satellite camps. There also shouldn't be anything wrong with a coach like Saban taking a picture with one or all the kids ore showing them around campus.
But I agree, we should not allow verbal scholarships to be given to kids that young.
I agree. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing camps with these young kids, showing them around the facilities and telling them what they need to do if they want to play football in college. But there is no reason to be giving offers to kids this young.
Hell if it were up to me, I probably wouldn't even allow schools to give offers to freshmen.
This is more common in basketball, where on the AAU circuit you're allowed, for instance, to have a 16 year old play 13U due to "grade exceptions" (i.e., a HS freshman/sophomore is competing against 7th graders) - and where the coaches, the parents and the player talk extensively about "lack of emotional maturity" as the reason for the reclassification/repeating a year, etc.
In my experience its less common in football, where weight classifications exist, although I've experienced many parents at the youth levels prefer that their kids "play down" by taking advantage of weight exceptions (i.e., you have light 8th graders competing against 7th graders) where these young kids are going on crash diets to lose enough weight to play against younger kids. What happens when they get to HS, there are no weight classifications to game, and they haven't learned to move around bigger, faster, stronger kids? Will be interesting, but I bet some of the youth youtube sensations disappear pretty quickly.
Every year its like the bar is lowered for the age a recruit is offered at. I cant wait until college coaches are offering newborns.
"Mr Saban, a baby was just born in Detroit weighing in at 14lbs and 5 ounces. Has potential to be a mammoth D-lineman. Should we send an offer to the parents?"