Oversigning Backlash starting to gain momentum - in Alabama
Looks like this thing is starting to reach critical mass. This article (by the Brimingham paper) criticizing Saban would never have been written down here a year ago. http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/02/scarbinsky_alabamas_dont-tell.html
Some juicy nuggets:
Oversigning has become as much a part of Saban's persona as talking with his hands. He's not the only one who does it. He's just more famous for it than any other college coach in the country.
I know. The well-meaning but ineffective SEC rule capping signing classes at 28, which has gone national, is known as the Houston Nutt rule. But Nutt doesn't use his extra signees to help win championships.
Saban does.
But wait, there is more.....
"Nobody really knows how many guys we had on scholarship last year, but we didn't have 85," he said. "I can tell you that."
Allow me to translate. According to Saban, those of us on the outside of the Alabama program can't criticize him for oversigning because we don't know the exact number of players he has on scholarship from year to year.
Funny thing about that. Why don't we know? Alabama won't tell us, even though we ask every year.
Birmingham News colleague Jon Solomon requests a copy of the annual NCAA revenue and expense report from every Division I athletics department in the state. One of the categories on that report is number of student-athletes on scholarship in each varsity sport.
Every Division I public school in this state provides us a copy of those reports. Only Alabama blacks out the scholarship numbers for every sport.
We know from the latest form that Alabama reported spending $3,041,356 on football scholarships for the 2009-10 academic year. We don't know how many players Alabama reported having on scholarship that year.
The News has asked Alabama several times to explain why it withholds information we believe is a public record. The heart of the explanation, from university spokesperson Deborah Lane: "Federal privacy laws prevent the University from providing the media with personally identifiable information related to its students."
February 9th, 2011 at 4:13 PM ^
Wow. Seems like something is bound to be done about this in the next couple of years. We can hope...
February 9th, 2011 at 4:14 PM ^
how the aggregate number of football scholarships provided by Bama is "personally identifiable" information.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:17 PM ^
It isn't.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:20 PM ^
you mean Saban will have to pick up his own dry cleaning?
February 9th, 2011 at 4:16 PM ^
for Saban to be lowered out of god status down here?
February 9th, 2011 at 10:54 PM ^
He will simply become a Zeus-like god figure instead of a Judeao-Christian God figure. The kind that, instead of being awesome and benevolent, comes down and rapes your wife in the shape of a bull for shits and giggles.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:17 PM ^
February 9th, 2011 at 4:21 PM ^
Brown Tide
February 9th, 2011 at 4:21 PM ^
when Michigan opens its closets for a stretching violation allegation?
February 9th, 2011 at 7:10 PM ^
Ohio State does the same dance with its atheletes. Hiding behind "student privacy" as a reason for not revealing vital information about its student-atheletes is a fairly uncommon interpretation of the law which Ohio State and, apparently, Alabama have in common.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:22 PM ^
You guys should see some the oversigning thread on the rivals main board. The crap that Bama fans spout as excuses are classic and can only be uttered by Bama fans.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:36 PM ^
Under the article linked in this post are hilarious.
If you're looking to kill 15 minutes, click on a women's basketball article anytime there's one on the front page of ESPN. I read every one solely because the comments are so damn funny.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:36 PM ^
The comments to this article are hysterical too. 95% of them are calling the writer a shill for Auburn without addressing the actual topic and the other 5% are trying to defend the topic using circular logic (e.g.,"oversigning relates to LOIs not scholarships, so what does difference does it make how many players sign LOIs and what does it have to do with the number of players on scholarship")b . Sheer brillance.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:59 PM ^
I tried to read the comments and feel I am now much dumber as a result. Apparently, no one in Alabama can spell or put together a complete sentence.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:42 PM ^
or it didn't happen
February 9th, 2011 at 4:48 PM ^
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/02/scarbinsky_alabamas_dont-tell.html
Comments are at the bottom
February 9th, 2011 at 4:50 PM ^
I was hoping he would link that oversigning thread he mentioned.
Speaking of the article comments, check out this gem:
"Hey dude we are very happy with what Coach Saban is doing. Spanky is simply showing what aubarn people are made of. Jealous little babies who can't stand to loose so the act like 6 year olds. We've always know that. So what's your problem with oversigning?"
Where do you even start with something so stupid? My kid is NEVER going down south.
February 9th, 2011 at 5:11 PM ^
So let me get this straight. If Alabama was, for whatever reason, put on probation and lost scholarships, that could never be enforced because they can just "black out" how many scholarships they've given out?
February 9th, 2011 at 6:07 PM ^
Just to play devil's advocate here for a minute...
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<br>What is it that is really so morally reprehensible about kids competing for a coveted scholarship spot at one of the nation's top football programs, and if they get beaten out, allowing them the option to remain on the team as a walk and pay for their education with student loans like the rest of us did?
<br>
<br>Afterall, being a walk-on at a top program still seems like a pretty sweet gig.
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<br>Whether every school is comletely upfront with the kids that they'll have to compete for a spot is unclear and up for debate, but it seems to be pretty common knowledge that it's standard practice in the SEC to oversign, so I don't know that anyone can legitimately claim they were unaware they'd have to compete for one of the coveted scholarship spots.
February 9th, 2011 at 6:15 PM ^
agreed. If you're one of the 31 kids in Arkansas, don't you know something is wrong? It's not fair and it's dickish but it's getting to be a business.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:14 PM ^
But I would argue that if the school cuts a kid's scholarship, it loses nothing (other than its integrity). If, conversely, the kid wants to leave the school, he can be jacked around and at the very least be made to sit out a year. The deck is stacked in favor of the schools. And Saban, while a very good X's and O's coach and motivator has no conscience about what he does with the kids he uses.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:14 PM ^
But I would argue that if the school cuts a kid's scholarship, it loses nothing (other than its integrity). If, conversely, the kid wants to leave the school, he can be jacked around and at the very least be made to sit out a year. The deck is stacked in favor of the schools. And Saban, while a very good X's and O's coach and motivator has no conscience about what he does with the kids he uses.
February 9th, 2011 at 6:22 PM ^
This is pathetic
February 9th, 2011 at 6:30 PM ^
My sister lives in Auburn now and lived in Athens GA before that so I follow SEC football fairly closely. Auburn doing well this year is like nails on the chalkboard for Alabama fans. They cannot believe that their version of little brother just won the MNC. They are in fullout meltdown mode and are calling for a asterisk by Auburn's championship.
So, those two school's fans have commenced with a scorched earth policy with one another. I would guess that the NCAA may run out of pens and paper from all of the reports they are getting from just those schools. Add in the rest of the SEC who all hate each other and it's gonna be a investigation bonanza.
February 10th, 2011 at 10:12 AM ^
It's keep the world safe for the whole cycle of the Cold War. But I think this would be like every SEC team having nuclear weapons and not just two superpowers. I'm all for ESSS EEEE SEEE/SWC meltdown.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:07 PM ^
What's the over/under on SSSSSSaban appearing in front of a Congressional Truth Committee? I can see some Southern good ole boy rival SEC state ex-football player House Rep using this platform to garner some votes for re-election. And it would probably work!!
February 9th, 2011 at 10:02 PM ^
Bylaw Blog noted, with regard to Alabama redacting the number, that so much is unsettled law with regard to FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) so it is easy for a school that wants to delete information, such as Alabama in this case, and Ohio State in other cases as mentioned by a poster above, can use their desire to protect student privacy, even if it doesn't make a lick of common sense.