'04 FL WR/DB Dajuan Morgan (N.C. State signee)

[Oh8ch]

My favorites are the posts asking that Holbrook be fired. I believe some of these folks actually believe the University is secondary to the athletic program and have no idea that the research budget alone at OSU dwarfs the budget of the entire athletic department. I wouldn't expect Karen Holbrook to even be briefed about such a situation.

[Nixon]

The best post is the one saying "this could be a turning point in Ohio State football history. This will kill OOS recruiting" or something like that. Talk about melodramatic. Recruiting has and always will be filled with stuff.

Here is a touching story from our friends up north. Doesn't seem to have destroyed their program or OOS recruiting:
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-onlin...g_5315576.html

[LoKyBuckeye]

Some have "reported" that Channel 4 in Columbus ran a story that the High School sent the wrong transscripts to tOSU..... any one catch that? I'm nowhere near Ohio. If so... how trustworthy is the reporting from Ch. 4?

[Buckskin86]

FWIW- I just heard the sports report on CH4 and they did discuss the Morgan story. They said his admissions have been cleared up and he has been re-offered. But Morgan is not sure he wants to be a Buck anymore and is leaning to NCST.

[LightningRod]

Originally Posted by Buckskin86

FWIW- I just heard the sports report on CH4 and they did discuss the Morgan story. They said his admissions have been cleared up and he has been re-offered. But Morgan is not sure he wants to be a Buck anymore and is leaning to NCST.

I am not normally a conspiracy theory person because many times I have a difficult time jumping from A to S by skipping the intervening letters. This case, however, does intrigue me. We have a young man who has been through hell and back in his life, who sustains what many people thought could be a career ending injury as a result of an auto accident, who is supported in his rehab attempt solely by OSU for all practical purposes, who reaches a point where he is now ready to participate in track, and who is conveniently visiting Raleigh on account of an error committed by his high school. What bothers me about the high school is that out of the blue appears this top 50% of the class admissions criteria that is only mentioned in the FL press - not in official OSU documents. And, as everybody is aware of, OSU cannot comment on any aspect of this adventure. I smell a rat in Raleigh with contacts in FL. I know mistakes are made - this happened last year to Ira Guilford - but Guilford and his associates in NJ did not come out of the blue with some wild admissions criteria to justify an anger at a university that becomes a convenient excuse to attend another university. Just my thoughts.

EDIT:

Based on the latest edition of the Palm Beach Post, I should continue to refrain from subscribing to conspiracy theories. It appears from this new article that Ohio State admissions has once again decided that Morgan should not be admitted to OSU based on the fact that he is not in the top 50% of his high school class. Something isn't right here - there is nothing in the formal written admissions criteria requiring a high school student to be in the top 50% of the high school class. Hopefully somebody at OSU will address this issue.



Morgan's Admission Denied a Second Time

OSU Admissions Criteria For Student Athletes

[Buckskin86]

http://www.1460thefan.com/tf.php?sto...201-E3-01.html

I hope this is not true

But a source close to the OSU program said that might have been an unfortunate misrepresentation, that in fact the Buckeyes saw themselves approaching a possible overcommitment situation on signing day and wanted to cut Morgan free while he still had a chance to catch on somewhere else.

[Oh8ch]

This is either irresponsible behavior by the staff or irresponsible journalism.

Just what is "a source close to the OSU program"? Folks are speculating all over the place on what caused this. It can't be that hard to find a current or former player who would 'speculate' the class is getting full as an explanation without evidence to back that up as a motive.

Latest I read was that the wrong transcripts were processed by OSU.

It is simply incomprehensible to me that Jim Tressel would sit down with his staff and say "This kid is solid academically but let's pretend he isn't and make up a story so we have room for Dennis Kennedy." I would have a hard time believing Phil Fullmer would do that let alone Jim Tressel.

[Nixon]

If in fact the staff told Morgan that they did not have a scholorship for him and offered a grayshirt opportunity, and you consider that unethical, then the recruting of Todd Boeckman must have been unethical as well. As I recall, he was originally offered a scholorship with no strings and later offered to grayshirt.

[cincibuckeyenut]

I am wondering about this Morgan situation. If he indeed has a 3.25 GPA, but is in the bottom 50% and has an SAT score of 810 or whatever is being bandied about, I would really question the school's grading systems.

If this stuff is part of the admission criteria, it is there for a reason. Of course, if his SAT is above 1000, then different story.

Big deal here is the fact that they couldn't tell him this earlier. But this seems like the first year for this admissions board and it seems like there are some bugs to work out. That is the stuff I am concerned about more than the criteria.

[ohiobuck94]

I first read Morgan had a 3.25 GPA and and 18 on his act. Those two scores don't correlate to me. I would think that a 3.25 GPA would lead to a higher act. This whole fiasco will die out and folks will move on.
As far as "someone close to the team" quote: That is so vague I can imagine all kinds of scenarios.

[Basebuck]

Originally Posted by ohiobuck94

As far as "someone close to the team" quote: That is so vague I can imagine all kinds of scenarios.

The article was reported by Tim May who is pretty connected to the program.
The question I have is how in the hell is a 3.25 not in the top 50% of a class? Either this school is not allowing anyone to have under a 3.0 or it is a school for the gifted. Things just dont add up here IMHO. I would speculate further but I missed my luncheon with Coach JT this morning that alot of other bucknuts seemed to have caught.

[LightningRod]

Let me guess - the "someone close to the team" is the poster known as helpinghand. All I know is that in the name of journalism, Bucknuts has done more to bring ridicule to my alma mater, my wife's alma mater, and my son's soon to be alma mater than Coach Tressel could ever dream of doing with extensive planning.

DuJuan - I really do wish the best for this young man. I really do wish he had the requisites for admission. The Office of Admissions would not reject him twice in a matter of a few weeks unless there was a good reason. Just as I learned that Miles Williams did not meet OSU's basic admission requirements, so to I believe that DuJuan has not met OSU's basic admission requirements. It doesn't matter to me if he is good to go elsewhere - he is not good to go at OSU, and if he really wanted to attend OSU, he would have made certain that he would have made the mental moves for admission. There was a time when a 0.00 was good enough to be at OSU. Those days are over. There was a time when others made fun of OSU because it was crystal clear that OSU was in fact a football factory without regard to academic achievement - an attitude that if you want to go to class and maybe learn something, you can do that too. Now, people are screaming to fire the leaders of this great institution for having the gall to stand up and say this is an institution of learning first. I hope Dr. Holbrook continues to push her initiative of raising the academic stature of my alma mater to even greater hights. For those who are in it only for the football, there is always Alabama.

[Buckskin86]

http://www.daytondailynews.com/sport...0207osufb.html

Ohio State University did nothing untoward or illegal in pulling a football scholarship from a south Florida prospect less than a week before signing day, but the decision may end up creating ill will in a recruiting hotbed.

Da’Juan Morgan of Suncoast High School — a highly rated receiver as a junior who missed all of his senior season because of injuries suffered in a car wreck — made a commitment to the Buckeyes in November. With a 3.25 grade-point average in a challenging curriculum, he met the NCAA’s academic standards.

But OSU coaches reneged on their offer, telling Suncoast coach Jimmie Bell that Morgan was turned down by the school’s academic screening committee because he didn’t rank in the top half of his class.

But Bell didn’t buy that explanation and chastised OSU in the Palm Beach Post. Morgan and his mother, Margaret Edmond, lashed out publicly, too.

“I think they dropped the ball,” she said.

Sources say OSU coaches had a change of heart because they thought a commitment from a more coveted receiver — Dwayne Jarrett of New Jersey — was imminent and they were in danger of exceeding their scholarship limit. Jarrett, however, signed with Southern Cal.

OSU athletics director Andy Geiger conceded the staff botched the recruitment of Morgan and said the school doesn’t have a 50-percent minimum standard on class rank.

“It’s subjective,” he said of the admissions policy.

OSU president Karen Holbrook addressed the flap in an e-mail posted on OSU fan Web sites, noting that “we did not do a good job handling the recruitment of certain football prospects (and) will work with our coaches to be certain that lessons are learned ...”

But Division I-A programs routinely overextend themselves with scholarships — confident that natural attrition will occur through academic casualties or because players choose to go elsewhere — though it doesn’t always work out that way.

OSU coach Jim Tressel said NCAA rules prohibited him from discussing Morgan, who signed with North Carolina State. But others believe the Buckeyes’ decision to cut ties with the player could cost them in the long run.

“That’s a key school in a key area,” recruiting analyst Duane Long said. “If they don’t think this will have repercussions later, they’re kidding themselves.

“Don’t think those articles won’t be part of the traveling package of every college coach.”

[Buckskin86]

Bitter times turn sweet for N.C. State brothers
By JORGE MILIAN

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 01, 2007

If it wasn't for a double dose of bad luck, neither DaJuan Morgan nor his little brother, DeAndre, would be playing football at North Carolina State.

But their misfortune turned into luck for them and for the Wolfpack, which faces Miami on Saturday with the brothers forming half of an improving secondary that has N.C. State on a two-game winning streak after a 1-5 start.

DaJuan, 22, a junior safety, was a standout receiver and quarterback at Suncoast High School, as well as a state champion sprinter. DeAndre, 19, is a redshirt freshman cornerback who started for three seasons for the Chargers.

DaJuan's dream was to play for Ohio State and DeAndre wanted to go to Miami. Injuries during their senior seasons, however, ruined those plans.

DaJuan dislocated his hip in a car accident and the Buckeyes backed off a scholarship offer. DeAndre missed nearly all of his final season with a broken foot that scared away UM.

Bitter times turn sweet for N.C. State brothers

[LordJeffBuck]

DaJuan dislocated his hip in a car accident and the Buckeyes backed off a scholarship offer.

Just to set the record straight, the Buckeyes offered DeJuan long after his injury, and it was not the reason that Ohio State "backed off a scholarship offer." I hope that that mis-statement is just a typical reporter exhibiting the usual lack of concern for the truth, rather than someone attempting to revise history four years after the fact.