Mark Richt (ex- UGA & Miami Fla Head Coach)

[sgabuck]

UGA is in some serious trouble. Richt's a good guy and a good coach. But his recruiting class has become a disaster.....sounds a lot like the 99 OSU class.

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — Two more Georgia football recruits will not be able to enroll this fall for academic reasons, further eroding coach Mark Richt’s highly touted recruiting class.
Corey Moon and Jamar Bryant are the fourth and fifth of Richt’s 19 signees whose academics prevent them from being on the team. Another, safety Antavious Coates, injured a knee last month and is sidelined for the entire season.
Moon, a defensive end from Decatur, said he did not score high enough on the SAT and will enroll at Virginia’s Hargrave Military Academy.
Bryant, from Hamlet, N.C., failed to qualify for admission to Georgia in 2004 and spent the last year at Hargrave. With his academic situation still unresolved a month before fall camp begins, Bryant decided to enroll at East Carolina.
“Jamar Bryant has asked for and received release from his letter of intent with the University of Georgia. He has decided he wants to go to East Carolina University, which is closer to his home,” Richt said.
The 6-foot-4, 240-pound Moon had 14 sacks as a senior. He said his SAT was 50 points under the 1010 he needed to go with a GPA of 2.0.
The 6-foot-2, 195-pound Bryant, who starred on both sides of the ball at Hargrave, was expected to play defensive back for the Bulldogs, Hargrave coach Robert Prunty said.

 

[osugrad21]

That's a shame....I hate to see it honestly.

The south is crawling with amazing athletes who never receive the educational support at home and thereby never qualify.

Every few days at my school, SC's AAA single season rushing champ comes back to his old school to fill the soda machines...instead of being in this year's NFL draft after a stellar career at Clemson, he spent two years at a JUCO and never made the grades.

 

[stxbuck]

It's sad that the parents don't realize this and at least put the pressure on the kids to do the right thing in the classroom.
Grad-you teach a lot of these kids-are they truly unable to to do the work academically at the HS level-a comprehension problem/preparation in the lower grades, or do they just not care and don't prepare for tests,etc?

 

[osugrad21]

Grad-you teach a lot of these kids-are they truly unable to to do the work academically at the HS level-a comprehension problem/preparation in the lower grades, or do they just not care and don't prepare for tests,etc?

IMO, it is 100% lack of preparation from their younger days...

I took a Reading Comprehesion course and had to analyze my history of literacy...which I am sure is similar to many of yours on this board. Think about how you were saturated with reading materials throughout your childhood...newspapers, magazines, Dr. Seuss, Hardy Boys, etc, etc...

These kids don't have that...they practically raise themselves while their parents work long hours...and that is the better scenarios.

It is frustrating as hell...

 

[stxbuck]

I had to take a reading course similar to that. I actually did my master's project-don't really know if I should actually call it a thesis, on the correlation between non-school related book reading and a student's GPA-using my freshman classes as a student teacher as guinea pigs. As it turns out, the two groups were exactly identical in GPA-readers and non/limited readers.

 

[osugrad21]

I just see a major gap in vocabulary and comprehension...

 

[sgabuck]

"IMO, it is 100% lack of preparation from their younger days...

I took a Reading Comprehesion course and had to analyze my history of literacy...which I am sure is similar to many of yours on this board. Think about how you were saturated with reading materials throughout your childhood...newspapers, magazines, Dr. Seuss, Hardy Boys, etc, etc...

These kids don't have that...they practically raise themselves while their parents work long hours...and that is the better scenarios.

It is frustrating as hell..."

I understand your frustration. It's tough being a teacher and especially being a teacher in the south. Demographically and socially, Georgia and South Carolina are similar, so I imagine what you have to go through. But there are kids who are very good students down here. Clifford Hammonds, who was a star freshman on Clemson's basketball team is one of the brightest people I've ever met. He's only gotten one B his entire life and turned down a scholarship offer from Stanford to go to Clemson. Unfortunetely, he is the rare exception. A lot of these kids want football or basketball to be their their meal ticket, but many don't realize that they won't get that opportunity if they can't qualify academically.

 

[LordJeffBuck]

Wow, I hate to put JT in the Coop category when it comes to recruiting players of questionable character, but the 2003 class is an utter disaster. The class was originally notable for the players who didn't sign - Ohioans Shawn Crable and Prescott Burgess defected to Michigan, and local kid Brady Quinn went to Notre Dame; Stanley McClover decommitted on Signing Day and decided for Auburn; and Turk McBride, James Lee, and Michael Bush all made last-minute decisions against Ohio State. Of the 15 players who did sign, Dareus Hiley, Louis Irizarry, Ira Guilford, and Reggie Smith have all left the program due to criminal activity or academics and Brandon Maupin and Sian Cotton are also probably on their way out; you can also add gray-shirt Cedric Scott to the list of players who never made grades. I guess you can see why the Bucks are even more conscious now about recruiting kids with no academic or character issues.

 

[sgabuck]

Lordjeff,

I see your point. But at least those kids were able to get into school. Unlike the 99 class where a fourth of it was ineligible from the start. Still, the 2003 class isn't much better.

 

[coxew]

Wow, I hate to put JT in the Coop category when it comes to recruiting players of questionable character, but the 2003 class is an utter disaster. The class was originally notable for the players who didn't sign - Ohioans Shawn Crable and Prescott Burgess defected to Michigan, and local kid Brady Quinn went to Notre Dame; Stanley McClover decommitted on Signing Day and decided for Auburn; and Turk McBride, James Lee, and Michael Bush all made last-minute decisions against Ohio State. Of the 15 players who did sign, Dareus Hiley, Louis Irizarry, Ira Guilford, and Reggie Smith have all left the program due to criminal activity or academics and Brandon Maupin and Sian Cotton are also probably on their way out; you can also add gray-shirt Cedric Scott to the list of players who never made grades. I guess you can see why the Bucks are even more conscious now about recruiting kids with no academic or character issues.

Never heard anything about Cotton. What's the deal with him? Also, I don't think Cedric Scott ever came to tOSU. He was at the same JUCO in Minnnesota as Hiley.

 

[sandgk]

"IMO, it is 100% lack of preparation from their younger days...

I took a Reading Comprehesion course and had to analyze my history of literacy...which I am sure is similar to many of yours on this board. Think about how you were saturated with reading materials throughout your childhood...newspapers, magazines, Dr. Seuss, Hardy Boys, etc, etc...

These kids don't have that...they practically raise themselves while their parents work long hours...and that is the better scenarios.

It is frustrating as hell..."

I understand your frustration. It's tough being a teacher and especially being a teacher in the south. Demographically and socially, Georgia and South Carolina are similar, so I imagine what you have to go through. But there are kids who are very good students down here. Clifford Hammonds, who was a star freshman on Clemson's basketball team is one of the brightest people I've ever met. He's only gotten one B his entire life and turned down a scholarship offer from Stanford to go to Clemson. Unfortunetely, he is the rare exception. A lot of these kids want football or basketball to be their their meal ticket, but many don't realize that they won't get that opportunity if they can't qualify academically.

Parents and the role they can play in keeping a kids nose the grindstone is surely part of this -- but another thought crosses my mind. Whatever happened to the maxim that the players have to make their high school grades to maintain eligibility for their JV and Varsity teams?

 

[osugrad21]

but another thought crosses my mind. Whatever happened to the maxim that the players have to make their high school grades to maintain eligibility for their JV and Varsity teams?

That is easy...and I am not insinuating given grades. The workload is aimed more at effort than "raised bar" achievement. If kids failed based on aptitude, the schools would be even more clogged up and the drop-out rate would triple...with "No Child Left Behind" that would kill the schools' ratings and money allocations.

It is a vicious cycle

 

[goodguy]

Never heard anything about Cotton. What's the deal with him? Also, I don't think Cedric Scott ever came to tOSU. He was at the same JUCO in Minnnesota as Hiley.

Cotton may be in some trouble academically I believe. Although his problem is not as bad a Maupin or Underwood from what I hear.

 

[stxbuck]

Parents and the role they can play in keeping a kids nose the grindstone is surely part of this -- but another thought crosses my mind. Whatever happened to the maxim that the players have to make their high school grades to maintain eligibility for their JV and Varsity teams?

It's real simple-at my school-a Catholic school, w/ several prominent Buckeye football alums, the rule is if you are failing 2 classes, you cannot play that week. If you fail two classes ina quarter, you are ineligible for sports the next quarter. A 68% is the lowest D you can get. Theoretically, a kid could get straight D's his or her entire career-a 1.0 GPA-and be perfectly eligible to play sports. At many public schools, the bar for D's and F's is even lower. It is much, much easier to remain academically eligible for HS sports.

 

[BB73]

I think it's interesting that guys that don't qualify and never enroll won't affect a team's APR. I'm assuming this is the case, that the tracking of 'progress toward a degree' isn't measured for anybody who never started college. So the team can then use the scholarships the next year, as long as they're not over the annual or total limit.

That seems a little ironic to me.