Oversigning (capacity 25, everyone welcome! maybe)

[jwinslow]

It would be funnier if you could understand some simple concepts. Let me ask you a question: when a kid accepts an offer, and it is before signing day, are they bound to accept their verbal offer? I'll help you out: they are not.

Every year, are there kids who do the baseball cap switch at the last minute and sign with someone else? Yeah, there are.

Boy, that sounds like a competitive advantage over teams who do not oversign to minimize that risk.

p.s. There are also a lot of kids who flip flop to your schools as well.

Not every institution is the Ohio State University. It is all puppies and flower petals if all of your guys who verbal to you sign with you, and it is great that you only go after and convince kids to verbal that will be slam dunk academically eligible. That world you live in is not the world of every program.

Ridiculous. OSU recruits borderline kids too.

If Jamaal Berry does not qualify, they lose that scholarship for a year. When the portion of iffy transcripts all qualify, they all have room at OSU.

JT doesn't accept many, but he chooses to take risks on borderline cases like Roderick Smith.

Nick Saban does not take risks on players. He asks his third string linebacker or least talented but qualified recruit to take on that risk.

When Roderick Smith doesn't qualify (he didn't make it in until mid-fall, and was at risk of missing the whole semester), JT loses that scholarship and gives it to a walkon.

When Nick Saban's recruit(s) doesn't qualify, the less desirable player loses his scholarship.

So I find the smug holier than thou attitude here to be slightly annoying when you are looking a a system where the coaches are all trying to "guess" how many kids will honor their promise, how many kids will qualify by passing their last semester grades, and, unfortunately, assume that none of the kids with no past criminal records will do something dumb with their buddies that summer and get arrested for - say - selling weed or punching out some kid over a girl and getting a felony battery charge.

Yes, it is a difficult job. That doesn't excuse forcing kids to shoulder the risk for you.

And you are also assuming that every one of your guys currently in the program is not going to quit, flunk out, transfer, get in trouble, etc., and by any of these means open up a spot or two in the 85.

And until bludgeoned over the head by Bama's examples for the umpteenth time, you continued to frame all of these departure methods as a rebuttal to oversigning when they are the lifeblood of the recycling.

Everyone here is going nuts because right now SC has 30 verbals for a likely 28 spots. That y'all are going nuts I find amusing. Because "the simple implications" are that two kids likely will not wind up enrolled for non-nefarious reasons.

Right. It's just a magical coincidence that they never have to sign a small class to make up for all of these oversized classes.

They have signed 30, 29 & 31 in three of the last 5 classes. The other two were hardly small either, checking in at 24 & 22.

For the three million dollars a year they pay a coach it behooves him not to come in less than 85 if he can help it.

And the culture not only accepts it but races to defend it.

 

[SmoovP]

So that's one in the "honesty is not the best policy" column.

Right, because telling a kid "You make the grades and we'll have a spot for you. If not, you'll have to do something else" is probably the most dishonest thing I can imagine.

 

[Deety]

Right, because telling a kid "You make the grades and we'll have a spot for you. If not, you'll have to do something else" is probably the most dishonest thing I can imagine.

Depends. Do you have that spot for them?

 

[jwinslow]

Right, because telling a kid "You make the grades and we'll have a spot for you. If not, you'll have to do something else" is probably the most dishonest thing I can imagine.

Except you can't claim that.

You are making the kids take the risk, whether it is the recruits or existing players.

If you oversign by 4 and those extra 4 make the grade, you do not have a spot for them. They either give up their scholarship for half a semester (via juco or greyshirting) or an existing player does.

 

[Muck]

It would be funnier if you could understand some simple concepts.

The reasons why over-signing gives schools a competitive advantage is simple. Simple enough that even a poor dumb schmoe like me can figure it out.

It gives them the ability to pursue a larger number of risky athletes while at the same time allowing them to lock up lesser talented but more academically stable players...just in case. They can essentially double dip the talent pool and effectively hold those Plan B kids hostage until the last possible moment.

Yes some of that responsibility should fall on the kids to know better but they are working from a massive position of weakness in these negotiations. Unfortunately they don't have an army of attorneys working overtime to help them understand and what their options really are nor do they have decades of institutional knowledge to fall back on.

If expecting the institutions you support to behave with honesty & integrity makes one 'holier than thou' then so be it. Guilty as charged.

If your defense comes down to little more than "well those kids could fuck the school over so why shouldn't the school be able to fuck them over?" then I'm afraid you and I have very different value systems.

I have a pretty solid understanding when it comes to ethics and I'm sorry that you are differently capable in that regard.

 

[BB73]

Decent discussion here the last couple of hours, but the #1 basketball team in the land had a game on network TV, so I'm glad I wasn't in this thread.

 

[SmoovP]

Sorry, I haven't really weighed in on this topic because I don't really care all that much either way. I'm just swooping in on this one point...

Except that the schools can't have (and don't want) all of the players (to) qualify. They are offering 12 kids the chance to better themselves, but counting on 6 of them to fail at it.

And if all 12 do what they are supposed to do to get qualified?

There are so many assumptions in this post that only serve to reinforce your position, that there is no real reason to take it seriously.

 

[jwinslow]

There are so many assumptions in this post that only serve to reinforce your position, that there is no real reason to take it seriously.

No there isn't. It is a core principle of the rebuttal being presented here by you and Gator.

The numbers are irrelevant. It could be 4 guys to fill 2 spots, or even 2 guys to fill 1 (and oversigning by 1).

You need to fill spots and are risking overload by assuming some won't qualify.

If they all qualify, then someone is left without a seat in this game of musical chairs.

 

[Muck]

Right, because telling a kid "You make the grades and we'll have a spot for you. If not, you'll have to do something else" is probably the most dishonest thing I can imagine.

And the other kid, the one who is now losing that spot?

 

[SmoovP]

If Jamaal Berry does not qualify, they lose that scholarship for a year. When the portion of iffy transcripts all qualify, they all have room at OSU.

JT doesn't accept many, but he chooses to take risks on borderline cases like Roderick Smith.

Nick Saban does not take risks on players. He asks his third string linebacker or least talented but qualified recruit to take on that risk.

When Roderick Smith doesn't qualify (he didn't make it in until mid-fall, and was at risk of missing the whole semester), JT loses that scholarship and gives it to a walkon.

When Nick Saban's recruit(s) doesn't qualify, the less desirable player loses his scholarship.

Now see, you're holding up JT as a paragon of virtue here when we all know his virtue is malleable as well - as evidenced by the Tattoo'd Five who played to get the SEC monkey off his back.

 

[Deety]

There are so many assumptions in this post that only serve to reinforce your position, that there is no real reason to take it seriously.

How about we boil it down to the very core of the issue?

Let's say you have as many kids who have signed LOIs as you have scholarships to give, whether that be 10 or 25.

Do you tell the next kid in line:

a) Glad to have you aboard! We'll take good care of you. Guar-an-tee it!
b) We've signed as many kids as we can guarantee spots, but we will most likely fit you in through attrition. Odds are very good, nearly certain, but ultimately you need to know there's some chance you'll have to grayshirt or JUCO it, and it's your decision.
c) Sorry, we're full.

I'm fine with B and C.

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

There are so many assumptions in this post that only serve to reinforce your position, that there is no real reason to take it seriously.

Ouch. Maybe I'll go back to the basketball forum for awhile.

Okay, we'll throw out the numbers side of it. If a coach oversigns by X recruits, counting on a certain number (let's call it "X" :p) to not qualify, what happens if all X qualify?

 

[Deety]

Now see, you're holding up JT as a paragon of virtue here when we all know his virtue is malleable as well - as evidenced by the Tattoo'd Five who played to get the SEC monkey off his back.

If you want to discuss that topic, go post in that thread.

If that's your way of admitting defeat, damn, have some dignity about it.

 

[jwinslow]

Now see, you're holding up JT as a paragon of virtue here when we all know his virtue is malleable as well - as evidenced by the Tattoo'd Five who played to get the SEC monkey off his back.

Wonderfullly irrelevant but telling as the extent of your rebuttal.

Jim Tressel is hardly a perfect man. That doesn't change the grand canyon sized gulf between Spurrier and Tressel when it comes to handing off the risk to kids.

I take it you have no actual rebuttal of the concept of making kids shoulder the risk?

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

Now see, you're holding up JT as a paragon of virtue here when we all know his virtue is malleable as well - as evidenced by the Tattoo'd Five who played to get the SEC monkey off his back.

EDIT - deleted to keep this on-topic.