When I was a young Loyal Homer, and didn’t understand the nuances of recruiting as well as I do now, I often wondered to myself how so many players were able to fit with one university? The numbers just didn’t add up to me. How could schools consistently have top-five recruiting classes on a yearly basis by signing 25-30 players every year and still manage to stay under the scholarship limit of 85 posed by the NCAA? That’s where over signing enters the picture.
According to the very cool oversigning.com Web site I located while researching this argument (one Babe Ruthless found also), over signing, by definition, is the act of accepting more signed letters of intent on National Signing Day than a program has room for under the 85 scholarship limit. To get under the limit, schools have players that leave for various. And sometimes mysterious reasons. They become academically ineligible or perhaps they “gray shirt,” which has always been a unique term for me because there sure seems to be a lot of gray areas with this problem. And believe me, it’s a problem.
Let’s look at a recent incident at LSU. This past year LSU signed 27 players on signing day, knowing only 25 scholarship spots were available on the roster. Unfortunately for Les Miles, all 27 of those players qualified academically (which is actually quite rare these days) and decided to make the journey to the Bayou. That left Miles in quite a pickle. He knew he had to get down to the imposed 85 limit by dropping two of the players somehow, so he went to Elliot Porter and asked him to take a gray shirt. Porter was highly recruited out of high school and when talking about Tiger Stadium, he was quoting as saying, “You’re going to see me playing there.” Well, Elliot, no we’re not. Unless you are a member of the opposing team.
Porter moved out of his dorm and moved back home with his future suddenly looking gloomy. Miles simply told him there was no room at the inn for him. This is quite a lot for a teenager to handle. He’s quite perturbed, and I imagine his family and folks like his high school football coach, are as well. He’s been granted a release from LSU, obviously, and has to win an appeal in order to gain immediate eligibility at another school, which shouldn’t be a problem. But let’s be real. It’s August 5. Where can he go in this short of time and have an immediate impact? He’s a teenager. It’s going to be hard enough for a guy like Jeremiah Masoli to walk on at Ole Miss this close to this season. There’s no way a guy like Porter can do this. They’re screwed. It’s as simple as that. You know it. I know it. Babe Ruthless knows it, also.
The NCAA needs to close this loophole in the system that allows coaches wiggle room with the scholarship limit. Student athletes are expected to stick to their word once they sign on National Signing Day. The coaches should be stuck with the same commitment. I’m not exactly sure what the answer is, but I know what the answer isn’t – telling guys like Elliot Porter to pack up and leave… and come back next year wearing a “gray shirt.” Why should he do that? What reason does he have to believe that a gray shirt will even be there for him then?
Let’s say you just got a new job and you’re all excited about what this means for your future. You show up for your first day and before you even have time to take your coat off, your boss meets you at your desk and says, “Son, I hate to say this, but payroll has informed me we don’t have enough money to hire anyone else after all. But hey, check back this time next year and you can have this job.” Yeah, okay, sure boss!! What are you supposed to do for the next 12 months?
Something needs to be done. This is unfair, as the talents and inexperience of the student athletes are being taken advantage of. The naïve kids are walking into the lion’s den of a college campus assuming their scholarship is taken care of and that they can start practicing football, preparing for class, and meeting girls (and not necessarily in that order). What they don’t know is that their scholarship is NEVER guaranteed and they have absolutely no control of it.
The NCAAF Over Signing Recruits Debate… Dirty, Unfair Business Targets Naïve Student Athletes
Sports bring out true passion in many men. That’s certainly the case between the four writers here at TSD. And with that passion comes hate. Pure hate! There’s sports figures we all hate, and perhaps we’ll tackled that hatred another day.
Today we’re delving into the most hated sports teams of all time. When Sports Geek first presented this option as a debate, one team immediately came to mind for me – the 1986 Miami Hurricanes. I happened to watch the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, “The U,” late last year. I was appalled at some of the things I saw and immediately did some research. I talked to some older friends who had vivid memories of that era. The hate spans generations. That’s why the 1986 Miami Hurricanes are the most hated sports team ever.
I believe that the word “polarizing” is often overused in sports. It’s often used to describe guys like George Steinbrenner and Jerry Jones and teams like the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys. You either love one of them or you hate them. But I can’t imagine any sane person outside of South Beach, or maybe the state of Florida, rooted for the Miami Hurricanes back then. I really can’t. What’s to like about them?
We all know that Jimmy Johnson was the head coach of the Miami teams of that era. He took over for Howard Schnellenberger and gave the U an extra swagger. He would prove to be an excellent coach, but modest would be a word to describe Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno, not Jimmy Johnson. He was a coach who gave his players a lot of freedom. He let the players roam around like the little troublemakers they were. From a personal standpoint, is not a good thing in South Beach to have that type of freedom. It is easy to question how Johnson was so successful as a coach. If you get right down to it, he really didn’t have a lot of control of some of his players in Dallas and he was quite successful there also.
I also lump that era of the Miami Hurricanes with Michael Irvin. He was unbearably cocky and it’s a trait that definitely followed him to the NFL. He represented that Miami team to much of America. It was a team of thugs that didn’t respect the game and who had players that got caught with guns on campus. What people seem to forget about that brash 1986 team… they choked in the championship game against Penn State. Much of the country rejoiced as potty-mouthed Hurricanes were dethroned.
Looking at it some 25 years later, that team had a reputation like an Oakland Raiders team. It’d be more likely to see many of the players in a police lineup than on a football field. It’s like putting O.J. Simpson, Rae Carruth, Pacman Jones, and Donte Stallworth all on the same team and rooting for that team. Who wants to do that? Whoever wanted their child walking around wearing a Rae Carruth jersey?
I think that is what it was like to root for the Miami Hurricanes in 1986. And that’s why they are the most hated team ever.
The state of Georgia went to the polls on Tuesday to vote in the primary election for the candidates who will be seeking office in November. Some of the positions I was able to vote for included governor, attorney general, and a few local races. Apparently, the college football world has gotten in on the whole campaign theme because several schools have launched Heisman campaigns for their supposed Heisman contenders. Check out the websites for Christian Ponder, Ryan Mallet, and Jake Locker. There are others out there, too. Keep in mind that the season is well over a month away. What a joke this is! Didn’t we all just get through fussing about how overhyped NBA free agency was?
I have a real problem with campaigning for awards like the Heisman, especially before the season. In the contradictory argument to mine, Babe Ruthless writes about the breakdown of the Heisman voters. I have a simple question for our judge today, Sports Geek, for the distinguished voters of the Heisman trophy, and for our loyal TSD readers.
What has a guy like Jake Locker or Christian Ponder done to prove to you that he deserves the 2010 Heisman Trophy?
Humor me! How many touchdowns have they thrown for so far? Yards? How many wins do their teams have?
My point exactly! These guys, and the hundreds of other players competing for the Heisman, have zeroes all across their stat sheet. What’s ironic is that guys like Locker and Ponder may have uphill battles to convince Heisman voters this year. Locker’s Washington Huskies are coming off a 5-7 2009 season, and Locker himself has yet to even be named All Pac-10 at the quarterback position. Christian Ponder is on a Florida State team that went 7-6 team in 2009. While the team should be better this season, Ponder missed the last four games of the season after separating his shoulder. He appears to be fully recovered, but again, it brings his “candidacy” into question.
All of this hype puts a lot of extra pressure on the student-athlete, whether it’s before the season or during the season. A guy like Ponder can probably handle it. He’s a smart guy, as he has already earned his MBA and will be halfway through a master’s degree in sports management this Fall.
But others may not be able to handle the stress. They could be thinking, “The school is spending all this money hyping me. I don’t want to let them down. I don’t want to let my teammates down.” This hype could prove to be detrimental to the team in the long run, and it’s not like all the extra hype always works. If hype ALWAYS worked, Tim Tebow could have left Gainesville with three Heisman Trophies. How could he do that? Because he’s Tim Tebow!
Winning awards should come down to what happens on the field, both individually and as a team. Winning… now there’s a concept.
The Heisman Trophy has been victimized by the media and turned into a popularity contest. We’re definitely living in an age of televised free agent decisions and extended live coverage of press conferences. The hype machine is on full throttle 24-7! And enough is enough!
Even as a diehard sports nut I admit there are some things in sports that may be perceived as overrated. I am sure I will catch some flak for this, but I believe the Kentucky Derby is overrated. Some can make the case that the Daytona 500 is overrated. The NFL Draft is certainly overhyped and to some extent, so is the Super Bowl. But without question, there is no doubt that one event is as overhyped by the media as National Signing Day for college football.
Recruiting has gotten to be a year-round extravaganza. Recruits are being contacted at younger ages than ever before. There are hundreds of recruiting websites and blogs to track these things. I do not know who I feel sorrier for, the players or the coaches. The players are receiving constant visits, calls, and text messages from coaches. The coaches have to do these things to stay in the game for that particular player.
If you watched any sports or read any sports news yesterday you know that yesterday was National Signing Day and that the usual suspects were at the top of most of the “rankings” put out by the recruiting gurus. Florida, USC, Texas, and others are said to have the best classes, with Florida said to have one of the best classes ever despite the uncertainty surrounding Urban Meyer. My question is, how do they really know? What makes guys like Tom Luginbill so special? Why are websites like Rivals considering the best of the best when it comes to recruits? I had a friend from the University of Georgia tell me yesterday, “We signed a kid who is going to be the best safety to ever dress up in red and black.” Really? How do you know? Because the UGA beat writer said so? Because Luginbill said so? Have you seen this guy play live?
What does a player having a five-star rating really mean? Are those players supposed to be THAT good? If so, how come only three out of 33 five-star signees from last year made the Rivals Freshman-All American team? Where are the other 30? It really is a crapshoot. We just do not know how these kids will respond, on or off the field. Psychologically, it is hard to determine what will happen. How is a small town kid from a rural town in Georgia going to respond to playing in front of 93,000 screaming people in Athens? How is he going to respond walking through a campus full of thousands of students when his entire high school only had 300 kids? How is a guy from a small town in Ohio going to respond when he walks into an English 101 class that has 400 people in it when his hometown only has 250 people? Maybe he gets homesick and that affects his attitude and his performance on the field and at practice. Those types of things affect 18- and 19-year-olds and it indirectly impacts the growth of a football player. There are just so many variables that come into play that it is hard to effectively tie recruiting classes to successful programs. Recruiting is an inexact science.
The sheer fact that we are even having this debate today proves my point. Too much emotion is put into signing day by fans and the media. Sure, we would all like our school to have the top rated recruiting class in the land. But that does not guarantee a national championship in the next four years. The last four recruiting classes at Georgia have been “ranked” in the top ten by Rivals. All that did was lead to an 8-5 2009 campaign and a trip to lovely Shreveport, Louisiana for the high profile Independence Bowl.
Having a good recruiting class is a good start to success and it gives all of us something to talk about in February. But do not get too discouraged if your school did not get 15 five-star recruits. Rely on your coaches to get the best out of the players they recruit. They know the players and the team’s needs better than these recruiting experts do.
Read the debate intro and the argument from Babe Ruthless about whether or not the BCS national championship game truly answered the question “what is the best team in college football?”
Many of you, approximately 29 million of you, watched last Thursday’s BCS national championship game. That is considerably more than the amount that watches Conan O’Brien on a nightly basis! It seems we all saw Alabama score a victory over a Colt McCoy-less Texas Longhorns team. Not to take anything away from the Crimson Tide, but they went through arguably the toughest conference unscathed and then beat the best the Big XII had to offer. But to say with 100 percent certainty that the BCS championship declared the best team is just an incorrect statement.
As Sports Geek point out in the intro, five teams completed the regular season with a zero in the loss column (Alabama, Texas, Cincinnati, TCU, and Boise State). Obviously, at least two of those teams were going to fall off the list since Alabama played Texas and TCU played Boise State. Florida knocked the Bearcats from the ranks of the unbeaten (though I feel that could have been a much closer game if Brian Kelly was still the head coach at Cincinnati).
It can be argued all day long that Alabama, an SEC powerhouse, would be too much for Boise State. Maybe Bama would roll… but maybe not. There is some doubt, even if it is a small amount. Boise State can make the claim that it finished the season undefeated. That is a tremendous accomplishment and no one can ever take that away from the players and coaches. But the Bronco Nation may always wonder if they could have defeated the Crimson Tide. Unfortauntely, the dispute from Bronco Nation was not settled on the field because the current system does not allow it.
This really is not an argument about a playoff proposal, but if you were to put those five teams into some form of playoff, would Alabama still come out on top? Maybe, but maybe not!
Let’s compare it to the NFL playoffs. Indianapolis and New Orleans have gone into the playoffs as the number one seed in their respective conferences. On paper, they are the best teams due to their record. However, at the beginning of the playoffs there were ten other teams (six after this past weekend’s games) chasing the same thing the Colts and Saints are chasing. What if the Colts played the Saints because of their records in the regular season?
Let’s face it, the odds are against the Saints and Colts both making it to the Super Bowl. Maybe another team (Chargers, Ravens, Cowboys, etc.) gets hot and makes a run and knocks one of the top teams off. The best team does not always win the Super Bowl since any team can get hot at the right time. But, that is not really a question posed by fans after the Super Bowl. Did you hear these types of discussions after the Super Bowl two years ago, when the Giants defeated the previously undefeated Patriots thanks to a late touchdown? No, I do not recall any such conversation. However, there is some talk that maybe… just maybe… Alabama was not the best team in college football.
Chances are that Alabama would have rolled through the Broncos of Boise State if they played. But much like a defense attorney tries to do when representing his/her client, I am trying to convince you that it is not certain that they would have won. There is doubt. Innocent until proven guilty, right? Well, how about the phrase “a team is not the best team until they prove they are the best team.” In this case, nothing has been proven to declare, Alabama, without a shadow of doubt, the best team in the land.
Read the arguments from Sports Geek and Bleacher Fan about which conference had the best bowl season in 2009.
It saddens me to write this argument today because it means that college football is over. My Saturdays will have a sense of emptiness, as it always takes me awhile to adjust. But, before we officially close the book on the season, The Sports Debates is taking a look back at the bowl season to decide which conference had the best bowl season. Sports Geek will fight for the little guy with the feel good story of the Mountain West Conference while Bleacher Fan will stick to his roots and arguing that the Big Ten had the best bowl season. I am also sticking to my roots and arguing that the MIGHTY SEC had the best bowl season, once again.
Now, on paper, the SEC’s bowl record of 6-4 pales in comparison to that of, say, the Mountain West (4-1). I will grant that the SEC could have had the ugliest loss that I saw all bowl season with South Carolina’s dreadful performance against UConn. But the conference also had some impressive.
To me, the most impressive win was from the Florida Gators. The Gators, with all of the controversy surrounding head coach Urban Meyer, were able to put all of that aside for one night. They absolutely destroyed the previously unbeaten Cincinnati Bearcats, though it is obvious that the Bearcats had distractions with the absence of Brian Kelly. The difference is the Gators were able to use their distraction as a rallying point. Many fans are Tim Tebow lovers and many are Tim Tebow haters. I fall somewhere in between. But his performance in the Sugar Bowl was nothing short of sensational. He was 31-35 for a Sugar Bowl record 482 yards. Time will tell how far Tebow advances at the next level, but there is one thing that cannot be argued: Tebow has left an everlasting mark on college football.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the national champion Alabama Crimson Tide. There has been much debate in the past few days regarding the national champions. Behind the scenes here at TSD headquarters we have loudly discussed whether or not Alabama would have won if Colt McCoy had not gotten hurt. But that’s water under the bridge now. The Tide joined the Gators in defeating a previously undefeated team. Their victory also makes it four consecutive years that the national champion has come out of the SEC, following Florida, LSU, and again Florida.
In addition to these two teams, Georgia and Ole Miss posted impressive wins over Big XII teams, while Auburn and Arkansas were able to win their games in overtime.
Year in and year out, the SEC sits at the top of the college football conference. The conference takes the best shot of its competitors and has not yet been supplanted as the nation’s best conference. Having successful bowl seasons like this one in 2009 – where it boasted two dominant teams at the top – makes
the SEC second to none!
I hope you guys enjoyed your Thanksgiving break. I certainly did. Now I can go shop for a new pair of jeans that fit my ever enlarging waist! Food and watching football will do that to you (though I did teach my little cousins the nuances of the triple option… perhaps Georgia was eavesdropping on my lesson as the ‘Dawgs managed to stop Georgia Tech’s triple option Saturday night). After watching numerous games over the weekend and seeing highlights of several more, I have decided that the real winner of the Thanksgiving Football Feast was Texas quarterback Colt McCoy.
Coming into the weekend the Heisman race was wide open. The list of possible contenders was as long as the list of bowl games (okay, maybe not that long), including McCoy, Tim Tebow, Mark Ingram, and Toby Gerhart near the top of the list. But guys like Clemson’s C.J. Spiller had the opportunity to make big impressions with a big performance in a rivalry game. Ingram was a dud against Auburn, though his team managed to escape the Iron Bowl with a victory. Spiller returned the opening kickoff against South Carolina and did nothing else in a disappointing upset loss to South Carolina. Gerhart had a phenomenal game against Notre Dame with 205 yards rushing and three touchdowns (and also one passing). Tebow was his usual self in a victory over an overmatched Florida State. But what McCoy did against rival Texas A&M was nothing short of remarkable and it made him the clear frontrunner in the Heisman race.
All he did was rack up 479 yards of total offense, including 175 yards on the ground, totaling five touchdowns. The game against the Aggies was much tougher than most thought it would be. Rallying behind an amazing performance by quarterback Jerrod Johnson (who had 439 yards of total offense himself), the Aggies were in prime position to pull the upset in this see-saw battle. The Longhorns only led by seven at the half and the Aggies actually cut it to three a couple of times in the second half, but the Longhorns were able to respond and escape the Home of the 12th man with a victory. I was talking to a friend of mine the day after the game and he said, “Colt McCoy single-handily saved Texas’s season last night. He won the game for them.” My friend was right. If Texas lost that game, it would have all but eliminated any chance at a national title and would have thrown the national championship door wide open for teams like TCU and Cincinnati. Instead, he left College Station as the clear-cut favorite in the race for the Heisman.
McCoy still has to have a solid game this week against Nebraska in the Big 12 championship to close the deal on the Heisman, especially with Tebow playing that day as well in the SEC championship. But it is McCoy’s to lose now and he can thank his Heisman-like performance against Texas A&M for that.
Court is in session… the verdict is in… no appeal on the docket today… just my verdict!
As I stated in my intro, the debate sides were represented by two native Ohio residents who both happen to be Michigan Wolverine… er… I mean Ohio State Buckeye fans! They follow the program closely and are somewhat frustrated by this season’s squad, especially the lack of progress shown by quarterback Terrell Pryor. For all of the hoopla surrounding Pryor’s recruitment, it is safe to say that for whatever reason, he has not – to this point – lived up to the hype. Thus, a really compelling debate topic!
It is important to note that Jim Tressel has not suddenly forgotten how to coach and teach a young man how to play the quarterback position. He has won a national championship and been to two other championship games at the Division I level. His credentials speak for volumes. Sports Geek believes the “only person to blame for the struggles of Terrelle Pryor in Columbus is Terrelle Pryor.” Sports Geek breaks down Pryor’s rushing numbers in the first eight games of the season, calling into question Pryor’s confidence and his decision making.
Bleacher Fan, on the other hand, breaks down the comparison between Pryor and former Texas quarterback Vince Young, detailing how Pryor does not have as much talent to work with when considering the players that surrounded Young and former Buckeye quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith. Bleacher Fan writes that the coaches must find a successful way to fully maximize Pryor’s talents and that the onus is on the running backs and receivers to take pressure off of Mr. Pryor.
I do not believe there is a simple solution to winning games with Pryor under center. Perhaps the critics will soften on Tressel and Pryor both if tOSU finishes the season strongly. In the meantime, I am awarding the victory of this debate to Sports Geek.
As I have stated, both of the debaters are closer to the situation than I am. But, from what his Honor has seen on TV and read in these arguments it is apparent to me that Terrelle Pryor is trying too hard to become a drop back passer. He is trying so hard that he is hurting his team. The fact that Pryor has been sacked 13 times for over 100 yards is a little disturbing. Rarely do guys with Pryor’s enormous athleticism take that big of a loss. I get the impression that Sports Geek believes Pryor does not study film as much as he should. It is almost as if Sports Geek is implying that Pryor is thinking “I need to prove I can be a drop back passer to make it at the next level.” Is Pryor putting himself above the team?
It is also important to note, as Bleacher Fan did, that Pryor is still very young and it his potential is not maxed out. He still has loads of potential and a chance to live up to the expectations. But, as of October 30, 2009, he has not. It is up to him to reverse the trend.
As the college football season officially kicks off tomorrow when South Carolina plays North Carolina State, Sports Geek and I have decided to tackle a topic that is rather popular in certain parts of the country. With no disrespect intended towards the other four BCS conferences, let’s be real. The SEC and the Big XII are FAR and away the top two conferences in college football. All you have to do is look at the preseason Associated Press poll. There are five SEC teams in the top 15 (Florida, Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, and Georgia) to go along with three Big XII teams (Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State). It is quite obvious that coming into the season that the SEC has a slight lead over the Big XII in regards to which is the best conference.
The best way to clearly answer the question is to look at the top of the mountain and see that the Florida Gators are CLEARLY the best team in the nation. CLEARLY! Even the mighty Sports Geek cannot disagree with that assessment (just a hint of sarcasm there). Last year, on a neutral field, Oklahoma could not beat the Gators in the national championship. Oklahoma has done nothing during the offseason to convince me that if they played again, the outcome would be any different.
Another issue that separates the two conferences to me is the quality of the teams from top to bottom. It is fairly obvious that both conferences have strong teams at the top. That falls under the “No Duh” category. But, take away the top two in each conference (Florida and Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma) and look at the rest of the conference.
Ole Miss is a trendy pick to make a splash this year. They are riding a wave of buzz after defeating Florida last year and then defeating Texas Tech (yes, a Big XII team) in the Cotton Bowl. I am high on LSU this year as they look to rebound from an average 2008 campaign. While UGA may be rebuilding, they still expect to have a strong year. The other three bowl eligible teams (Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and South Carolina) will likely stay competitive. The four “bottom” teams from last year (Auburn, Arkansas, Mississippi State, and Tennessee) are looking at making improvements. Arkansas should be stronger with the addition of Michigan transfer quarterback Ryan Mallett. Auburn, Tennessee, and Mississippi State are creating some buzz with their new coaches – especially Tennessee.
The Big XII is strong in the middle with Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas Tech. Where I see a difference is at the bottom. Iowa State finished 2-10 last year and Baylor and Texas A &M both finished 4-8. Those numbers say enough.
Last year, the SEC placed eight teams in bowl games compared with seven for the Big XII. I am not seeing a big drop off this year. If anything, a couple of the lower teams could be better. From the best team in the conference to the worst team in the conference, the SEC appears to be a bit stronger than the Big XII.
Posted by Loyal Homer 
