County Scholarships

[VA Husker Fan]

Mack does it by trying to get the track coach to dish out track ship to footballers and to get baseball kids that are drafted to play summer league pro, which would have their pro team paying for their college. Ricky Williams and Cedric Benson did that.

 

Again I'm not going to go looking through the NCAA rules, but I've heard the NCAA won't allow that, at least not the scholarship from another sport. The athlete either counts against the limit in both sports, or in what the NCAA deems as the "major" sport. The pro sport thing may work, but I bet Brown would've rather have had Benson in spring practice and working out in the summer rather than playing baseball and saving one scholarship.

[StuckinChicago]

Keep in mind that giving a kid a scholarship for another sport so that it does not count against your scholarship limit for football is not possible. There was a quarterback for Nebraska a few years ago, (last name Goodman,) who was also on the wrestling team. When he saw action on the football field, that automatically converted him to a football scholarship, which counted against the 85 limit. You can usually get away with this mid season, as there are usually people who are kicked off the team or transfer, or are released from their scholarship for various reasons, but it would still prevent you from hording recruits the next year. Also, playing pro baseball would disqualify you from playing in any collegiate sports, as you would lose your amatuer status, so that rumor is a no go as well.

[VA Husker Fan]

Also, playing pro baseball would disqualify you from playing in any collegiate sports, as you would lose your amatuer status, so that rumor is a no go as well.

That hasn't been true for awhile. Benson did play pro baseball while still playing college football as did Danny Ainge (pro baseball/college hoops), John Elway and others. Weinke played pro baseball and gave it up to return to football at FSU. Jeremy Bloom was the exception because pro skiers are paid mostly in endorsements, not salary or winnings. It'd be too easy for a USC backer to put a pair of skis on Reggie Bush and call him a skier and pay him to endorse products for pay, I guess. Or at least it was too tough to separate Bloom the skier from Bloom the college football player for those endorsements.

[macroboy]

I was thinking about this and....

 

If a group of people, or person, or business paid some kid's scholarship how would that be an NCAA violation? Private entities give scholarships all the time. I would guess that the language of the agreement could not say football (or athletics). If a bunch of walk-ons had these types of scholarships I guess the NCAA would have to investigate but I don't know what they could do.

 

Doesn't this assume we have more DI talent in our state than we do? or at least more top caliber DI talent?

 

Why would there ever be a need to move a walk-on to scholarship if this was happening?

 

I would guess that NU is right up to the line when it comes to recruiting and the NCAA. Most bigger football schools probably are.

If it was that easy to circumvent the 85 scholarship limit don't you think everyone would do it?

 

I started typing in a response but found this article about a similar scholarship at Alabama that tells me I was wrong about some things, and the rules were a bit looser than I thought.

 

http://alabama.scout.com/2/226526.html

 

Thanks for the link. The "recruited" part is what keeps it from getting fishy I guess. Which also makes this whole county scholarships thing less believable.

 

 

If said student was a recruited walk-on then they couldn't have any aid like the county scholarship.

If they weren't a recruited walk-on then would they really be contributing to a top caliber DI program? Maybe in rare cases.

 

Obviously from the following discussion many schools are trying to get creative and are also subject to rumors.

[macroboy]

Keep in mind that giving a kid a scholarship for another sport so that it does not count against your scholarship limit for football is not possible. There was a quarterback for Nebraska a few years ago, (last name Goodman,) who was also on the wrestling team. When he saw action on the football field, that automatically converted him to a football scholarship, which counted against the 85 limit. You can usually get away with this mid season, as there are usually people who are kicked off the team or transfer, or are released from their scholarship for various reasons, but it would still prevent you from hording recruits the next year. Also, playing pro baseball would disqualify you from playing in any collegiate sports, as you would lose your amatuer status, so that rumor is a no go as well.

 

So does Khiry Cooper count against football and baseball?

If so that would really be a deterant for recruiting 2 sport athletes. 1 person takes 2 schollys?

[StuckinChicago]

No, Khiry Cooper would only count against football from my understanding.

[fro daddy]

he would be under football. Baseball only gives partial scholarships. Football gives full rides. If I remember correctly baseball has 11.75 scholarships to divide among all players on the team

 

 

And getting back on subject, I have never heard of this before. Sounds a little silly to me. NU's seccess is easily explained.

#1 They built a cult-like following in a state with no other avenues to come together.

#2 The program took off at the right time. Limited TV apperances meant the best teams got on. If you wanted to be seen, you needed to play for those teams

#3 Great coaching and steady hands. (little to no turnover)

#4 Because of the cult following, nearly unlimited resources for a school and population the size of Nebraska

#5 Because of the nearly unlimited $, there were top notch facilites that kept them in the hunt with other big dogs

#6 Because of the cult following, players would rather walk on to NE then accept a scholarship to a lesser school.(In repuation and division)

#7 The absolute lack of a threat in the big 8, besides OU of course. Every other school was awful at football for a long time. And when its a two man show. You are only competing with that other guy for players

#8 Adding up the first 7 leads to some pretty solid teams and brings us the last point, because of #7 other local states players had little loyalty and draw to their home states teams. Meaning even though states like MO could pump out HS talent, you didnt grow up a Tiger fan. So when it NE and MO offered what would you rather do. Play for a NC or hope to win 5 games....

 

Pretty simple explinations. Not easily done, but sometimes you catch lightning and you really take advantage of it.

 

on a side note we are already seeing the changes in #2. Hundred of games on every year. Teams you have never heard of getting games. Hell NWMSU has played on ESPN or ESPN2 twice a year in each of the last 3 years. Believe it or not until about 5 or 6 years ago it was tough being a Tigers fan growning up. And not just because of the constant crappy teams. I was lucky if I saw 1 game on TV a year. Most years they were not on. And because media coverage was not like it is today, there was no radio coverage and no internet yet. It took real effort to follow them. On the other hand I know quite a bit about NE because they were on TV 5-6 times a year. Ussually the only chance I got to see MU was when they played NE.

[huskerswrkhavoc]

No, Khiry Cooper would only count against football from my understanding.

 

Correct.. like Fro said.. I think it's like 11.78 scholarships or something to that effect and they were working on increasing the number to i believe 13.2 but i believe the proposal got shot down for this year... And Cooper only goes against Football.. If an athlete plays multiple sports their scholarship counts against the higher revenue sport I believe.. Not sure how it works in a XC vs Track kinda situation....

[macroboy]

Thanks for clearing up the schollys all.

[Ohio Pete]

Correct.. like Fro said.. I think it's like 11.78 scholarships or something to that effect and they were working on increasing the number to i believe 13.2 but i believe the proposal got shot down for this year... And Cooper only goes against Football.. If an athlete plays multiple sports their scholarship counts against the higher revenue sport I believe.. Not sure how it works in a XC vs Track kinda situation....

There was an article awhile ago about parents pushing there kids to be scholarship players in sports like baseball or soccer and then getting really surprised when scholarship meant $400 at school costing $20K. Here is an article about some recent changes in how they do things in baseball.