SEC Coaches Defend Oversigning

[RockyMountainOySker]

Spurrier said oversigning is "helpful" because so many of the players in the state come from underprivileged backgrounds and may not qualify academically. He said the Big Ten, which has curbed oversigning for decades, is making a mistake by doing so. "I think that really hurts them a lot," Spurrier said. "They end up giving scholarships to a lot of walk-ons."

The heck with those walk-ons! Wastes of space anyway

 

Houston Nutt, Mississippi's coach, signed 31 players in 2008, 37 in 2009, 25 last year and 28 last month. He said oversigning is sometimes "necessary," mainly to plug holes. This year, he said, two cornerbacks—Jermaine Whitehead and Floyd Raven—defected at the last minute. "Now I'm sitting here without two corners. You just can't have this perfect world of, 'We're gonna sign 22 this year.'"

 

Sometimes, however, the math simply goes awry. This year, Spurrier said that so many recruits chose South Carolina that they wound up with two more players than they could take under conference rules. The team told Jordan Montgomery, a linebacker from Groveland, Fla. and Lorenzo Mauldin, a defensive end from Atlanta, that there wasn't room for them in this year's class.

 

Montgomery's high school coach, Walter Banks, said, "I told them this was foul. I didn't have a clue until 18 hours before signing day, and if they say anything else, they're lying."

 

Spurrier said he selected those two players because they had the furthest to go to qualify academically. Both players could still be in South Carolina's class next year. "What we probably could've done earlier in the recruiting is tell them that this could happen," he said. "But then again, we didn't know it was going to come up. It's a ticklish situation."

 

I understand where the coaches are coming from but a uniform rule that schools MUST follow is necessary to keep competitive advantages from forming. Not to mention putting some of these kids in a terrible position. To me it is sad that these coaches even consider oversigning as an option. The first quote above about walk-ons truly pisses me off.

 

Full article

[RedDenver]

With all the attention oversigning is getting, there's going to be some changes in the SEC. Hopefully the NCAA will make a standard everyone can follow. Some of the spurned players are not happy and the practices is getting seen as "dirtier", especially since the coaches defending the practice are also the ones being called liars by some of the affected players.

[bball_backer]

Personally I don't like oversigning, but I could see it to a certain extent. Oversigning by one or two would still be iffy, but understandable as more than likely one or two guys in each class won't end up academically eligible (especially with SEC schools and no I'm not being racist or anything like that, it's simply a fact). Signing 30+ guys each year, however, should not be permissable.

[Lil' Red]

I think the NCAA should start cracking down some on this. What is the point of scholarship limits if everyone over-signs?

[Stumpy1]

Let them keep doing this and burning bridges as they go. It will get a point where every kid in highschool will know that the SEC is dirty. I for one think oversigning is a BS way to recruit and is unfair to the kids that go through it.

[Bradr]

Let them keep doing this and burning bridges as they go. It will get a point where every kid in highschool will know that the SEC is dirty. I for one think oversigning is a BS way to recruit and is unfair to the kids that go through it.

 

Exactly.

 

Let them keep up with business as usual. There have been quite a few stories about dropped offers and that action's impact on high school accessibility for recruiting. High school coaches can easily be at schools 20+ years. In these dropped scholarship situations, the coaches frequently ban all contact from the said university's recruiters towards all of their athletes. If the SEC (and others) keep this up, it only helps the schools that have a reputation for upholding their commitments.