Tim James, I’m not from the government, but I’m here to help.
You’ve done stepped in it, son. You had things going your way with that driver’s license test-in-English viral ad, but then you had to go and blow all that momentum with that silly crack about Nick Saban that’s got every ‘Bama fan in the state (some of them even vote, you know) up in arms.
Even that shiny-headed fool Paul Finebaum has decided to weigh in. And if there’s one thing he excels at, it’s pot stirring.
It ain’t good, aight?
There’s a way out of the political wilderness for you, though, if you’ll only grab it.
What in the h e double-l am I talking about? Hear me out.
That’s a web site dedicated to exposing the practice by certain schools of signing more college football players than there’s room for on the roster, in the expectation that things will sort themselves out one way or another by the NCAA deadline. As a number of busybodies have recently pointed out, two of the leading practitioners of oversigning happen to set up shop in your fair state.
Now understand, there’s nothing illegal about oversigning. As long as the overall roster gets down to 85 kids by the deadline, no harm, no foul. But as folks like to say, aggressive oversigning does push the envelope somewhat. And because of that, some people are a might sensitive about the subject. That Jay Christensen fellah’s noted that Oversigning.com has had over 300,000 hits in the last 48 hours since everybody and his brother started linking to these charts. It’s safe to say that it’s stirred up a hornets nest. It’s also safe to say that a bunch of those hornets are going to be pulling a voting lever on June 1st.
That’s where you jump in. Here’s your chance to be a uniter, not a divider. Turn this football thing around. Condemn Oversigning.com. The guy running it is probably a jealous Northerner; tell him to keep his nose out of Alabama’s business. And since this is a numbers game that both Alabama and Auburn engage in, nobody can accuse you of taking sides. Heck, man, you’ve got a chance to defend Nick Saban here. D0 not blow it.
It makes sense. Does it to you?
Get The Picture 
In U.S. politics the worst pejorative that someone can be called is “liberal.” In Alabama it’s “Auburn fan.”
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For the dimwits among us this is true.
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I thought California politics were at the depths
of the pile-then I moved to Alabama.
Saban and bingo the hot issues in a state that is
at or near the bottom in any number of economic
factors. Oh yeah the Alabama Education Association is the anti-christ.
It goes on and on.
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I’m not sure anybody touches Arizona right now.
That state’s governor just wrote Obama requesting that he use drones on the Mexican border. What could possibly go wrong with that?
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“What could possibly go wrong with that?”
Absolutely nothing according to this joker but only if the drones are armed and dangerous to those Mexicans who aren’t in Arizona on vacation…
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I thought this whole oversigning thing became pretty much a non-issue when the SEC passed the new rule last year limiting teams to 28 LOIs in a given year. What did I miss?
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The SEC Rule only puts a top number on the size of a class. It came into existence when Houston Nutt decided to bring in a completely over the top 37 at Ole Miss in 2009 and brought too much attention to the problem for the conference to ignore.
The crux of the over-signing problem has more to do with the rule of 85. With 85 maximum scholarships, if you have, say a total of 20 graduating seniors or players turning pro then you have a maximum of 20 scholarships available for the incoming class. Alabama is systematically signing 8 to 10 more players than available scholarships and “miraculously” having existing players spontaneously leave or quit the program to make room for the over-signees. Strangely enough, the players leaving are also the ones buried on the depth chart or seeing limited playing time.
A cynical person, or perhaps just someone with a modicum of intelligence, would say that Saban is abusing the intent of the one year scholarship rule by cutting his weaker players each year in hopes of replacing them with a strong performer. The approach is legal but completely unethical.
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While the market will eventually sort this out, if you limit schools to 100 signees every 4 years, that will solve the problem too. (If you did this, a signee who then went to Hargrave, Juco, or both would count just one time no matter what – even if he never enrolled and the one time would count for the first year he signed. Call it the Toby Jackson addendum to the rule.)
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The yutz over in Alabama reminds me of the dufus politician in the TV commercial who doesn’t like cheese.
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