Not something you hear every day.

From an AJ-C story today about early commitments:

… Finally in December, Florida State made an offer. Turner turned them down.

“They wanted me to grayshirt and come in January of 2009,” Turner said.

In other words, he would graduate ECI, not play football in the fall of 2008 or be with the team and be the first recruit of the 2009 class for the Seminoles.

Turner didn’t want to wait and accepted an offer from Division I-AA Appalachian State, the three-time defending national champs.

“I didn’t want to wait to play,” Turner said. “And I wanted to be at a place that plays for titles.”

Ouch.

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That verbal’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.

From Pat Forde’s column on this rather chaotic “commitment” season:

… According to Scouts Inc., ESPN.com’s recruiting bureau, 156 players have de-committed from one school in favor of another this recruiting season. Fourteen of those players de-committed more than once. Eleven of the de-commits rank among the ESPN 150.

And there’s this terrific quote from UNC’s Roy Williams concerning football verbal commitments:

“You’re not making a commitment,” Williams said. “You’re making a reservation.”

Let’s face it – this is the last time that the kid will enjoy anything close to equal leverage with the school. Once he’s on the dotted line, it’s not like he’ll have many attractive options if things don’t work out as he might have hoped. Just ask Ryan Mallett.

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UPDATE: Of course, it helps if you have a real offer in the first place.

It’s inevitable if you think about it.

Particularly in the wake of the articles in the Seattle Times about his 2000 University of Washington team, it’s no surprise that the cheap shots are beginning to fly Rick Neuheisel’s way.

There are two excellent ones in this post at The Wizard of Odds.   First, in reporting that RN was in attendance at the recent UCLA-Arizona basketball game, The Wiz notes that

Although he introduced defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker and offensive coordinator Norm Chow, one has to think he was merely in the house to scout the Bruins and Wildcats so he can properly seed the teams in his NCAA tournament pool.

Then he goes on to quote a sportswriter who had this to say about Neuheisel:

“Great school, beautiful, and probably on probation in 2012. There’s no way I’d let my son play football for him. Because I know he probably won’t be in 4 years.”

Cruel stuff?  Maybe.  But coach and school better get used to it.  They’ll hear much worse on the recruiting trail in the years to come.

The Super Bowl as Rorschach blot

I wasn’t going to post anything about the Giants’ win last night because, frankly, I agree with SMQ’s point that it’s their appearance in the game that’s the flaw in the system. Whether they won or not really doesn’t change that.

But human nature being what it is, you might want to look at some varied points of view on the Giants’ win – from the rabid playoff partisans at Coaches Hot Seat Blog to the anti-playoff Kyle King at DawgSports to Groo at DawgsOnline.

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UPDATE: Another thought here. But the comments in response to his post are of more interest to me. They are a distillation of my point regarding the impact of playoffs on a meaningful regular season.