Nutt cutting time, and other recruiting tales of woe

Sad story for an Ole Miss recruit:

… Collins Moore of Bob Jones is an example of another side of recruiting, where schools say they have accepted more commitments than scholarships they have to give. What follows is pure spin control: We still love you as a player, but just not until next January.

Moore heard those words last weekend. What awful timing. He committed to Ole Miss in August over enviable choices such as Kentucky and LSU. Of course, they no longer have room. He’s scrambling for a Plan B, but will likely wear a grayshirt now.

Of course, if he’d have picked LSU then, there’s no telling that Les wouldn’t have run into math problems of his own later on.

But here’s the other side of that coin.  Georgia Tech just lost its fourth recruit in less than two weeks (by the way, nice timing with this puff piece, Mark Bradley) when defensive end Trey Flowers switched his verbal commitment to Arkansas.  In doing so, he sounds like he made as cold and calculated a decision as the Nuttster did.

“Yes, I’m excited about Arkansas, but I do feel kind of bad how it ended with Georgia Tech. I probably rushed with my decision to commit [to Georgia Tech] last week. But I did it because I wanted to protect myself with a big-time scholarship. Then a better situation came along for me with Arkansas and I had to take it.”

The more this stuff goes on, the more I’m convinced that Andy Staples has the best solution.

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UPDATE: I’m not the only one who saw the linkage between Moore and Flowers.

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UPDATE #2: Speaking of Miles, he’s got math issues, too.  Some of it’s a case of last year’s chickens coming home to roost.

… Twenty three is exactly where LSU’s recruiting class stands with the commitment Friday of St. Paul’s defensive tackle Mickey Johnson. Actually, he was No. 22, but LSU must also count Cameron Fordham, a grayshirted offensive lineman signed in 2010, against this year’s class.

But also note that there’s some painful notoriety he’s dealing with.

… But there is a fine line to be walked for the Tigers, numerically and politically. Coach Les Miles is still stinging from the bad publicity — he’d probably call it being singled out — by that ESPN Outside the Lines piece on former Tiger quarterback Chris Garrett.

The subject was grayshirting, which is something most schools do. Except most schools don’t get their grayshirts aired like they were dirty laundry.

Then, there’s also the question of whether the NCAA would consider any LSU signees over 23 as a slap in the face when it hasn’t even accepted LSU’s self-imposed penalties yet.

Still, there may be some wiggle room.

So, if LSU is going to take anyone over 23, they had better be worth it. Still, it’s worth it for Miles to take the chance. You can’t turn down top-notch talent now because of some potential backlash. Could it possibly be worse than losing a game because you were missing that one key recruit?

There is one particular recruit who LSU could cut ties with to make room for someone else: Redemptorist running back Jeremy Hill.

Hill was arrested earlier this month on a charge of oral sexual battery with a 14-year-old female student at RHS. Despite that, LSU is still apparently willing to accept his letter of intent Wednesday.

If that ain’t your quintessential 2011 recruiting dilemma in a nutshell (see how I did that?), I don’t know what is.