Get me out of your starry eyes.

I wonder if this paragraph in the latest attack on oversigning’s Crown Prince of Darkness (as an aside, should we believe that Saban is completely honest about his signing practices with the kids he recruits – and even if he is, should that matter?) signals that a new front is being opened in the debate.

… Going from a 4-5 star recruit at one of the premier schools on track to get a quality degree from a great school to a spot on a FCS roster and degree from a lesser school is a soft landing, provided he even makes it that far…sounds more like a shattered dream.  To be fair this isn’t all on the oversigning coaches; bogus recruiting services that attempt to rank these kids are just as guilty of contributing to the rise and fall of some of these student-athletes.

That’s actually a step past the stupidity Jay Paterno was peddling the other day when he argued that oversigning was the result of college coaches chasing better recruiting rankings.  Now we’re being told it’s the services that delude the kids by putting stars in their eyes and the coaches are bystanders.  Color me unconvinced.

In any event, this may be the new meme and so is worth watching.  Of course, what’s left unsaid by either Paterno or oversigning.com is the source of the recruiting services’ popularity.  And that’s one thing I don’t think anyone can lay at the feet of Nick Saban.

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Mark Emmert, flailing away

Two months ago, the thin-skinned NCAA president took a dump all over the media.  Now, he proposes to work together.

The catch is that he doesn’t have a clue how to go about doing that.

“We used to predominantly not make comments on cases,” Emmert said. “We’ve started providing a lot more information and in some respects, we’ve provided lots of people ammunition to thump us with. We have to provide more information or we have to go back the other way and say, ‘Look, we can’t comment on this.’

“Right now, we’re kind of stuck in the middle here, and we need to provide you all with a lot more information and be as forthright as we can about it. We’re working on it. It’s going to take us a while.”

He’s been on the job less than half a year and already has more missteps than competent adminstrators make in ten.

It doesn’t make it any easier that he’s still in a fundamental state of denial over the biggest problem he’s faced.

“We try hard to get it right every time,” Emmert said. “Getting it right is often in the eye of the beholder. The cases we saw this fall were highly controversial and highly debatable. I understand that, and some of them were even enormously frustrating to me.

“I said very loud and clear that I think it’s absolutely a fundamentally wrong for a father to try to sell the services of his son or daughter to the highest bidder, to a university. We ought never to allow that to happen, but yet, having not anticipated that, we didn’t have any rule or structure that said it was a violation of any of our rules. I found that grossly inappropriate that didn’t have a structure in which we could say, ‘No, you can’t do that.’

“There was no evidence that money had changed hands and there was no evidence that Auburn University had anything to do with it. We would up making a decision that felt to many people morally objectionable, but that fit the facts and the circumstances.

“We find ourselves making those kinds of judgment calls often.”

Yet, not often enough for Emmert to be ready for a father pimping his son to the highest bidder.  Maybe Emmert wants us to believe Cecil Newton was the first parent to make the attempt.

Urban Meyer wants somebody to make college football’s trains run on time.

Achtung, baby.

If he will ever get back into coaching again:

“I don’t know.  I don’t know that but everybody keeps asking me that.  I was watching that Super Bowl and sitting there, if you could just do the part of coaching that is allowed and not have to worry about all of that nonsense that has really developed in the college game, that is what I am familiar with.  It is out of control with that stuff right now and we have got to get that back on track.  25 years ago, and I am sure you know, if you had to deal with some of the stuff you are dealing with the off-the-field, the agent issues, the violation issues and all the garbage that is out there right now I certainly would not have gotten into coaching.  Hopefully with the powers that be and all the right people, I know one thing the NFL Commissioner has got a great outlook the way he is attacking the NFL right now and trying to bring respect and order, and I just love the way he is approaching it. [Emphasis added. ] If college football gets that we will have a chance to get back to that great game we all love.”

Most of the reactions to this have been about the “garbage” part of the quote, but what I’m reading there is a man who’s telling the NFL that he’s soon going to be ready to give coaching on Sundays a shot.  Because it’s clear that when Roger Goodell gets done, there won’t be any off-the-field problems in the pros.

When – not if – Meyer gets back into coaching, is anyone going to call him on his bullshit?