This is easily the most over-the-top defense of oversigning I’ve read recently (h/t Oversigning.com). The author takes more shots at targets than I can keep up with in a brief blog post, but this one is all you really need to get a flavor for his rant:
… As I mentioned the other day, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution launched an attack on USC by blaming the school for the plight of LB Lorenzo Mauldin, who still remains committed to the Gamecocks but is now looking at other schools who will admit him as a non-qualifier.
But those stories are easily dismissed as the ramblings of a fanatical newspaper still bitter a month after National Signing Day about USC reeling in 11 elite prospects from the Peach State while Georgia signed zero recruits from South Carolina.
The AJ-C as a bitter, fanatical newspaper? Ho-kay.
If this is what winning a division title does for the Gamecock faithful’s mindset, look out world. I think I liked it better in the simpler days when they settled for insisting that Corey Jenkins was a Heisman Trophy candidate.
Get The Picture 
Good grief, do they ever sign a Georgia player we actually want?
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The AJC as a Bitter, UGA Homer, that’s very funny to say the least!
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They’ve obviously never looked at the AJC website or read the sports section of the print edition before the article in question.
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South Carolina…Winning.
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Georgia fans can’t process the mind of a SC fan nor do they expect us to be able to. Tiger blood runs strong in that fanbase.
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Duh!
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Following its awesome SEC East title and not-so-awesome drubbing in the SEC Championship Game, South Carolina proclaims itself to be “not bi-polar but bi-winning.”
After holding up some Gatorade named Tiger Blood, they released a statement: “That is what we’re all doing. Winning.” They were then reminded the Tigers were Clemson and they were just cocks.
Meanwhile, they revealed that comedian Steve Spurrier is “awesome” and went on to say, “He’s a mad genius. He’s a gift to all things galactic and extragalactic. He’s got liquid magic. You don’t speak to him, you just absorb him. He really doesn’t care what people think, but they think he’s awesome and they’re right. He’s awesome every second of every day because he’s a winner.”
When told he was banned from Groveland, Spurrier replied, “Just as long as it’s not Pahokee.”
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Damn AJC homers, especially that Mark Bradley.
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Don’t forget Schultz. HUGE Dawg fan.
((sarcasm meter exploded))
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At the bottom of that rant, the writer does give some respect to the the thoughts of the FL president. So, as long as it’s not a newspaper or blogger, it’s legit criticism. But wait, he then attempts to degrade the FL opinion with ifs and buts. It looks like he thinks every team in the East (and every news source not in the Palmetto State) is jealous of SC’s brief spurt of success, which, of course, is delusional.
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Hey just because your paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.
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+1 for the Territorial Pissings reference.
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Amazing. This guy is the reason bloggers get the “guy in their parents’ basement” reputation. Except for the fact that trailers don’t have basements, so he’s probably in a crawlspace.
By the way, South Carolina, keep polishing that Eastern Division trophy. You barely managed to hang on to win the division title in a year where Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee all had their worst (third worst in UT’s case) teams in the past 20 years. Then you got spanked in the Dome. So, good luck with your hopes that all three division powers will once again be completely and utterly inept, and that UGA will once again fumble twice in the red zone.
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slab on grade.
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There was only one UGA fumble in the red zone. The other fumble you’re thinking about was Garcia’s. So, we were even on drive-killing fumbles.
If you think that game was anything other than the 11-point loss it was for you, you’re delusional. USC won by 11 points, had twice as many first downs, and controlled time of possession by over 10 minutes. Considering that for years your fan base has mocked South Carolina fans for claiming moral victories over USC-UGA games that were infinitely closer than the 2010 matchup, it might make sense for you to cut your losses on this one.
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Actually, you’re right. I was thinking of our two fumbles in the Miss State game. That said, the difference in that ballgame was one player. I give Marcus Lattimore all of the credit in the world, and I’m not looking forward to playing him again. If you want to go on thinking that South Carolina is light years ahead of Georgia because of what happened that day, be my guest. I remember the way the rest of the season played out, and I notice you don’t have much to say about the fact that it took UGA, Florida, and Tennessee all imploding for your school to back into Atlanta.
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No, the rest of your post largely made sense. I def. don’t think USC is light years ahead of UGA (although I do think last year’s win was convincing), and I agree that USC did have the good luck to field one of its best teams ever during the same year the traditional powers were each suffering. I’m sure USC will have its hands full with UGA this year, particularly with the game in Athens. That said, USC has a lot of reason to believe that it will be improved against this year, and while I expect UGA and UF to improve also, I def. think we’ll be competitive again.
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You kicked our arse that game, no doubt about it. But the delusions that still run rampant in cola are incredible. How many of those blue chippers you stole out of Georgia according to that blogger did we actually offer?
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Like I said below, not many if any at all. I agree with you there.
Just so we can agree that there are delusional fans in both camps, though, let’s not forget that Georgia fans seem to already think they’re back when your last game was a 10-6 loss to Central Florida. And that was WITH the best SEC receiver of the past 20 years or so.
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Amazing how us dawg fans can be that way. I *HOPE* we are back as much as the next guy but am not assuming anything until we’ve played the first few games of the year (beginning with Boise and USCe). Your comment about Central Florida Green are spot on.
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Hey, there are plenty of delusional fans in all fanbases. The most notable thing about them is that they’re the first ones to point out that the other school’s fans are delusional.
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All I know is that all the other fans are delusional. Plus, they will all be humiliated when a group of people that I don’t know beats a group of people they don’t know in a game that neither one of us plays in.
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+1
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Every “cock” has its day? The implication here is that a team that has never won the East before has one time when when all the planets align and everything is going it’s way. The dumpster fire at Georgia has been put out IMHO. Florida with new coaches and a new system is certainly an opportunity for Dawgs and USC….. as for Tennessee? I think the dumpster melts down to the concrete before they turn it around.
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I think there’s some truth to all of this, but I also think you guys are underestimating the role USC played here. It wasn’t just that the rest of the teams sucked; it was also that USC has improved during the Spurrier tenure. USC hasn’t always had players like Lattimore, Alshon Jeffery, Stephon Gilmore, and Jadeveon Clowney. These guys will all be back this year, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up about USC returning to 0-11 just yet.
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You’ve improved some, but not as much as your fanbase thinks. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gotten your asses smoked even worse than our 6-7 team did, when you played for all the marbles in Atlanta. You weren’t ready for prime time yet. That was the worst loss any East team has ever took in the championship. And to be quite honest, Auburn was not nearly the best team to win the conference the past ten years or so, but you all certainly made them look it.
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Well, we played them close earlier in the year, so we were capable. I still think that we lost the wind in our sails after that lucky TD at the end of the half and never recovered, but I’m probably being too kind.
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I think in all fairness there are a lot of sports pundits picking the Cocks to repeat the East championship in 2011. Maybe USC is the new UT? 😉
Go Dawgs!
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Well, like I said, I respect what Lattimore was able to do to us. And, the lines played very well in that game to give him an opening to start with.
However, witness how well your team played when Lattimore was hurt. I won’t say South Carolina was a one-man team, but I think the Peach Bowl is the only way the Gamecocks would have gotten to the Dome if he’d signed with another school.
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Yeah, but come on, man. He does play for us. That’s like saying UGA would have never won a national championship or multiple SEC championships in the early 80s if Herschel had signed with another school. We get to take credit for what our best player does.
I do worry about what happens if he goes down again, though. Spurrier didn’t have an answer, even against Kentucky.
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f’real. The “if you didn’t have Lattimore” argument is simply retarded. If we didn’t have Herschel in the early 80’s, Dooley might have been out of a job in 1981 or 82. But we did have him and the rest is history.
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Hmmm… South Carolina lost 5 games last year, correct? Not exactly running away with the east in it’s worst year ever. I don’t think it will take much of a turnaround from UGA or Florida to knock them off their high horse.
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“Moreover, commissioner Mike Slive is a smart dude who smell a rat from a mile away.”
This is my favorite part of the whole post. The whole Cecil Newton deal combined with the bad grammar makes this one funny on so many levels.
Also, I wasn’t aware we lost so many “elite” prospects to South Carolina. Average star rating for USCe recruits from Georgia is 2.9. Not exactly what I would call elite there. Man, I wish comments were enabled on that blog. This guy would get roasted.
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Maybe instead of dreaming up fanciful conspiracy theories centering around the AJC, the author’s time would be better spent pondering what good Spurrier’s massive oversigning did the Gamecocks if it only earned them (according to Rivals) the seventh-best recruiting class in the SEC.
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I have no issue with anyone labeling the AJC as “fanatical”, their propaganda and slanted distortion of events is why I haven’t bought one in over 25 years. But calling it as newspaper is something I find outrageous. How do they even continue in business? Maybe paranoid Gamecocks and AubieCanes buy them to see what GT fans think about college football and cricket.
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+1 billion
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Just went over fallacies in my logic and critical thinking class. Classic example of a ad hominem-circumstantial fallacy of relevance where the author ignores the argument made by the other and simply attacks the other with saying well this is his circumstance so his argument is invalid. Even if the AJC is a fanatical newspaper bitter about UGA losing “elite” prospects to USCe (it’s not), it still does not allow for the dismissal of its argument.
Long story short, the guy’s an idiot.
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Hate to say it, but I have to agree that it’s a pretty silly article. Most of the guys we took from Georgia weren’t even on UGA’s radar.
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You may not have gotten players on our radar this year, but you have a good team that will remain good. I really was not that upset losing to you guys this year because for the first time in a long time I thought you were physically better.
As far as 2011, I do not see us beating you in Athens. We simply do not have the players. Plus, with Florida having a tough SEC schedule, and Tennessee in rebuilding mode, I say that you repeat as East Champion.
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Thanks. I think we have a good shot at another good year, particularly if Garcia improves or we find another QB.
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The truly impressive thing about SC’s recruiting this year is that they were able to hang on to the “elite” guys from the state of South Carolina.
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Exactly. South Carolina’s recent improvements have depended on doing a better job convincing the top in-state guys to stay home than in going into GA for players. Gilmore, Jeffery, Lattimore, Clowney, et al, are all guys who five years ago would have gone to UGA, UF, ‘Bama, etc. Over the years there have been numerous great players who left South Carolina for other SEC programs, like Stephen Davis, Albert Haynesworth, AJ Green, and Carlos Dunlap. South Carolina will never be able to compete with UGA for top GA players on a regular basis. However, there’s plenty of talent in South Carolina that we can have if we can continue our upward swing.
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Whoa…………..I beg to differ!
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Chris Weinke, Quincy Carter, Corey Jenkins. Discuss.
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I imagine Mark Richt would respectfully disagree.
As a Dawg fan who really, really hopes Coach Richt can turn this thing around in time, I respectfully disagree.
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Honestly, it’s so far over the top I can’t get too angry about it. It’s a great illustration of some of the paranoia surrounding this issue, but it’s not good for anything else except a laugh.
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True, but I think it illustrates the problem with pushing concerns about oversigning’s effect on competitive advantage. If that’s the tack Slive intends to take in June with his constituents, I predict he’ll run into a fair amount of resistance.
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If by constituents you mean the administrators and school presidents, they don’t care as much as the coaching staffs. If by constituents you mean the crazies, I think Slive gives them dismissive wanking motion.
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The former, obviously.
The issue isn’t whether those guys care as much as their coaches, just whether they care enough.
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I agree, Senator. Guys like Machen will say the right thing when asked, but how much of their time are they really going to spend on oversigning? They have much bigger problems to worry about, like, you know, dwindling state funding and the impending explosion of the college tuition bubble.
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Machen and Florida officials have privately been going after the issue for years. That’s where the Houston Nutt Rule came from.
They were given promises from other SEC school officials over the last couple years that those officials would work to end or at least severely limit the practice at their schools. Those officials lied, so now Machen and McGarity have taken this public.
They are pissed and it is at the top of their agenda for SEC presidents and ADs meetings this June.
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OK, I stand corrected on Machen. I guess he wouldn’t be speaking on it publicly if he didn’t care.
However, have you ever considered that maybe the reason other university presidents don’t share his zeal isn’t because they’re unethical but, rather, because they’re ethically obligated to worry about more important things? Oversigning is probably the most significant ethical issue confronting college football today…which puts it far, far below many other issues confronting university presidents in terms of importance. Oversigning is an issue that ADs and football coaches need to address, but considering the problems at USC these days, it’s not something I want our president to spend too much of his time on. I hope he speaks up in favor of more student-athlete-friendly regulations and moves on.
The University of Florida is in such financial straits right now that it compels its full-time students to go to summer school and stay in on-campus housing at least one year while they’re in school so it can make ends meet. Maybe Machen should give some thought to how he can address issues of this nature before he moves on to oversigning. Only by overestimating the importance of football could one see oversigning as more important than such issues.
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Whether or not they have more important things on their plates, the school presidents are going to go to this conference and this idea of ending oversigning is going to be pitched. They’ve already invested the time in going, and none of them is unethical (probably)… if Machen and the Georgia president and whoever else proposes the Big Ten’s regulations, who would speak against it?
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You’re kidding, right? I can see Arkansas, LSU, both Mississippi schools, both Alabama schools, South Carolina and (maybe) Tennessee objecting, depending upon how Slive pitches the deal.
That doesn’t mean he can’t find some common ground, but it’s naive to suggest that every school president is on the same page with Bernie Machen.
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All of those school’s football programs might object, but would the university presidents? Robert Witt excepted, all of them would be at least willing to listen, and if presented the right way, it’s possible that Slive could get a vote passed changing the recruiting/oversigning rules.
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Anything’s possible. It all depends on how it’s pitched and what Slive is willing to settle for. I doubt you’ll see anything as dramatic as you’re clearly hoping for.
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Robert Witt has presided over all of this at Alabama. He’s allowed the document redacting, Saban’s lying to the press about total scholarship numbers, and athletic department officials trying to intimidate press members away from asking about oversigning. He will fight this to the very end.
These other SEC presidents said at past SEC meetings that they would work to stop it, but they completely refused to do so.
That’s why Machen went public.
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What presidents do not share his zeal?
Other conferences and schools have largely eliminated this stuff. So they don’t have to speak out as publicly on it because the issue doesn’t really exist in their regions. That doesn’t mean they don’t share his belief that it is a very unethical practice.
You act like Machen is spending all or most of his time on this. He wrote a letter for SI that states the obvious and then moved on.
All that is needed from South Carolina officials is a vote at SEC meetings to end the practice. They don’t have to stay up all night and day till then. They can simply state that they agree with Machen (as UGA officials have) and then vote accordingly in June.
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And I hope they do that. However, as The Senator says above, the problem is going to come in when the administrators get resistance from the coaches and athletic directors at the problem schools. At that point, are Machen and the other presidents going to spend a significant amount of time on this, or are they going to let Slive and the ADs fight it out? That’s where I think we’re going to see just how important these presidents really view our passion for football to be in the grand scheme of their responsibilities.
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“What presidents do not share his zeal?”
The eight Bluto referred to in his at 4:34 p.m., above?
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Bernie knows how to multi-task. He can tackle oversigning on the weekends.
For starters, they’re still ready, willing and able to tase any bro who disrupts any UF campus forum, like by asking a question, .
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/apr/23/university-florida-adopts-revised-taser-policy/
He’s on Skeletor’s economic development transition team of corporate overlords to lay the groundwork to eliminate government and all regulation on business,
http://quinnell.us/sspb/?p=9284
he’s a giver,
http://abcnews.go.com/OnCampus/story?id=6434106
and it’s only a proposed 30% hike in tuition.
http://chalkboard.blogs.gainesville.com/tag/machen/
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I have always felt that this article by BrADley is a tease on DAWG fans. Even granting that we offered all those GEORGIA (State), UGA will be over signing if they all ended up with the DAWGS. BrADley will then attack UGA due to that. AJC is never a Homer and their attack of UGA has always been below the belt and under handed.
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UGA cannot give out 100 new scholarships every signing period even if they like to anyway. That is why that article by BrADley is pure junk.
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Is SLIVE smart or a DUMBASS????? If he is honestly SMART, those decisions on Auburn, and Green sounded and smelled coming from somebody dishonestly smart or corrupt in the worse sense.
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“But those stories are easily dismissed as the ramblings of a fanatical newspaper still bitter a month after National Signing Day about USC reeling in 11 elite prospects from the Peach State while Georgia signed zero recruits from South Carolina.”
Maybe we’re looking at this from the wrong perspective: This is not a shot at UGA per se, but a shot at all Georgia colleges. UGA offered 4 recruits from South Carolina and 0 of the 11 signed by USC. On the other hand, GT, Valdosta State, Georgia State, GMC may have been hot and heavy after the USC recruits.
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I demand an apology from that dimwit of a blogger. Now!
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(i) To his credit, Steve Spurrier has been gracious in his comments(/i)
SOS has never been gracious in his life, doesn’t know what it looks like.
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Gracious in his comments… hilarious.
Like this typically Spurrier shot he took at Jordan Montgomery’s high school coach:
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gamecock man states it well and factually in his posts. What he didn’t bring up (admirably) was that we were lucky to win the previous two years. They fumbled when ready to score and had numerous drives blunted by their own undoing and Garcia’s nervousness. Last year SC thumped our butts due mainly to Lattimore, but also due to Garcia finally having a decent game against us. Part of that can also be attributed to Lattimore when we moved up to stop him. Garcia then proceeded to burn us. SC’s losses can be pinned to the SEC learning from our experience and also to Lattimore’s injury.
Adding Clowney to their D will help, but one has to look at what they lost on D this year. The top three D players are back also. Add a new set of competent players who will be coached up vs UGA with the idea that the point margin might not be the same, but the result will be. Let’s don’t kid ourselves. This game will be up to the same highjinks as we have all experienced before and we had best prepare now as if there is not a second to loose. The O line has to open holes and our tailbacks have to escape the athleticism of Clowney. And our D line has to hold fast and stop Lattimore. Then and only then can we envision our fast DEs and linebackers taking a shot at playboy Garcia. Plus we have forgotten about the QB that Spurrier threatened Garcia with last year. I expect he has progressed some since then. I expect that SC will be the toughest team to beat next year.
What I’m trying to say is that railing against Spurrier concerning overrecruiting is like pissing in the wind. It makes you feel good for the moment, but the end result is unpleasant and it ain’t what you led yourself to believe. I don’t like Spurrier any more than the next Dawg fan, but don’t lose sight of the fact that he overcame a lot of player dissention, theft and disciplinary problems handed him from the outset. Hate him , but don’t underestimate him. He has gradually built SC into an SEC power team.
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Also:
Um, they went 5-3 and lucked out to become only the 2nd 5-3 division winner in SEC history. They went 9-5 for the season.
Congrats and all, but yawn…
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If you think that is all the complaints about oversigning are about, then you are greatly missing the point.
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I am against oversigning, but I am not losing any sleep over it, and I am not attacking any school that oversigns, unless UGA starts the practice. I want to see academics improved all across the SEC. There is a reason that the teams that score the highest APRs in the conference do not oversign. I see nothing wrong with signing a kid and the kid attending Junior College. If he keeps a good GPA and keeps his nose clean and works hard on the field and off the field then by all means give him a scholarship.
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