This isn’t the first time Bruce Feldman has made an assertion like this (h/t Oversigning.com):
… One of the points I brought up on the show was about the practice of schools rewarding coaches with bonuses for signing a “top” class (either top 5, top 10 or top 25), or for landing a certain number of four-star players. With coaches having even more of an incentive to meet certain quotas and rankings, they often try to sign certain recruits that they know might have a very tough time qualifying academically.
I wrote about the “Sign-and-Place” method in “Meat Market,” and for schools that deal heavily with junior college recruits, that also factors in. The process is this: Sign the shaky four-star prospect so that you can up your recruiting ranking, impress other prospective recruits, appease your fan base (and, in turn, the administration), increase your own chance of landing that recruiting bonus, and then send the players who can’t get in academically to a junior college as if it’s a farm system. If the kid turns out to be a complete knucklehead or flops on the field, you forget about him. If not, you didn’t take up a spot for two years and then the juco coach, who is thrilled you sent him a talented player, has protected him for you and sends you back a more ready-to-play, developed prospect.
Contra Joshua, I don’t think a recruiting bonus is unethical, but it certainly is the sign of a stupid athletic director. (And Jimmy Sexton, probably.) I just wish Feldman would give us a few specific examples.
I will say I think Feldman stretches the sign-and-place stuff a little bit. Richt has done his fair share of that over the years; I can’t say that I’ve seen the Georgia fan base get that excited about kids who don’t show up on campus with the rest of their class. Maybe the reaction at other schools is different, though.
Get The Picture 
I have still never figured out how a kid can go to a “Prep School” and still retain all of his eligibility. I am glad that UGA seems to have dropped the practice of recruiting Hargrave and Fork Union entirely, but that was certainly a bigger part of recruiting earlier in Richt’s tenure.
It’s just ridiculous to me that you can have kids like Jerrell Powe, who was listed as an Ole Miss signee in 2005 and 2006, mysteriously disappeared for a little while, then showed up to Oxford. He played in 2010 as a true senior in what would technically have been his SIXTH year of eligibility.
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Just out of curiousity.. What obligations do these kids have to come to UGA after doing to a JC? Have we had the intention of sending kids to a JC and they end up going somewhere else instead of UGA when their two years are up?
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I wonder what percentage of kids that go to Juco initially end up resigning with their original school?
Other than Reggie (f**cking) Nelson, I can’t think of many Florida players that originally signed with the Gators, went to Juco and then returned to play for the orange and blue.
What has Georgia’s experience been?
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Pretty consistent. There are two kids at GMC right now who are expected to resign with the 2012 class.
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Correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t the contracts of the coaches public record, with the exception of Vanderbilt which is a private school. So, if these signing class bonuses exist, shouldn’t we be able to find out who has them?
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I would think so.
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I made this point the last time Feldman was out there pushing this ‘bonus’ theory. You can search HC contracts at the USA Today database and Feldman should be able to acquire assistant coach contracts through open records requests.
If he keeps repeating it, I guess it will become fact.
I’m not saying these incentives don’t exist, but if there is a ‘practice of schools rewarding coaches with bonuses’; then source that and give me a name of a college or a coach. Otherwise, don’t perpetuate your own rumor as fact just because you have an axe to grind.
I continue to believe that Feldman is a hack with an agenda.
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