SEC coaches to Slive: we’ll see your oversigning proposal and raise you…

This is hilarious.

https://twitter.com/#!/TravHaney/status/76013001139953664

Best of all, seven SEC coaches voted to fund the proposed pay out of their own pockets.  (No, Richt wasn’t one of them.)

How are they going to top this at SEC Media Days?

Obviously, Terrelle Pryor never met Mudcat’s car.

Year2 has the details.

You could have fooled me.

Amidst news that the SEC has tweaked its infraction reporting protocol with the NCAA comes this rather high opinion the NCAA’s Director of Enforcement has about her organization:

“I believe they’re going to try and deal with the information in terms of what’s the best way to fully vet this,” Roe Lach said. “Because we’re the trained experts on how to conduct investigations, it makes sense for us to get involved on the front end as opposed to having to come in on the back end and possibly replow ground.” [Emphasis added.]

This from the folks who brought you an investigation based on a TMZ report.  I don’t know how she keeps a straight face with that schtick.

Why does Billy Donovan hate the SEC?

Seriously, that’s all I can come up with after reading about his proposal to seed the SEC basketball tournament not by conference regular season play, but based on RPI.  That would reduce the results of the conference’s regular season to virtual irrelevancy.  At which point you have to ask, why even bother to have one?

Of course, this being college basketball, he’ll be taken seriously.

https://twitter.com/#!/APMarkLong/status/75615229567975424

Gee, maybe they could have forced better schedules last season by not letting Auburn and LSU play conference games.

This is what people like me refer to when we rail on about devaluing the regular season.

Mark Richt on oversigning: no use crying over spilt water

The big story at the SEC meetings yesterday was Mark Richt spilling the contents of his water glass all over reporters’ recorders.  I don’t know how guilty he felt about that, but he sure opened up on the subject of oversigning with Marc Weiszer.  The upshot from his comments is that his position is more nuanced than the media has recently described it.

First of all, he’s not anti-oversigning.

… I think everybody should should have a right to manage their numbers. I think every university should be able to do that. I think oversigning is OK, in my opinion, if you sign over the number. Let’s say you have space for 15 by signing date and you sign 20. Well, if five of those guys know that there’s no room at the end that they are willing to grayshirt, they’re willing to come in January. The kid knows, the high school coach knows, everybody involved in recruiting if they know that there’s a chance that there’s no space for you. If everybody knows that on the front end, then I don’t see anything wrong with it ethically…

What he’s strongly opposed to is misleading recruits.

What I’ve said is if you sign five over and you get to that moment of truth and you have to tell two kids who thought they were coming in with everybody else and then all of a sudden you spring the news, hey there’s no room I’m sorry. We’ve got to come back in January, I don’t think that’s right…

But his most intriguing answer was about scholarships being renewable obligations and how kids might be encouraged to leave a program.  It’s very long and he talks specifics about Albert Hollis’ predicament, but conceptually at least he doesn’t sound overly troubled by either.

About recruits’ perceptions of scholarships:  “I think they all know it’s a one-year renewable deal.”

On a player leaving a program:

… Ever tell a kid they might want to look elsewhere for lack of playing time? We have exit meetings after every spring and we tell them where they are on the depth chart. We tell them what they have got to do to move up on the depth chart. If a kid is sizing the thing up and is saying I don’t know if I’m going to play then there’s constant rumors about kids thinking about transferring. If at the end of the spring he got beat out by another guy, a lot of times they’re thinking maybe they should be the starter or second string instead of third. Sometimes they start spinning it that hey maybe I need to go somewhere else. That happens at every program in America at all different levels of football.

Obviously, there’s a lot as to how a kid is told these things, but if I had to sum up Richt’s position it would be that as long as a coach is open and honest with a student-athlete/recruit about his status and the kid is given the opportunity to make an informed decision about his fate with a program, roster management should be within the discretion of the head coach.  That’s a fairly middle-ground approach from my perspective.  We’ll see how many of the folks at Destin with Richt see things similarly.

How much would financial fair play cost?

John Infante asks a great question:  should college athletic departments be self-supporting?

His answer isn’t so much that it couldn’t be done, but that we might not like the road taken to get there.

… For those who believe a Division I athletic department should not require assistance from the university, financial fair play regulations would be wildly successful. If an athletic department had to break even to be eligible for NCAA championships or bowl games, a lot of athletic departments would start breaking even quite quickly.

The problem is that some of those athletic departments would break even by shedding multiple sports and cutting administrative staff. Since the success of football and men’s basketball often drive revenue, cuts there could decrease opportunities to grow revenue, and thus keep the department afloat or improve competitiveness.

Phil Steele is high (on Georgia).

Allen Kenney snags a podcast interview with Steele.

The bulk of it (understandably) concerns Oklahoma, but at around the 20:00 mark, the conversation turns to Georgia.  Go listen for the details, but Steele thinks the story for the Dawgs this season is that talent (“they’re one of those four teams that rank in my top units in all eight position categories”) and schedule will outweigh coaching (Richt is Steele’s #1 hot seat candidate).

Undersigning

I’m missing something here – at least I hope I am – but this quote from Richt left me scratching my head a bit.

Richt confirmed Tuesday that he knew in advance that 2011 defensive line signee Chris Mayes would not qualify and have to attend junior college (Mayes is bound for Gulf Coast Community College). Richt said there were no other signees he knew that about in advance. Asked if he thinks all will make it, he replied, “Yeah, they’re all in the fight.”

Obviously, there’s “in advance” and then there’s “in advance”, but I hope that doesn’t mean before national signing day, because that would mean he deliberately left a roster slot on the table.

Some say it is better to be feared than loved.

I don’t know if that’s true, but it sure comes in handy sometimes.

Mark Richt faces media scrutiny about his position on oversigning, and gently retreats.

“I’m just going to listen to what everybody has to say before I decide,” Richt said. “Sometimes you think you know the right answer, and then you hear someone else’s opinion or at least rationale.”

Well, one man’s opinion nobody heard yesterday (at least in public) was that of Nick Saban.  That’s because the media didn’t ask him a single question about oversigning.

“This is the greatest interview I’ve ever had,” Saban quipped. “Not one question about Alabama football.”

Refreshingly, although not unexpectedly, Les Miles took a different path.

Just ran into Les Miles in the lobby here. The LSU head football coach was already holding court with a trio of other reporters, so I quickly asked him if he had addressed roster management issues, and if he had to please repeat it.

“I said that there has to be an alligator handler in every class. In fact Troy has got the swamp people. We’ve got to make sure that we keep a quality contingent of free-spirited men around.”

I’m coming around to the feeling that Les Miles is a national treasure.