Give me a ridiculously large roster, or give me death
Houston Nutt would just as soon prefer to be able to sign a whole battalion of Rebels when February rolls around, thank you very much. And he intends to say so when the SEC discusses oversigning and grayshirting in Destin next week.
"It’s a very difficult job to try to manage, to keep two, three deep at every position," Nutt said. He says he hasn’t ‘run off’ players just to meet his numbers, isn’t dishonest and said that he doesn’t ‘non-renew’ a scholarship player unless he’s involved in disciplinary issues. But he says if a player comes to him and says his goal is to start and Nutt doesn’t see it, he might suggest that it’s not a bad idea if he goes somewhere else.
Because that's completely different, don't you think?
What APR does and doesn't tell us about oversigning
Over at And The Valley Shook, Poseur bravely attempts to bring these things called "numbers" to the oversigning debate. I know; madness.
In any case, the numbers do tend to show that SEC schools, the perceived biggest oversigners, don't do markedly worse on the APR than Big Ten schools, the perceived bastions of academia that don't follow such paths. Which is interesting to note and proves a point, as far as it goes.
There are a couple of problems with the concept, however. First of all, APR is terribly flawed as a way to judge academic progress, as almost anyone not gainfully employed by the NCAA will tell you.
Secondly, I'm not sure how the NCAA counts a student who gets bumped to a medical hardship scholarship or otherwise shunted off the roster but remains on track for graduation, which is one of the more creative ways of managing a roster.
Finally, oversigning is more likely to affect players who never show up on APR numbers: Recruits who don't make it to campus for whatever reason. Those are the players that many of us are worried about, and it's difficult to say how many of them there are or what the APR numbers would look like if they were counted.
Houston Nutt does have a scholarship offer lying around somewhere ...
The ever indecisive Tate Forcier is now saying he might attend Auburn. Or anywhere else in America.
Chris Fowler isn't to blame for Peyton Manning not getting the Heisman
I'm not going to get into the nearly 15-year-old debate over who should have won the Heisman in 1997, because it honestly doesn't stir that much outrage in me one way or the other. But a new book about ESPN, called Those Guys Have All the Fun, reveals that Tennessee archenemy Chris Fowler voted for Peyton Manning for the Heisman that year. As for whether he or Woodson should have won -- why does it still matter so much?
What Full Cost-of-Attendance Really Means
John Infante brilliantly dissects all the ins and outs of the Up North Conference's idea for more complete scholarships for student-athletes mean. And he points out one benefit that your humble correspondent hadn't thought of.
If a student-athlete can no longer be swayed by pocket money, agents will be forced to provide bigger benefits to student-athletes. And bigger benefits are easier to catch.
Unless schools get the money for the scholarships by cutting the compliance departments. Not that they would ever do a thing like that.