Good article on Saban's over signing........
- Thread starter AROB44
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I think they probably are required to release it to the media, but nobody has taken them to court to make it happen.
what's the penalty? The NCAA just says, "pull someone's scholarship"? To me, that's the problem- there's no real penalty for oversigning.
If a school oversigns the 85, and they need to cut players, how is the NCAA going to police them when they say Player X didn't make his grades and has been taken off the team, or Player Y sustained an injury and will be placed on medical hardship, or Player Z broke team rules and will be kicked off the team?
Answer, they can't do anything about it. You can sign bring in 25 players per class. You can have 85 on scholarship. In theory, you can redshirt everyone, which gives you the opportunity to give out 125 scholarships to fill 85 slots. The math only works if there is some sort of attrition in the form of players not redshirting or players leaving the program either on their own or by force.
If the NCAA wants to fix it, give players a full 5 years of eligibility, no reshirts, and limit teams to enrolling 17 players per signing class. That way, even with zero attrition, you can't get over the 85 number. It would punish teams for attrition and eliminate the ability for coaches to make cuts.
What Saban, Nutt, Miles, and a lot of coaches have figured out is that you can shortcut the purpose of the 85 limit. The 85 limit is set to try to level the playing field and keep the best programs from being able to sign all the best players and then weed through them later like teams used to do in the 50s and 60s. The shortcut is to bring in your limit each year, and if you need room, you cut players that have been on the team that you already know aren't good enough to make room for the incoming class of players that still have a chance to be good enough.
It doesn't matter how good of a talent evaluator or recruiter you are, you're going to have busts in every class. The 85 rule is supposed to make you carry some of that dead weight. Saban just trims his fat to make room for the next class.
ETA: That still wouldn't address the issue of oversigning a class, if you consider that an issue. I don't, because you are limited to how many you can enroll. If you offer grayshirts, you're taking away from the number you can sign in the next class. It's not like you can hide those numbers, and you can't really make knowledgeable cuts of players before they get to campus, but limiting to 17 enrolled and creating a 5th year or eligibilty would really make the 85 limit the 85 limit.
The issue that comes into play then would be if you had players leave early, you lose that scholarship for how many ever years as well, just as if you had a player flunk out, quit, or get kicked off. If you had that rule in place, I don't think you'd see many players kicked off teams anymore. Coaches would give 2nd and 3rd chances to avoid losing the scholarship.
Answer, they can't do anything about it. You can sign bring in 25 players per class. You can have 85 on scholarship. In theory, you can redshirt everyone, which gives you the opportunity to give out 125 scholarships to fill 85 slots. The math only works if there is some sort of attrition in the form of players not redshirting or players leaving the program either on their own or by force.
If the NCAA wants to fix it, give players a full 5 years of eligibility, no reshirts, and limit teams to enrolling 17 players per signing class. That way, even with zero attrition, you can't get over the 85 number. It would punish teams for attrition and eliminate the ability for coaches to make cuts.
What Saban, Nutt, Miles, and a lot of coaches have figured out is that you can shortcut the purpose of the 85 limit. The 85 limit is set to try to level the playing field and keep the best programs from being able to sign all the best players and then weed through them later like teams used to do in the 50s and 60s. The shortcut is to bring in your limit each year, and if you need room, you cut players that have been on the team that you already know aren't good enough to make room for the incoming class of players that still have a chance to be good enough.
It doesn't matter how good of a talent evaluator or recruiter you are, you're going to have busts in every class. The 85 rule is supposed to make you carry some of that dead weight. Saban just trims his fat to make room for the next class.
ETA: That still wouldn't address the issue of oversigning a class, if you consider that an issue. I don't, because you are limited to how many you can enroll. If you offer grayshirts, you're taking away from the number you can sign in the next class. It's not like you can hide those numbers, and you can't really make knowledgeable cuts of players before they get to campus, but limiting to 17 enrolled and creating a 5th year or eligibilty would really make the 85 limit the 85 limit.
The issue that comes into play then would be if you had players leave early, you lose that scholarship for how many ever years as well, just as if you had a player flunk out, quit, or get kicked off. If you had that rule in place, I don't think you'd see many players kicked off teams anymore. Coaches would give 2nd and 3rd chances to avoid losing the scholarship.