NSD Fallout: What's Worth The Outrage? Comment Count

Ace


"Remember, don't say a damn thing."

It's been barely 36 hours since National Signing Day, and it's clear the top question on everyone's mind is this: What should we be outraged over?

Since message boards (yes, including ours) seem to indicate EVERYTHING, I'm here to attempt a more even-handed approach.

RAGE ON: Bait-and-Switch Coaches

Seth covered much of this in today's Dear Diary, so I'll keep this short. Yes, it's grossly disingenuous for coaches who've spent years selling recruits on the prospect of playing for their program to take other jobs the moment the ink dries on their letter of intent. I was not born yesterday, and therefore refuse to believe that now-ex OSU RBs coach Stan Drayton just happened to field an out-of-the-blue job offer from the Chicago Bears yesterday, or that UCLA DC Jeff Ulbrich is still wrestling with the decision of whether or not to take a job with the Atlanta Falcons.

Mike Weber got unlucky; he found out about Drayton after he'd signed his LOI. Roquan Smith was fortunate; Georgia coaches—out of the purity of their souls, I'm sure—alerted him to Ulbrich's potential flight before he'd put pen to paper, and now Smith will take a week to reassess his decision.

The lesson here isn't that recruits shouldn't go to a school based on their coaches. That's just stupid. They'll spend more time with their coaches—and specifically, their position coach—than any professor or faculty member over the next four years. Having a good relationship with their coaches is hugely important for their sanity; getting quality coaching equally so for their dreams of making it to the next level. Yes, they should take into account potential flight risks and hopefully choose a school they'd enjoy attending regardless of sports, but it's hard to see the bait-and-switch coming when a coach is telling you stuff like this and this.

Just as I was finishing up this post, news broke that Texas' D-line coach took the same job at Florida, despite assurances from Texas head coach Charlie Strong to just-signed recruits that he wasn't going anywhere:

A day later, not so much.

The real lesson here is to not sign LOIs. They're binding only from the prospect's end, and while everyone signs them, they're totally unnecessary; a financial aid agreement serves the same purpose while giving a prospective student-athlete the ability to avoid just this situation.

[Hit THE JUMP for sketchy media members, sketchy greyshirts, unfortunate fan reactions, Thomas Wilcher's strong words about OSU, and something we actually shouldn't be harping on the Buckeyes about. Oh, and Graham Couch being Graham Couch.]

RAGE ON: Media's Potential Complicity

There's nothing on-the-record to go on yet, but there's smoke from both UCLA...

Smith was unaware of the news, but Georgia’s coaching staff made certain that news got to Macon County as fast as possible. Speculation behind the scenes in the media is that at least one media outlet was aware Ulbrich was going to leave UCLA as long as three weeks ago, but sat on the story until after Signing Day.

“It was common knowledge,” said one reporter. “They just agreed not to report it until after signing day.”

...and Ohio State... 

...that reporters knew of the imminent coaching changes and refused to do their job in order to help the programs they're supposed to objectively cover.

I don't think there's any need to add commentary here. Congratulations on helping millionaires pull a fast one on high school kids, I guess?

RAGE OFF: Anybody's Individual Decision

For the love of all things sacred and holy, don't be this guy:

Mike Weber chose Ohio State, and while he may be rethinking that decision after Drayton's departure, he didn't just choose the Buckeyes because of their running backs coach. He may decide he wants to push for a release from his LOI; he may not. He definitely won't base that decision on Michigan fans crowing about how he made the wrong choice. These recruits have plenty of people giving them advice about their decision; namely, coaches and family members. They don't need your two cents, before or after the fact.

Even aside from the whole coaching situation, this isn't a good look:

I hate to break it to you, but Michigan's fanbase has plenty of those guys on the right, too. Scroll through the Twitter mentions of any recruit who didn't choose the Wolverines if you don't believe me. If there's a moral high ground among fanbases that care about recruiting, I've yet to find it. This just comes off as sour grapes.

RAGE ON: Bobby Petrino

Surprise! He's still a scumbag:

Louisville coach Bobby Petrino Monday morning did what few defenders around South Carolina could do the past three years to Dutch Fork RB Matt Colburn, stop him cold in his tracks. Actually, it was Cardinals' recruiter Todd Grantham who contacted Colburn and Silver Foxes coach Tom Knotts at 10:00 AM Monday morning with the news they no longer had room for Colburn in this class and want him to wait until January to enroll. In other words, here's a grayshirt for you Mr. Football.

The silver lining for recruits down the road—unfortunately, not for Colburn, who's yet to sign with a school—is that Dutch Fork has banned Louisville from recruiting at their school. That's the only real power high school coaches have when college coaches engage in this level of sleaziness.

Ohio State may have just burned a major bridge, as well:

"I think Urban Meyer will have to step his game up; we're going to have to talk," Cass Tech football coach Thomas Wilcher told Detroit Sports 105.1 on Friday. "He has come to my school and got the No. 1 athlete two years in a row.

"You cannot come over here, come up to the north and walk out of here with your pockets full and not give us respect.

"That's not gonna happen again, I can tell you that right now."

UCLA may have done likewise, though that's less of a concern for them with a small Georgia high school than it is for OSU and the Cass Tech pipeline they very much want to keep flowing.

RAGE OFF: Ohio State's "Oversigning"


"Cutting" a guy who saw PT on defense as a true freshman is rather unwise.

Michigan fans are up in arms about potential oversigning by Ohio State, but a closer look at the numbers shows that this is just normal roster management:

Being a few players over the 85 scholarship limit the day after national signing day isn't uncommon at all. Ohio State isn't even the only team in the Big Ten currently in that situation. Coaches know more about potential roster turnover and churn than fans do, and have to recruit accordingly.

During Ohio State's press conference following yesterday, Urban Meyer alluded to potential career ending injuries to Armani Reeves, Ron Tanner, and Devan Bogard. Lest any skeptical fan clamor that these are trumped up injuries, Reeves was a highly regarded regular contributor who would been playing if he hadn't missed games due to concussions last season, and Tanner and Bogard, both special teams contributors, have torn ACLs multiple times. They did not suffer minor ailments and were then pushed into hanging it up against their wishes.

The Buckeyes have already lost a whopping 12 players from their 2012 class. Anyone that doubts the legitimacy of the injuries should note that all three players mentioned above were legitimate contributors; this isn't a Sabanesque "instead of sitting on the bench for two more years, you now have a back injury." Armani Reeves, especially, is a significant loss.

It's worth noting here that Michigan is pretty darn close to being in the same situation. If they take Stanford transfer Wayne Lyons and add Roquan Smith, they'd be temporarily over the 85-man limit, and I haven't seen anyone here complain about either possibility; ditto Weber finding a way out of his LOI and coming back into the fold. Michigan wasn't about to turn away Chris Clark or Van Jefferson on Wednesday, either. Unless Lyons and Smith both end up as Wolverines, I'd expect Michigan will only hit the scholarship limit if they award them to a current walk-on or two.

Attrition happens in football, and coaches are usually aware of potential losses before anyone else. Taking that into account when putting together a recruiting class isn't sketchy; it's smart roster construction.

RAGE ON: Oh, Look, It's Graham Couch

Lansing's resident hot take artist is at it again. How dare these high school students celebrate the day they officially earn full scholarships to live out their dreams after a years-long process that's breathlessly covered by the very same media that considers Couch a colleague. Heck, Couch even hashtagged #NationalSigningDay, presumably so he could get more attention for this bit of twerpitude.

Couch attempted to cool his take almost immediately, and in doing so demonstrated a fundamental lack of knowledge about the recruiting calendar:

If you balk at a teenager having fun celebrating a life-changing event, perhaps the problem isn't with the teenager.

That even applies to an announcement as admittedly ridiculous as Iman Marshall's B/R music video. Which scenario do you think is more likely?

  1. Iman Marshall approaches Bleacher Report and requests that they produce a music video for his announcement, even though Marshall is already slated to make his decision live on ESPNU.
  2. B/R approaches Marshall about putting together the video, which will get B/R a ton of the pageviews they crave while stealing some thunder from ESPNU's NSD extravaganza.

I have my suspicions, and I certainly don't fault Marshall for getting caught up in the extreme amount of hype that he certainly didn't create on his own.

Comments

Coloblue

February 6th, 2015 at 3:57 PM ^

An LOI is a one year agreement. Rather than suffer all the inconveniences and penalties of trying to get out of the one he's party to now, he should take a year off - don't enroll full time anywhere - pick up some credits and get a part time job at Barwis Methods. Let the Ohio LOI expire, get a little ahead of the academic game and show up where he wants to play football next year as a freshman with all the physical development that Barwis could pour into him for the year he doesn't play.

In any event, let's be good to this guy no matter what he decides. Let's be real Michigan people. He's now seen the other side.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

February 6th, 2015 at 4:10 PM ^

Bait-and-switch coaches are EXACTLY why an early signing period is a rotten idea.  It's not a problem in basketball because the early signing period is in the middle of the season.  It'd be a huge problem in football because it'd fall right in the middle of coaching carousel season.

Magnum P.I.

February 6th, 2015 at 4:11 PM ^

Good post, Ace, but I think you're dismissing Ohio State's oversigning too easily.

According to Rivals, they've signed 122 players in the 2011 through 2015 classes. We've signed 101. For Ohio State, 20 of those guys have disappeared from their roster (not including graduates/early enrollees or the three career-enders you mentioned), and as far as I can tell they still have 93 scholarship players as of now (pending official announcements of the three career-enders and nonrenewed fifth years).  

By comparison, we've lost 13 of our 101 recruits, and as far as I can tell we are currently at 80 scholarship players (not counting walkon scholarships or new transfers).

So, can we explain the roster management decisions for all of these other early leavers who signed LOIs to player for Ohio State?

  1. Timothy Gardner
  2. Mike Mitchell
  3. Jayme Thompson
  4. Frank Epitropoulos
  5. Jamal Marcus
  6. Najee Murray
  7. Joey O'Connor
  8. David Perkins
  9. Se'von Pittman
  10. Luke Roberts
  11. Ricquan Southward
  12. Noah Spence
  13. Blake Thomas
  14. Brian Bobek
  15. Tommy Brown
  16. Jeremy Cash
  17. Conner Crowell
  18. DerJuan Gambrell
  19. Kenny Hayes
  20. Ejuan Price

 

Nolongerusingaccount

February 6th, 2015 at 5:01 PM ^

Although I am not "outraged" over Weber, I am sickened by oversigning since that could conceivably mean certain players are not getting the four year scholarships promised to them.  This is the kind of information that I have no problem with Harbaugh and staff using  for "negative" recruiting purposes.  

In fact, I would hope the NCAA require every school that goes over the 85 scholarship limit by more than 5 student athletes on NSD state that fact in their subsequent offer letters to recruits throughout the following recruiting year.  

Franz Schubert

February 6th, 2015 at 6:11 PM ^

Only Alabama has signed more players than OSU since Meyer arrived. They force out players every single year! This piece is wrong. Period. Oversigning is not going to happen when you are driving out unproductive recruits every year. As for Reeves he did get some playing time early but just go ask Buckeye fans how terrible he performed leading to him being passed up on the depth chart. Tanner actually played mop up minutes in the NCG  so yeah he has a career ending injury. OSU is dirty they have brought the SEC to the Big Ten. Just look at the number of recruits signed and you will have your answer.

Magnum P.I.

February 6th, 2015 at 8:44 PM ^

Yes, I'm not sure what Ace is talking about when he says the cuts this spring will be "just normal roster management." Having to shave eight players off of your roster because you signed 27 recruits without the space is not "normal roster management." It's oversigning. No one else in the Big Ten is in this situation. 

I take issue with two other comments:

 

The Buckeyes have already lost a whopping 12 players from their 2012 class.

 

They've officially "lost" ten (not including Reeves and Dunn), and that's precisely because they oversign and have had to shave a ton of guys from the 2011 and 2012 classes. Saying they "lost" them is doing OSU a service. Go look at those kids they "lost." Most were buried on the depth chart and transferred, flat out quit, or were dismissed. Only one was a medical. As I said above, they've cut 20 kids in the past four classes, and they'll have to cut eight more before the start of the season. That's ridiculous, and no one else in the Big Ten does anything similar.

 

It's worth noting here that Michigan is pretty darn close to being in the same situation.

 

No we're not. We have 80 scholarships officially committed right now. Ohio State has 93. We're doing things just like MSU, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and every other Big Ten team aside from Ohio State.  

Sorry for the fisking, Ace, but I think you guys are just being contrarian here. 

 

Burning Beard

February 7th, 2015 at 7:00 PM ^

A good chunk of those players were guys who comitted to Luke Fickell/Jim Tressell prior to the implosion. There is always going to be a huge number of transfers when a class experiences a coaching change. Look at the fallout from Rodriguez's classes under Hoke. Quit a few of these guys, like Mike Mitchell, Jamal Marcus, Noah Spence, David Perkins, and Jeremey Cash, were blue chip players at positions of need who would have seen the field. 
  • Timothy Gardner

Gardner was arrested before he arrived on campus and never joined the eam.

  • Mike Mitchell

Mitchell's father has a terminal illness and he asked to leave the team to be home with him and took a year off of football. He will re-enroll at Texas Tech and live at home.

  • Jayme Thompson

Transferred after a red shirt season due to injury. 

  • Frank Epitropoulos

Left the team to focus on his medical degree, stayed enrolled at Ohio State.

  • Jamal Marcus

Academically ineligible, transferred to Akron. Would have been starter in 2014 with Spence's suspension.

  • Najee Murray

Suspended indefinetely for a, "violation of team rules".

  • Joey O'Connor

Multiple knee injuries, transferred to Colorado State and quit football.

  • David Perkins

Transferred to Bowling Green, was arrested, re-transferred to ISU.

  • Se'von Pittman

Transferred to Akron after, "off field incidents"

  • Luke Roberts

Transferred to Harvard(!) to focus on academics.

  • Ricquan Southward

Left during the school year for "personal reasons", hasn't rejoined another university.

  • Noah Spence

Lifetime ban from the Big 10 for two failed drugs tests for ecstacy. Likely to play for Eastern Kentucky this hyear.

  • Blake Thomas

Quit football after a training camp injury that left him with a high risk of paralysis.

  • Brian Bobek

Transferred to Minnesota.

  • Tommy Brown

Transferred to Akron after not earning a starting spot on the O-line.

  • Jeremy Cash

Transferred to Duke, All-American and likely to be drafted when he leaves.

  • Conner Crowell

Quit football after having two microfracture knee surgeries.

  • DerJuan Gambrell

Kicked off the team after arrest for assault.

  • Kenny Hayes

Left the school, transferred to Toledo, never saw the field due to an arrest.

  • Ejuan Price

Asked to be let out of his LOI, never joined the team.

ChicagoGangViolins

February 6th, 2015 at 4:50 PM ^

 

Yes it does display that information on the label. Which is apropos for the denizens of Columbus given that Columbus' crew transmitted syphilis across the Atlantic. Never touch anything a Buckeye has touched if you can avoid it, just to be safe. (G'nyuck nuck nuck, Larry/Mo/Curly.)

 

Nolongerusingaccount

February 6th, 2015 at 4:44 PM ^

Still no "outrage" here nor do I have any particular sympathy for Weber.  A major premise of having any college athletic program is to recruit "student athletes."  Call me crazy, but I think recruits should probably take some responsiblity and put more emphasis on choosing a school for education rather than relying primarily on relationships with position coaches.  

I understand that's not how most kids choose schools, but I honestly believe that is a part of the problem (along with slimy coaches).  

No, I don't think it's the end of the world that Weber may have to wait a year assuming he's still absolutely distraught that his position coach left and wants to transfer immediately.  Regardless, he still has a scholarship.  He should take advantage of it.  

I absolutely hate OSU and how it does things, but I don't think that completely absolves the decisionmaking process of recruits and their parents.   

I don't hate Weber.  Far from it, but I don't think it's a matter of absolute and complete moral OUTRAGE that some here seem to think it is,

 

Nolongerusingaccount

February 6th, 2015 at 7:53 PM ^

Personally, I don't care how he decommitted. He's 17 years old. I did stupid things when I was his age too.

I just think people are partially overreacting because it's OSU, which seems petty to me. I wish Weber the best but there are much worse situations in life than a free ride to school (and having to adjust to a new RB coach).



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MaizeAndBlueWahoo

February 6th, 2015 at 6:15 PM ^

Call me crazy, but I think recruits should probably take some responsiblity and put more emphasis on choosing a school for education rather than relying primarily on relationships with position coaches.

So I guess what kind of a boss you have has no bearing on how much you like your job?

Also, Ohio State is not a bad school.  A degree from there is a perfectly good degree.  99.99% of these kids aren't aiming for careers on Wall Street or some fancy law firm or Harvard medical school, so they have absolutely no need to give a shit about the prestige of the school handing out the diploma.

Nolongerusingaccount

February 6th, 2015 at 7:35 PM ^

First, I wasn't saying losing a position coach is not a factor. I just don't think it should be the primary factor in deciding which school to attend on scholarship.

Also, you automatically assumed that I believe OSU is a "bad" school since I suggest that recruits should consider the quality of education more in their decisions.  Yes, I do think UM is overall a better school with better programs and opportunities for the future.  I'm a homer (and ***hole) in that way. 

Second, I wouldn't consider the RB position coach a "boss" at all.  Unless you have some employment contract, a "boss" can fire you at will with basically nothing but severance (if your company offers severance).  Mike Weber still has a great opportunity to get a free education, which is why I suggested he take advantage of it.

If he is still distraught over his RB coach and doesn't find the replacement RB coach to be satisfactory, he should feel free to transfer.  Again, not the end of the world for him.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

February 6th, 2015 at 8:31 PM ^

The RB coach can't "fire" a kid officially, but one, he's the guy who Weber would have the most contact with during his time there, and two, he'll have a lot of say in Weber's role on the team.  In that sense he's very much like a supervisor or boss.

In this case it's not really even all about that, though; the fact is that Urban Meyer and the Ohio State staff flat-out lied to him for their own benefit.  I can't think of any situation at all where it'd be beneficial to have zero trust in the people who'll supervise you, instruct you, set examples for you, and lead you.

DonAZ

February 6th, 2015 at 7:33 PM ^

My sentiments exactly.  That was one of the finest pieces of writing I've seen in a long time.  I can quibble with a point here or there, but I can't quibble with the piece as a whole.  Absolutely top-notch writing.  Top. Notch.

quercus99

February 6th, 2015 at 5:26 PM ^

We tend to focus on the noisier elements of a fandom, as such, it is easy to find asshats anywhere.  For my part, this was a non-issue, Weber chose not to go to Michigan.  So to watch UM fans get all worked up about it tends to reinforce the notion of the noisier elements making our fandom look like something that it isn't.

It is likely that things weren't done in the most sincere and open manner in OSU recruiting Weber, but Michigan fans can't be the people to gather the facts and shout the news from the rafters.  By being Michigan fans, we are immediately disqualified from impartially judging the actions of Ohio State football.  The info needs to come from outside our fandom if it is to have any effect.  Any comments from our community comes accross as sour grapes and doesn't hurt OSU at all.

Regarding the blog and the community here, I have been impressed with the fairly even handed coverage of the staff, and even more impressed with the attempts at self policing by our members.  But after witnessing a couple of years of snowflake threads after Hoke losses, it seems a bit disingenuous to claim that the mgoblog community is a gentlemen's club of rational and dispassionate discourse.  It is more a hotbed of emotional and passionate types, willing to lash out at the first sign ineptitude or wrongdoing that could hurt UM.

This is probably a good thing, if everybody thought like me, Harbaugh probably wouldn't be our coach, I thought RichRod deserved a 4th year, and only decided that Hoke had to go after the Maryland loss.

Anyway, I hope that people will at least refrain from bashing a 17 year old who has made some poor decisions in the last week.  I would rather that we felt bad for him, than angry that he chose our hated rivals. 

JoFree

February 6th, 2015 at 6:05 PM ^

with Weber signing an OSU LOI.  He's entitled to choose wichever school he wishes to attend. We basically all did that as 17/18 year-olds- we chose a school.

What frosts my ass is Meyer's seemingly flippant comment: I had a conversation with Mike and it's time to move forward.  

I view the tone of that satement as essentially Meyer basically saying I really don't give shit about Mike Weber and fuck you Michigan we have your #1 recruit, you don't.  

saveferris

February 8th, 2015 at 11:54 AM ^

I'm less outraged over the duplicity of the coaching staffs at UCLA and OSU than I am with the apparent collaboration with the local media to protect their secrets. Makes you wonder what other secrets they're keeping in the best interests of the football program. Professional journalism is truly dead in this country.