adkindo Retired Number
Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 40345 Location: Dirty South
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 9:04 am Post subject: College Athletics Dirty Little Secret - The Uncommittable Scholarship |
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Recruiting’s Biggest Bait-and-Switch: The Uncommittable Scholarship Offer
Quote: | On Wednesday, hundreds of high school prospects will be left holding dozens of meaningless scholarship offers, signing with a school only after other programs, despite offering them a scholarship, never accepted their commitment. Maybe those schools found a better player at that position, or maybe the spots in the class filled up. Some scholarship offers aren’t ever committable, just fancy invitations to a school’s summer camp, while others are only committable for a certain amount of time. In the most egregious cases, coaches rescind offers out to committed prospects, and in other instances, schools strongly suggest that certain commits seek other options. “The coaches mother---- the kids,” says one major college assistant coach who wished to remain anonymous. “It’s the biggest problem in our game right now. It’s bull----.” |
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This is a great article by SI highlighting an issue I have seen first hand and been critical of at my favorite program. It is terrible in football, and a growing issue in basketball. Each D1 Football program is allowed to give a max of 25 Athletic Scholarships per year (there are a few loopholes to carry forward and backward offers), and schools are out there offering over 400 scholarships 2 years in advance! They mean nothing....the kid can verbally commit, and it still means nothing as the school can pull the offer before signing day. Often schools will not even allow the non elite kids to verbally commit even though they have "offered" a scholarship.
It was ugly this year as the week of early signing, WVU pulled multiple scholarship offers to kids that had been verbally committed for over a year! That usually means they have quit visiting schools and schools have slowed down recruiting them because they are supposedly committed....then they are left scrambling a few days before signing day with no offers. In basketball this year, WVU is expected to have 2 open scholarships for the 2019-2020 season based on who is currently on the team and expected to return based on class. WVU has signed two high school kids for the 2019-2020 class.....but is still putting out offers for that class and claims to expect to add 2 or 3 more guys. It does not take a math genius to conclude someone or multiple guys will be losing their scholarship and forced out to make that happen.
This issue needs more media attention because something needs to be done to protect the students. |
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