Because sleep evades me, I was perusing the oft-referenced oversigning.com site for the first time tonight.  Boy, does that guy have a vendetta.  His extreme bias notwithstanding, I found this post from 2 FEB 2011 to be quite interesting.  It seems the author took Coach Nick Saban's statement "Nobody really  knows for sure how many guys we had on scholarship last year" to mean that either a) There is a callous disregard for scholarship numbers in the University of Alabama Athletic Department or b) Saban intentionally keeps the scholarship numbers from the media so that he can't be pinned down on exactly how many players are "oversigned."

Saban's statements made during the NSD press conference were perfectly reasonable, given that there are a number of players from upper class families on the roster.  I had always assumed that every player on the roster received an athletic scholarship, but it seems like a legitimate practice to have players who can pay their own way do so in order to free up scholarships for "riskier" recruits.

Additionally, if a football recruit qualifies for any of the academic scholarships offered by the University, would Coach Saban have an extra scholarship at his disposal?

It seems that the entire sports media universe is convinced that Coach Saban is an evil dictator just waiting to yank scholarships from poor little boys who always tried their best, but it seems just as likely that we actually remain perpetually undersigned so that we can always offer scholarships to the best players.

THE MAN IS A GENIUS.