The barn can afford to do this, as they only retain 50% of the kids they sign anyway.

Out of guilt? Or stupidity and ignorance?

So Auburn is offering four year scholarships and still can’t land a top ten class.

At least we have the Birmingham paper to take up for our side!! …oh wait.

This is the same school that erected a Western Division Co-championship banner. But yeah, they have waaaay higher standards than UA does.

A: they are super late to the “Alabama over-signing poster boy” party. They didn’t have any problem with it the past two year and only now are starting to pretend it’s a major issue for them.

B: the articles aren’t concerned with the actual issue, they are concerned with Alabama and only Alabama.

C: Auburn didn’t have the recruiting class they felt they should have so of course it has nothing to with anything THEIR coaches did wrong, it’s because Alabama coaches are evil and cheat.

According to this article, the Chiz didn’t even know they had offered multi-year schollies.

Auburn coach Gene Chizik initially indicated he offered all one-year renewable scholarships this year. An athletics department spokesman later clarified that Auburn provided five-year scholarships.

1 year at Alabama >> 4 years at Auburn.

of course Captain Sunshine chimes in by linking this article to TET:

This is the best and most truthful story ever written about Alabama’s Nick Saban and how he runs his operation.

Does Title IX apply here such that if the Football team is offering 4/5 yr schollys, then women’s swimming or whatever would have to do the same?

Also, is it possible for a coach to offer a single player a 4/5 yr scholly while offering the rest of the class year-to-year scholarships?

from 2009-2012, we’ve both signed 103 players to scholarships. So yeah….

how many times did cam newton and nick fairley make the honor roll?

basically this is just a way to spin the restrictions schools have to include when they offer the four-year scholarships. as coach saban pointed out, there were legal problems in the past when players were cut and then sued the school for the remainder of the scholarship.

auburn clearly has restrictions on these the include clauses covering academic and disciplinary issues. so to say “will maintain the minimum required grade point average and stay out of trouble” is just pointing out the school has covered it’s ass and won’t hesitate to cut any player who steps out of line.

so if josh moon wants to use the issue to pump sunshine up everyone’s ass in order to sell newspapers, i guess that’s his business. but it doesn’t mean anyone needs to take him seriously.

yahoo

I think you are giving them too much credit

of doing things that they clearly do.

…nothing more.

and counted it toward next year’s class, since we counted one back one class? I mean, you have to feel bad for the kid. To be told at the last minute that you aren’t going to the college you were offered a scholarship to and had committed to for a long time.

I like Skarth’s post. To the point Auburn HAD to do something. We can call it desperation, but they needed to be different. If you have a product that is not as good as the competitors, you must find some way to differentiate in order to stay relevent or seomwhat competitive.

Alabama has the brand recognition, the history, a larger fan base, more capital, etc. They had to do SOMETHING to make their offer significant.

The thing that’s puzzling to me is Chizik’s ignorance on whether he knew it was a one year vs. four year. I would guess that the four year deal came late in the process of the recruiting cycle to get prospects to sign.

The problem with this theory is the competitive environment the kids and the coaches are in. A coach’s success is defined mostly by WINNING. Take the high road all you want but if you’re losing, you will be fired. This will backfire on them or it may become moot depending on the NCAA ruling.

Regardless of how this came to be, Auburn made the choice to do whatever they could to pull players. Now we’ll see how that works out for them.

Another season under Chizik’s tutelage and they will be calling for his head.Right now they are just looking for something to boast on,if that’s what they want to believe.The Barn house of cards is starting to crumble.

1. Does a player signing a LOI obligate a University in any way? I used to think so, but considering all the players we grayshirt and what LSU did to that player last year or the year before where they just flat out told him to go home because they didn’t have room, it doesn’t seem so. It would appear that the only impact of signing a LOI is that the one who signs it gives up his right to play for any other University than the one he is signing with for the following year.

2. If the LOI is simply a restriction on the player’s rights and not a contract requiring the University to give said player a scholarship at any time in the future, is there anything prohibiting us from signing a statement contractually obligating us to award a player a scholarship in the following class (assuming the player meets academic and behavioral requirements)? It doesn’t appear so, since Justin Taylor claimed Saban made an offer to do just this.

3. Is the signing of a LOI a requirement (NCAA, SEC, or otherwise) for receiving a football scholarship? In other words, had Philon decided to stick with us and wait for his grayshirt, and then someone didn’t qualify or left the team, could we have given him a scholarship this fall even without him signing the LOI? I assume the answer to this question is that the signing of the LOI is required, but it seems like it is also possible that this is a University requirement: “You want a scholarship? Sign this document that you won’t leave us hanging in the middle of the summer and you’ve got one.”

Since we all believe that the players we’ve grayshirted in years past have known before they signed of the possibility of grayshirting and where they stood in relation to other players, I can only think of two possible reasons Philon and Taylor chose to move on versus players in years past who took the grayshirt: either the signing of an LOI is a requirement for receiving a scholarship and thus they are now guaranteed to grayshirt rather than it being a possibility, or not having an LOI to sign had a psychological effect pushing them to go elsewhere. If it’s the former then there’s nothing we can do, but if the latter then by next year we need to have a document ready for kids to sign that doesn’t obligate them in any way, it simply states our guarantee of a scholarship in the next class, and informs kids of their rights to move on to a different school at any point before that time.

Maybe the peace of mind a four year scholly affords the Auburn players will allow them to focus more in the classroom and improve on that 11th of 12 ranking on the SEC Honor Roll.

Auburn football team champs on field but not in graduation rates

is when Chizik is fired in a couple of years, if they still have this policy in place, nobody worth a flip is going to want that job.

If Alabama really wanted to be crooked, we’d accept some very… loose… women as walk-ons (or even give one or two a “full ride”). That way, they could travel with the team.
But no, we won’t stoop to Tennessee’s level.

All we did was ask him to grayshirt, with him coming off of an injury. Probably would have been better for him in the long run anyway. More time to rehab plus getting in a spring practice before his first season. Boo hoo. If he prefers to go to another school immediately then so be it. That’s his prerogative, but acting like Saban is the devil over this is retarded.

Unbelievable really how much shit Alabama catches. That’s fine with me though.

had philon sent in his LOI first thing in the morning would he still have been left out? or was this a case of last one to send, first one out? sorry if this has already been discussed.

Barn and LSU fans are bitching and moaning about the players they weren’t able to sign. Bama fans are bitching about the players who wanted to sign with us but didn’t get to because we had better players than them who also wanted to sign.

It’s good to be king.

He and his staff work tirelessly for the university, players and fans. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I quite often think back to how National Signing Day was more something I’d tune in late for due to the nil possibility that we’d land more than a few better-than-average recruits under Dubose… at best. In other words, I don’t like being overly critical of Coach Saban about anything.

However, I’m sensing that even the most august Bammers amongst us is left a bit uneasy by the Justin Taylor situation. I realize that he was given weeks of notice by Coach, but he was one of the first commits and was an Atlanta native that was 100% Crimson (guy dressed in Bama stuff about as often as I do if his classmates are to be believed). One additional problem is that there is no way that this can play well in the media — some may not care about this point, but it’s a salient one nonetheless. Perception is a powerful enemy or ally, especially when you KNOW Coach Saban will have to answer some stern questions on the recruiting trail, notably in Georgia.