I definitely would like to see an early signing day created, there is no reason that 17 and 18 year old kids who have already made their decision should continue to get harassed by coaches from other schools looking to flip them; let the kid sign and enjoy the rest of his senior year.

I also want to see four year scholarships made the rule. If we want to continue to claim that these are student-athletes then we need to be putting the student part first and guaranteeing them their chance to earn a degree and not let them risk losing that because a better player comes along a year or two after them. Yes, that may not be how things work in the real world but a lot of college isn’t like the real world, how many times were you removed from a class because you screwed up on a project/paper to an extent that would have gotten you fired in the real world? Sure, this means that some players may slack off once they sign their offer and not work hard in practice or in games but 1. that would be a rare thing and 2. that means the coaches (who get paid millions of dollars) just have to be more careful when it comes to evaluating recruits.

I would also like to see the media and the fans stay out of the whole recruiting thing. We wonder why some players get to college and think they are can get away with breaking all sorts of rules, both team and NCAA rules. Well that starts with the circus that recruiting has become. You have thousands of fans and the media hanging on every word these kids say. When you are a high school player who sees dozens of articles written about where you may go to school, when you see message boards with discussions that are a dozen pages long talking about how great you are and how much the fans want you at their school, is it any surprise that you often get a big ego and think that you are above everyone else?

The origional article mentions exactly 3 former players. Here are direct quotes from the article about them:
– “Charles Hoke, a former Alabama offensive lineman who took a medical scholarship in 2008 because of a shoulder problem, said the choice was left entirely up to him and was based on the many conversations he had with the team’s doctors and trainers over the course of his junior year”
– “Mr. Kirschman said the decision to take the medical scholarship was ultimately his”. Kirschman did have some suggestively negative things to say, but he never says he wasn’t injured.
– After tearing an ACL the previous year, “Mr. Griffin said that he was surprised last month when the football staff told him he had failed a physical … Mr. Griffin said he doesn’t contest the results of the physical and said it was “basically my decision” to forgo the rest of his playing career.”

Here is a more detailed critique I did on that article:
http://t-s-b-n.com/pt/The-Oversigning-Retort—The-Medical-Exemption-Scandal/blog.htm

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577016110526669958.html

“One of the downsides of oversigning is that teams that do it often have to find ways to cull players from the roster. Last season, The Wall Street Journal described the fate of several Alabama players who said they were asked to take “medical” scholarships that banned them from competing again for the Crimson Tide—even though the players said they were healthy enough to play. ”

That is tough to verify or prove wrong because we don’t know who they are talking about.

P.S. Sorry about spelling errors. For some reason I cannot scroll up and edit.

http://oversigning.com/testing/index.php/tag/ohio-state/

Where are these players being sent packing? Yes, I know all about Les Miles messing up one year and having to ask a kid to greyshirt just before classes started – what I want to know, is where are the kids being forced out? I’ve been looking into oversigning for several years now (as I genuinely want to know if players are being mistreated, but am not willing to condemn on purely speculative information) and have read as many articles/announcements of Alabama transfers as I have come across and have never seen any with a quote from the player saying he had his scholarship removed or that the coach told him he had to leave. I’ve seen such from an OSU player (James Jackson) and one from a Florida player under Meyer (Bryan Thomas) but not from Bama. These players’ accusations are certainly not above reproach and I’m not pointing fingers at these coaches/programs as these kids could have easily misunderstood the conversation with the coaches or even been misquoted/exaggerated by an author trying to make a story – no, what I’m asking is where are the similar accusations against Alabama? If programs that don’t oversign and treat their kids the “right way” are subject to an occasional accusation such as these, where are the cries from the throngs of players being cut from programs like Alabama every year? Does this not strike you as odd?

My last gripe: If oversigning teams are cutting kids to get below the 85 limit, their attrition rate would have to be well above that of teams that don’t oversign, right? I’ve begun a study to research that. I’ve looked at the recruiting classes from 2008 and 2009: seeing how many from these classes enrolled with the team and subsequently left “unsuccessfully”, meaning transferred, dismissed, given medical exemptions, or just quit before their 4th year. Comparing the three most criticized teams on Oversigning dot com (Alabama, LSU, South Carolina) to the three most praised for not Oversigning (OSU, Florida, Georgia) is most revealing:
2008
AL: 35.7%, LSU: 36.0%, SC: 33.3%
Average: 35.0%
OSU: 31.6%, FL: 31.8%, Ga: 40.9%
Average: 34.8%
2009
AL: 30.8%, LSU: 29.2%, SC: 29.2%
Average: 29.7%
OSU: 40.0%, FL: 23.5%, 25.0%
Average: 29.5%
Both years, the two groups are within 0.2% of each other, statistically the same. Now, this doesn’t prove Oversigning teams don’t cut players, but does point out that if they are, it certainly isn’t because they are Oversigning, and thus getting rid of Oversigning would not solve the problem.

Now that I’ve aired my grievances, I do like your suggestions – though my opinion is that you would still see the same amount (or more) of players transferring as there is only a certain amount of playing time available and that what many of these kids are after – especially 4 and 5 star players that aren’t used to waiting a few years to win a position. I have no problem with straight up signing 25 players every year – I like it actually as it would eventually lead to more kids earning scholarships, though the amount of playing time will remain the same.
What I believe is that the system isn’t as broken as people complain. By and large it works – kids you see as being shoved to a “lesser” school are more often looking for a place where they can crack the starting lineup, and let’s face it, a degree in general studies from Ohio State is not really more impressive than one from Georgia State is it? BTW, some of these “lesser” schools are perfectly fine academic institutions in their own right. Football prowess and academic prominence are not the same.