"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:
Getting off the phone with coach strong "coach rumph did not accept the offer"
— Call Me Deebs‼️ (@DeeChilllin) February 5, 2015
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...
Unconfirmed rumblings that an Ohio State BEAT WRITER knew the RB coach was leaving, but held off on reporting it so not to lose Mike Weber.
— Tony Paul (@TonyPaul1984) February 6, 2015
...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:
Wilcher's upset because Weber now has to live in Michigan w/ a bunch of people saying "I told you so."
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) February 6, 2015
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:
Today's quickie #MichiganComic, the Mike Weber edition: pic.twitter.com/mmT71u9VSL
— The Blockhams (@TheBlockhams) February 4, 2015
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
If a kid you're recruiting is holding a press conference on #NationalSigningDay, it's a red flag you might have recruited an entitled twerp.
— Graham Couch (@Graham_Couch) February 4, 2015
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?
- 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.
- 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.