This year's signing day was unprecedented in its wackiness. Notre Dame now hates the last name "Little," as both Chris and Greg decommitted for more southerly climes. Indiana safety Jerimy Finch was going to Michigan, then IU, then Florida. Markish Jones and Robert Broyles battled for the title of Least Decisive Person in the Universe. All told, dozens of committed recruits ended up signing with teams other than the ones they had "committed" to. You can chalk this up to cutthroat boys being cutthroat boys, but how irritating must it be to be a guy like UCLA recruit Brian Price? The black car idled outside Crenshaw High, waiting to whisk Brian Price to USC.No means no, Pete Carroll. (Unless you're a running back, in which case "no" means "take me, Pete, and ravish me like I've never been ravished before!") College coaches increasingly resemble jilted ex-girlfriends. My favorite unsupported-but-not-entirely-implausible rumor from the last few days was the one where two Notre Dame assistants show up at Martez Wilson's house and refuse to leave until Wilson's mom calls the cops. Did that actually happen? Probably not. Could it? Uh... yeah.
Price, a highly regarded defensive lineman, had committed to UCLA months before and had told USC coaches he was not interested in an official visit to their campus.
USC scheduled one anyway - and sent the conspicuous vehicle to deliver Price to Heritage Hall last month.
It's time for an early signing period, or better yet, an extended signing period that stretches from September to February. Are you committed? Okay: sign this piece of paper and see you in the fall. No more last second shocking decommits, as anyone who's still on the market isn't a commit. No more sweet serenades outside the homes of coveted recruits who have tried to tell you that it's, like, over, okay?
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
The article here shows recruiters like Pete Carroll for what they are. He represents all that is bad about college sports. A media darling, he combines warm weather, palm trees, a success record and USC songgirls and their ilk into a strongarm recruiting effort. Had he recruited me and I had said no, I would have filed a restraining order against him and told the press I had done so. He recruits multiple quality players for the same position, not being candid about the liklihood for most that they are going to ride the pines.
Finally, who does not believe that USC is lurking behind the emerging USC mess involving Reggie Bush, despite their protestations that they knew nothing of it.
USC and Carroll are not the only transgressors in that area, but there are big time programs that do not misrepresent in this manner. Wisconsin, Rutgers, Ohio State, Texas A&M, to name just a few.
Carroll is of the same breed as McKay. McKay recruited top players in the same position to prevent them from committing to rival schools, knowing they will get little playing time. Ruined a lot of careers.
Sad
Dennis,
It's called rational choice. People are of free hearts and minds to commit to whatever school they want to.
In today's day and age everyone knows the depth chart so that's a non-issue about ruining careers. Believe it or not some people are competitive and think they are as good or better than their competition and go to a school with good players to prove it.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, such is life. Nothing nefarious about it.
Does anyone remember the concept of student-athlete? The writer talks of these kids changing their mind on where to go to school, and once you commit you must go to that university. Well, that's not how it works for anyother student! With regards to these coaches doing everything in their power to get them to their respective program, so what? The NCAA has volumes of books on things these coaches can not do - and it's still legal for coaches to recruit. Lastly, teams only have 85 scholarships! Anyone who thinks coaches recruit to keep the kid on the bench are uninformed idiots!!
The complaints about Pete Carroll are the typical sour grapes that come from people whose college programs are mediocre. Come back and talk to me after your program has accomplished anything!
What a bunch of cry babies.....PC is a great coach and he is proving it on the field of play....FIGHT ON!
Stop crying people!! USC is on top of the College World for a reason.... they recruit better than anybody. Pete Carroll is a genius and every other college would love to have him. Stop crying like little girls.......There's nothing unfair about what USC is doing in their recruiting
Hey Hehateme,
Last time I checked USC was not on top anymore. Please remember that these "recruits" are 18 year old kids and they may have a dificult time making up their mind because they are being manipulated by many schools to think they will become the next great star. Go Gators!! #1 in Basketball, Football, and recruiting. I believe that puts The University of Florida at the TOP of the college world.
I have always said "where there is smoke, there is fire." This is the second allegation in the last year concerning USC. Both incidents involving Reggie Bush. How many times have we seen in the past when a school constantly recruits the best in the country. Then the coach leaves for greener pastures and all of a sudden we find out all the illegal doings involving recruiting that were going on while they were there.
It's about ethics. Either you have them or you don't.
One prime example is the current Indiana FB coach, Terry Hoeppner. Terry "stole" Jerimy Finch, one of the better safety's in the nation from Michigan. Jerimy had verbaled to the Maize and Blue.
Jerimy decided that a phone call from Urban Myers was worth a visit to Florida after leaving Michigan in the dark, and having IU on the rope for his verbal.
Florida, as they can do convinced Mr. Finch that being a Hoosier would get him no where and that Florida was the place he needs to be.
Now, it's official that he's a Gator.
Just last year, Hoeppner said that taking another coach's recruit was unethical, but he did it to Michigan. Ethics....Hoeppner has none.
Then he got played by Myer and the Gator who have always been suspect of cheating and paying players.
Ethics...Urban has none.
The NCAA needs to do the following to clean up this mess since you can't trust coaches anymore:
1. Limit the number of visits for any player to four.
1(a). Eliminate the verbal and make the player's committment a signing. If he breaks that, he sits out two years
2. Limit the number of contacts to any recruit to ten. And that has to include text, phone, mail, personal. As a father who has sons who were recruited, I will tell you that it's gone totally overboard with the "creativity" of some of these guys.
3. Suspend any coach caught a first time for five games without pay and reduce scholarships by two.
4. Suspend any coach caught a second time for the season and reduce scholarships by 10.
5. Third time, five year probation for the school and no scholarships for one year. Dismissal of the coach and his staff.
USC has long been suspected of major NCAA recruiting violations but even worse of student athlete compensation violations. I don't mean to imply that they are alone, by any means. But do you really think the NCAA is going to sanction USC in any major way? I don't believe it'll happen as long as USC is the only PAC 10 team which can compete in a major bowl. The rest would be embarrassed. As long as that is the case, I think the NCAA will only impose major sanctions on a team from the super deep SEC, since they have plenty more quality teams to take up the slack. If USC got what they had coming, 40 million Californians would be turning the Rose Bowl game off before halftime to avoid seeing Cal get beat by 50 points. We can't have that now, can we???
IT'S A SECRET >>>..... DONT TELL ANYONE ///////NOTRE DAME IS PLANNING TO WEAR DARK GREE UNIFORMS WHE THEY PLAY usc AND THEY WILL BEAT THEM.... IT'S A SECRET.... DONT TELL ANYONE USC CIA
It's unfortunate that winning comes before ethics as is written by the USC lovers on this board. If you would open up your eyes and you really cared about the student athlete you would see your school for what it is.....cheaters. I don't think ANY school is without issues but most of your top 10 schools cheat in some manner. The beginning post says there are Wisconsin, Rutgers, Ohio State and others that don't cheat....are you kidding me!?!?!? OHIO STATE?!?!?!? Chronicled cheaters! Unfortunately, the NCAA protects the USC's, Ohio State's, Tennessee's of the world. If this type of thing was taking place at say.....boise state, do you think the NCAA would turn their heads?????....no way! I'm an ex-college football player from the late 80's/early 90's who took recruiting trips to the likes of UCLA, USC, Ariz. St., LSU, Miami, Washington, and Georgia. Only 2 of these schools didn't cheat in trying to recruit me...WA, and GA. Over 66% cheated! The NCAA needs to stop playing favorites and let the teams play on a level field. Will this ever happen? Probably not. Until it does, Petie will feel that he can break the rules as much as he wants and not feel the heat....disgusting! The trojan horse is coming not only to troy but to the rest as well....hope it's sooner than later.
You all have to be kidding me. Is it a crime to have a student athlete attend the greatest university in the world??? USC is a great institution that offers many great opportunities for student athletes. Trust me I don't think USC has to do much cheating to recruit athletes. Who the hell wouldn't want to go to USC and play in the championship game every year??
Stop crying like little babies and bow down to the greatest institution in the world. The great USC MACHINE