TheFletch: Over-signing is an issue, What is the VS channel?

Recruiting was in the headlines last week as the SEC Coaches were peppered about the issue before the SEC meetings took place and several rules changes were organized to be put into place. The issue of oversigning was on the front burner as the conference decided to cap the number of signings at 25, down from 28 in an effort to stop coaches (Cough-Nick Saban. Cough, cough-Steve Spurrier. Hacking cough-Houston Nutt) from going past the 85/100 magic numbers and leaving kids out to dry with potentially no scholarship. The AJC as well as both of the local sports talk stations were weighing in on the topic, though in some cases the host-writer wasn’t exactly up on the rule. The AJC’s Michael Carvell DOES know about the rules, as does my The Official Visit co-host Scott Janovitz, and it is a shame that those two weren’t consulted more by the various outlets before information was passed along that wasn’t always 100% in the correct.

The University of Georgia’s Mark Richt seemed very willing to talk to the media, especially the AJC, though in one instance he came off as wishy-washy. In one piece, Richt was asked about the oversigning issue and he said that he had an opinion but he didn’t want to give it until he heard the other coaches’ viewpoints on it first. What? If you have an opinion on the topic, don’t be afraid to put it out there. It doesn’t matter if your opinion is different than everyone else’s. Take a stand.

Georgia Tech’s coach Paul Johnson is never one to shy away from giving an opinion. He said recently of the oversigning issue in an interview with the AJC, “We just don’t do it. It makes it hard sometimes to hit your target number but it is what it is. I don’t see how you can do that to kids, weed out guys for whatever reasons. No matter what anybody says, if you’re oversigning, some of that has to happen on occasion.” He was taking a stand on it but later in the piece came off a tad whiny. “It’s just like you take 25 kids every year and then cut the ones you don’t want. You do the math. You have 85 scholarships. If you’re signing 28 every year for four years, instead of 85, you have 112. It doesn’t add up.” Johnson offered a solution that will surely never pass but still he is out there, something that Mark Richt seemed afraid to do. “When you recruit a guy, and he says he’s coming, you give him a scholarship and he signs it. As soon as he signs it, he counts — he’s one of your 85. If you want to sign a kid who may or may not make it schoolwise, that’s on you. You will have to try to find someone else in August if he doesn’t make it. It would stop all this craziness, hat shows, verbal commitments, and all the foolishness that goes on with it. If the guy says they’re coming, put the papers in front of him and let him sign. When you’ve got 85, you’re through.”

If a tree falls in the woods but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a bar holds a wake for a soon-to-depart NHL franchise headed to Moose Country, Canada, and no one shows, does the wake still make news? The answer to the second question is YES. Why, because several local radio personalities were in attendance and discussed it on the air. Last week Mike Bell of 790 The Zone’s Pollack & Bell hosted a “wake” for the Atlanta Thrashers who will soon become the Winnipeg Somethingorothers and apparently attendance was low to say the least. Jimmy Baron of Dave FM who has spoken on the topic of the Thrashers leaving during his morning drive show attended the wake and laughed that no one was there. I guess all of the Hockey Diehards were too busy buying Florida Panthers/Carolina Hurricanes/Nashville Predators gear to show up…

Speaking of hockey, how great were the first two games of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals? You have a scoreless Game One won with 18.5 seconds left in regulation with an amazing goal then a Game Two ending 12 seconds into overtime with a bouncing puck. I could not WAIT for Game Three. Too bad I could never find it on television. What? It was on the Versus Network? Huh? Versus? Why would the NHL put its championship series on the Versus Network? Don’t they want people to watch? I guess Spike TV wasn’t available because of Star Wars reruns and G4 was airing Web Soup? Versus? Did NBC not have room on its schedule? Was it the premiere of Biggest Loser Family Edition or something?

Andy Staples, the often-questionable writer from Sports Illustrated compiled a top twenty list of the best jobs in college football. Not surprisingly he had Texas as the top job in the country but No. 2 and No. 3 and No. 4 were interesting. Staples had The Ohio State University second. Really? Is the job in Columbus that great of a gig? It seems like they ran John Cooper off for not beating Michigan enough, despite being one heck of a coach that played for national titles. Staples had Oklahoma ahead of Florida as the Sooners gig was No. 3 and the Gators No. 4, respectively. Hmmm. I would have put Florida at No. 2 based on the state that it is in, the conference it is in and the fact that Florida is seriously the BEST JOB OUTSIDE of Texas for the last two decades. The Georgia Bulldogs position checks in at No. 5, ahead of LSU and Alabama, which is interesting. Athens is beautiful and the talent base is stronger than Louisiana and Alabama, but the tradition just isn’t what Alabama is. I would think that the Bama job might be though of a little higher. Other shocks included USC at No. 11 (too low), Michigan at No. 12 (way too low), and Arizona State (18) and Arizona (19) WAY TOO HIGH. Clearly this list was merely meant for people like me as well as the local radio shows to talk about Andy Staples, but is it worth people talking about you when they question your intelligence? I don’t think so.


Can You Believe He Said That
And Auburn fans, be happy with what happened (in 2004). You would have been waterboarded if you had faced USC.
That was 680 The Fan’s Perry Laurentino saying last Tuesday on the Rude Awakening what I have been claimed for years. Yes USC had its 2004 title taken away, but let’s be real here: the Trojans were still the champions from that season. If USC had played Auburn instead of OU, perhaps the score would have been 55-21 instead of 55-19. You love that you never played and lost. That way you can always say, “Yeah, but we would’ve….”