Although university presidents and chancellors won’t vote on proposals affecting “roster management”, which includes grayshirting and oversigning, until Friday’s conclusion of league meetings, SEC coaches began discussing the idea today of reducing the signing limit from 28 players to 25 per recruiting class.
And, perhaps not surprisingly, all 12 coaches concluded they’d like to keep the limit just where it is.
Last week, details from Slive’s oversigning legislation were leaked, with one amendment asking the SEC to begin “Limiting the size of a football signing class in each academic year to 25, down from the current level of 28... The 25 limit would cover those who sign from Dec. 1 to August 1.”
By and large, the coaches felt a change in the status quo would limit opportunities for recruits.
“When you sit in our seat every day for 26 years, you see all the different things that could happen,” said Auburn coach Gene Chizik. “Are there some risk/reward chances you have to take on guys? Absolutely. Everybody across the country does it every year. Unfortunately, every school doesn’t recruit every single kid who is 300 points above the SAT and has a 3.0 GPA. That’s not realistic. We also want to give kids opportunities to be student-athletes as well.”
“You all are creating a bad problem for everybody,” added Nick Saban, who blamed the bad publicity surrounding oversigning on the media. “You’re going to mess up kids’ opportunities by doing what you’re doing. You think you’re helping ‘em but you’re really hurting ‘em. It took one case where somebody didn’t get the right opportunity. You need to take the other 100 cases where somebody got an opportunity.”
Despite some very passionate feelings, the coaches will not be voting on the legislation at the end of the week.
“I suggest you keep your reservations until Friday,” added Slive. “The only vote that counts is Friday. Everything else is all part of the discussion.”
Still, that didn’t stop some SEC coaches from complaining voicing their opinions.
“You’re taking away opportunities, giving away opportunities (if the summer school rule passes),” Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt said. “Let us manage it. As long as you’re upfront and honest, I don’t see the problem.”
“If everyone knows that on the front end, I don’t see anything wrong with it ethically,” added Georgia coach Mark Richt.
Well, considering the fact that coaches don’t always tell the whole truth to recruits during the recruiting process, not to mention that two SEC schools (Arkansas and South Carolina) oversigned in 2011 even after the 28-LOI limit was put in place two years ago, I’d say some individual programs are neither upfront and honest, nor capable of managing it themselves.