April 6, 2009

Ole Miss Football: No reading, writing, or diplomas required

If you play football but can't read, write, or pass standardized tests... has Houston Nutt got a deal for you.

According to his own words, Mississippi football coach Houston Nutt is looking for football players who will NEVER qualify academically to sign letters of intent with the Rebels, so as to stock the depth charts of junior colleges that are friendly to Ole Miss.

"It's going real smooth right now because you've got about seven guys right now that we know for sure aren't going to make it academically," Nutt said last week at a news conference to discuss spring practice. "However, they love Ole Miss and so what we're doing, to help out Mississippi junior colleges, is we are going to place them in the schools."

...

"There are about four or five that are on the fence and probably won't make it academically," Nutt said. "The relationship you build with Mississippi junior colleges is important to me because we won't ever be a staff that will sign 15 to 16 junior college kids a year. We won't do that, but we will sign some needs."

Dr. Saturday says that Nutt is building a farm-system.

He may not use the term, "farm system," but otherwise Nutt is putting the blueprint out there. It's one thing to sign a kid on the fence and later find out he's falling short; Nutt is the first coach I know of who's publicly wide open to kids who are certain to fail academically.

...

But to the extent that the JUCO-bound players remain betrothed to Ole Miss for "taking a chance" on them or something, intentional oversigning disingenuous in light of the scholarship restrictions, and inherently sketchy: To some extent, Nutt has to be actually looking for red flag academic cases to fill the excess roles. Then these kids "sign" with no intention -- in some cases, probably, no chance -- of ever enrolling at Ole Miss, and everybody in the system must know it. Their inclusion is a sort of charade -- if it wasn't, they (or one of their qualified classmates) wouldn't be included, because there's not enough room to risk oversigning with actual qualifiers.

Many, many, many schools will sign borderline players in hopes they qualify. If they don't, they may go to a JUCO, become eligible (hopefully), and honor their letter of intent. FSU, OU, Texas and almost all of the SEC were ridiculously good at this over the last twenty years.

But that isn't what Nutt is doing. He's actually recruiting to make the JUCO teams better with players that will *never* make it to Ole Miss. In doing so, Nutt is raising his profile with high school & JUCO coaches as well as raising the competitiveness at his JUCOs. In return, Nutt is counting on getting a few players that do regain eligibility swung his way, either some that he signed to LOI's or players that would have gone elsewhere, but their JUCO coach nudged them towards the Rebels.

It is genius and/or madness, but certainly better explains the 12 non-qualifiers signed in Nutt's class of 37 recruits in this year's class.

Now the question becomes... how many non-qualifiers will your school recruit next year? Will 40 LOI's be the new 25?

Comments:

Ole Miss Football: No reading, writing, or diplomas required
If you play football but can't read, write, or pass standardized tests... has Houston Nutt got a deal for you. According to his own words, Mississippi football coach Houston Nutt is looking for football players who will NEVER qualify academically to sign letters of intent with the Rebels, so as to stock the depth charts of junior colleges that are friendly to Ole Miss.
"It's going real smooth right now because you've got about seven guys right now that we know for sure aren't going to make it academically," Nutt said last week at a news conference to discuss spring practice. "However, they love Ole Miss and so what we're doing, to help out Mississippi junior colleges, is we are going to place them in the schools." ... "There are about four or five that are on the fence and probably won't make it academically," Nutt said. "The relationship you build with Mississippi junior colleges is important to me because we won't ever be a staff that will sign 15 to 16 junior college kids a year. We won't do that, but we will sign some needs."
Dr. Saturday says that Nutt is building a farm-system.
He may not use the term, "farm system," but otherwise Nutt is putting the blueprint out there. It's one thing to sign a kid on the fence and later find out he's falling short; Nutt is the first coach I know of who's publicly wide open to kids who are certain to fail academically. ... But to the extent that the JUCO-bound players remain betrothed to Ole Miss for "taking a chance" on them or something, intentional oversigning disingenuous in light of the scholarship restrictions, and inherently sketchy: To some extent, Nutt has to be actually looking for red flag academic cases to fill the excess roles. Then these kids "sign" with no intention -- in some cases, probably, no chance -- of ever enrolling at Ole Miss, and everybody in the system must know it. Their inclusion is a sort of charade -- if it wasn't, they (or one of their qualified classmates) wouldn't be included, because there's not enough room to risk oversigning with actual qualifiers.
Many, many, many schools will sign borderline players in hopes they qualify. If they don't, they may go to a JUCO, become eligible (hopefully), and honor their letter of intent. FSU, OU, Texas and almost all of the SEC were ridiculously good at this over the last twenty years. But that isn't what Nutt is doing. He's actually recruiting to make the JUCO teams better with players that will *never* make it to Ole Miss. In doing so, Nutt is raising his profile with high school & JUCO coaches as well as raising the competitiveness at his JUCOs. In return, Nutt is counting on getting a few players that do regain eligibility swung his way, either some that he signed to LOI's or players that would have gone elsewhere, but their JUCO coach nudged them towards the Rebels. It is genius and/or madness, but certainly better explains the 12 non-qualifiers signed in Nutt's class of 37 recruits in this year's class. Now the question becomes... how many non-qualifiers will your school recruit next year? Will 40 LOI's be the new 25?