Oversigning Recruits

[dshans]

Another reason why I love NOLA, Irish and otherwise. Good people who know their sh¡t: music, partying and otherwise.

 

[ACamp1900]

Now the claim is Alabama does it to help kids that wouldn't get educations otherwise.........

The sad part here is the brilliance of it all… if Alabama put forth as much effort in building up their academics as they do towards finding creative ways around rules and then justifying it all, they would have a hell of an institution of higher learning down there.

 

[Bishop2b5]

The idea of signing and placing kids in JUCO as a farm system is pretty far from what actually happens these days anywhere. You can't really park a kid at a JUCO and then expect to bring him into your program two years later. Once he goes to the JUCO, he's no longer yours. You have no real advantage over any other school for getting him two years later other than maybe the assistants who recruited him have a relationship with him. I only know of one kid we signed in the past 6 years who went the JUCO route and later re-signed with us. Nobody I know of is actually using JUCOs as a "farm system."

I don't see anything wrong with signing JUCO players as long as they qualify. A lot of those kids didn't take school seriously enough in HS, didn't have anyone to push them to work hard on academics, or just hadn't matured yet. If they go to JUCO and improve their academics, isn't that the goal? Certainly, we don't want to tell a kid that since he didn't work hard enough in HS that he has no hope of improving his situation or ever earning a shot at D1 no matter how hard he works to get his academics on track. If a kid goes to JUCO and learns to work harder, apply himself in the classroom, and show he can do university-level work, then he's earned a shot.

As for Bama's high number of medical hardships in recent years, I'll still stick to my original position. Yes, they're higher than expected, and yes, that should be a red flag to look more closely to see if they're being used to push out underperforming players who aren't really suffering from career-ending injuries. However, when you start looking at each individual case, you can't find a single one of those players who wasn't legitimately injured to the point of not being able to continue playing. Of all the 12 or so players put on medical schollys at Bama over the past few years, only one was ever cleared to play again, and it took him 2 years and shopping several doctors for the diagnosis he wanted (he had a heart murmur that all but one doctor told him was too serious to continue playing with). Yes, the numbers are unusually high, but other than that, there simply isn't any indication that there is anything shady going on.

 

[stlnd01]

However, when you start looking at each individual case, you can't find a single one of those players who wasn't legitimately injured to the point of not being able to continue playing. ... Yes, the numbers are unusually high, but other than that, there simply isn't any indication that there is anything shady going on.

Must be 'cuz they just practice so damn hard.

 

[IrishLax]

As for Bama's high number of medical hardships in recent years, I'll still stick to my original position. Yes, they're higher than expected, and yes, that should be a red flag to look more closely to see if they're being used to push out underperforming players who aren't really suffering from career-ending injuries. However, when you start looking at each individual case, you can't find a single one of those players who wasn't legitimately injured to the point of not being able to continue playing. Of all the 12 or so players put on medical schollys at Bama over the past few years, only one was ever cleared to play again, and it took him 2 years and shopping several doctors for the diagnosis he wanted (he had a heart murmur that all but one doctor told him was too serious to continue playing with). Yes, the numbers are unusually high, but other than that, there simply isn't any indication that there is anything shady going on.

I'm just going to ignore the JUCO thing for a second (because you're right you have no true "claim" to them although you have a serious leg up if you recruit them all the way up to signing an LOI and then you decide later that you want them... you already won the race once).

I am going to focus on this colossal load of BS. It has been posted NUMEROUS times on here that the part I bolded is an unequivocal falsehood. And this has been supported by claims from multiple Alabama players.

To quote this WSJ article AGAIN: "Three Alabama players who've taken these exemptions say they believe the team uses the practice as a way to clear spots for better players by cutting players it no longer wants. These players said they believe Mr. Saban and his staff pressure some players to take these scholarships even though their injuries aren't serious enough to warrant keeping them off the field."

So there are multiple first hand accounts of people being healthy enough to play but pressured into taking medicals... saying anything to the contrary is either ignorance or a bold faced lie. The reason why you never, ever see a kid who takes a medical hardship scholarship under pressure play again is that by virtue of taking a medical hardship scholarship you forfeit your ability to ever play again in turn for an academic scholarship to finish your education. It has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of taking that scholarship in the first place.

Alabama Crimson Tide Football Has Some Unhappy Castaways - WSJ.com

 

[Bishop2b5]

I'm just going to ignore the JUCO thing for a second (because you're right you have no true "claim" to them although you have a serious leg up if you recruit them all the way up to signing an LOI and then you decide later that you want them... you already won the race once).

I am going to focus on this colossal load of BS. It has been posted NUMEROUS times on here that the part I bolded is an unequivocal falsehood. And this has been supported by claims from multiple Alabama players.

To quote this WSJ article AGAIN: "Three Alabama players who've taken these exemptions say they believe the team uses the practice as a way to clear spots for better players by cutting players it no longer wants. These players said they believe Mr. Saban and his staff pressure some players to take these scholarships even though their injuries aren't serious enough to warrant keeping them off the field."

So there are multiple first hand accounts of people being healthy enough to play but pressured into taking medicals... saying anything to the contrary is either ignorance or a bold faced lie. The reason why you never, ever see a kid who takes a medical hardship scholarship under pressure play again is that by virtue of taking a medical hardship scholarship you forfeit your ability to ever play again in turn for an academic scholarship to finish your education. It has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of taking that scholarship in the first place.

Alabama Crimson Tide Football Has Some Unhappy Castaways - WSJ.com

I'll respectfully disagree with the part of your statement about multiple first-hand accounts of players who were healthy enough to keep playing. There are claims by some of those players that they could keep playing. However, none were able to find another team or doctor who agreed with them. We all understand that a player has a tendency to think he can keep playing when maybe he really can't. They don't want to admit their career is really over. As for giving up their right to ever play again by taking the medical, that's probably not quite correct. If any player could show he had been coerced into it when he really didn't have a career-ending injury, he would have little trouble getting the NCAA to let him transfer to another school and continue to play.

Even if they didn't get to play somewhere else, if some of them were being pushed into medicals when they weren't really seriously injured, don't you think at least one of them would be waving a doctor's report showing his injuries hadn't merited a medical hardship? There would be at least one who'd already finished school, had no reason to fear having his scholarship pulled in retaliation, and would be able to show he hadn't really had a career-ending injury. There isn't one.

If I thought my school was abusing the practice, I'd be the first to condemn it and demand better of them, but I genuinely don't think that's happening. Despite the higher than expected numbers, all of those kids appear to have truly been injured to the point that they could no longer safely continue playing.

You surely know that lending institutions can't discriminate against anyone because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. in deciding whether to give them a mortgage loan. I know of a bank that got hit with a lawsuit because they were declining mortgage loans to a particular group at a MUCH higher rate than to the rest of their applicants. The lawsuit got quickly dropped when the bank showed that not one single member of that group that had been denied met the criteria for income and credit rating to be approved, and not one single member of that group that did meet those criteria had been denied. In other words, despite the numbers being exceptionally high, there really wasn't anything wrong going on. I believe that's the same thing with Bama's medical hardships. Despite the unusually high numbers, there just aren't any cases where one of those players wasn't legitimately injured.

 

[IrishLax]

I'll respectfully disagree with the part of your statement about multiple first-hand accounts of players who were healthy enough to keep playing. There are claims by some of those players that they could keep playing. However, none were able to find another team or doctor who agreed with them.

This is completely irrelevant (and untrue) because of what I posted above. Once you take a medical hardship scholarship you forfeit your eligibility. So no doctor would ever even take a look at someone who has taken a scholarship BECAUSE THEY ARE INELIGIBLE TO PLAY. You keep coming back to this point as a defense... and it isn't. It really doesn't even pass the sniff test.

Plus, while 25% of the players Alabama pushed onto medical stated they felt pressured to do so to make room for others, let's focus specifically on Chuck Kirschman who went on record. Quote: "Mr. Kirschman, the linebacker, said he injured his back in April 2008 but continued practicing with the team through the spring of 2009. That May, he was approached by coaches and trainers and asked to take a medical scholarship."

Does that sound like someone who has an "incapacitating injury" rendering them incapable of playing football again? Because to my ignorant, uneducated eye someone capable of GOING THROUGH PRACTICE sure doesn't seem "incapacitated" or incapable of playing football... given the fact that, you know, HE'S CURRENTLY PLAYING FOOTBALL WHEN THE COACHES APPROACHED HIM TO TAKE A MEDICAL.
----------------
If you actually wanted to support the premise that all of the kids who took medicals were physically incapable of playing football you should be presenting their specific career ending injuries case by case... not trying to argue a negative saying "well, you can't prove the injuries WEREN'T career ending." Do you know how few injuries are career ending these days? Basically only heart conditions, spinal conditions, and head trauma. Literally everything else is fixable.

We all understand that a player has a tendency to think he can keep playing when maybe he really can't. They don't want to admit their career is really over.

Sorry, the burden for a medical is supposed to be physically unable to play anymore... not "isn't pro material and is damaged goods that no longer plays at a high level"... by the spirit of the rule, if you're capable of playing for a JUCO or DIII school you're not supposed to take a medical. The bylaw specifically states: "Becomes injured or ill to the point that the student-athlete apparently will be unable to participate in intercollegiate athletics ever again." You're supposed to be so injured you can't even play club lacrosse at your local community college. Someone capable of practicing for all for spring ball is obviously not injured to that degree.

As for giving up their right to ever play again by taking the medical, that's probably not quite correct. If any player could show he had been coerced into it when he really didn't have a career-ending injury, he would have little trouble getting the NCAA to let him transfer to another school and continue to play.

No, you're right, it's not quite correct. But the way reinstatement works is that if the school is running at their max (i.e. 85 scholarships) you cannot reinstate them without retroactively going over 85 and committing a violation; ergo, you cannot be reinstated. This exists so that schools can't store excess players on medical scholarships and activate/deactivate at whim.

Even if they didn't get to play somewhere else, if some of them were being pushed into medicals when they weren't really seriously injured, don't you think at least one of them would be waving a doctor's report showing his injuries hadn't merited a medical hardship? There would be at least one who'd already finished school, had no reason to fear having his scholarship pulled in retaliation, and would be able to show he hadn't really had a career-ending injury. There isn't one.

Again, this is irrelevant... but you would have to be one seriously vindictive prick to invest the time/energy to go through all of that after graduating just to Tweet a doctor's note saying "I could've played! Screw my alma mater"... again, by virtue of taking the medical grant-in-aid scholarship to stay at the school, that means you like Alabama so much you would rather finish your degree there then transfer somewhere else and play ball. If you like the school so much to do that... logically speaking, why on earth would you burn bridges after graduating? You love the school... but you're going to risk being a pariah and alienating yourself from the institution/alumni? Yeah... that makes no sense. At all.

If I thought my school was abusing the practice, I'd be the first to condemn it and demand better of them, but I genuinely don't think that's happening. Despite the higher than expected numbers, all of those kids appear to have truly been injured to the point that they could no longer safely continue playing.

How on earth can you genuinely believe that? There is literally no other reasonable explanation for Alabama having 12 medicals when the rest of the NCAA averages 1.18 per year. That's 12 times the average!!! I challenge you to come up with one other plausible scenario. On top of that, it has clearly been shown with Kirschman that he was not injured to the degree the bylaw specifies, so that is an irrefutable example of someone not being incapacitated but being asked to go on medical.

You surely know that lending institutions can't discriminate against anyone because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. in deciding whether to give them a mortgage loan. I know of a bank that got hit with a lawsuit because they were declining mortgage loans to a particular group at a MUCH higher rate than to the rest of their applicants. The lawsuit got quickly dropped when the bank showed that not one single member of that group that had been denied met the criteria for income and credit rating to be approved, and not one single member of that group that did meet those criteria had been denied. In other words, despite the numbers being exceptionally high, there really wasn't anything wrong going on. I believe that's the same thing with Bama's medical hardships. Despite the unusually high numbers, there just aren't any cases where one of those players wasn't legitimately injured.

Nice straw man. So why don't you list the injuries that each of the 12 people suffered and explain why they were career ending. That's what the bank had to do... and if you could do that, I would find it totally reasonable and drop it much like your analogy. It shouldn't be hard... I can list every serious injury that has happened to an ND player over the past 4 years. You keep saying "well, they weren't cleared anywhere else"... that's not evidence. They were never attempting to get cleared anywhere else BECAUSE they accepted the medicals to STAY at Alabama and finish their degrees. So let's get a list of all the medicals and the injury each player sustained and why with modern medical technology they were incapable of competing again in intercollegiate athletics.

Also, "much" higher would be like 3 or 4 to everyone else's 1.18... 12 to 1.18 is almost inexplicable as "chance" and anyone with any kind of statistics background knows that. You're talking truly astronomical odds.

 

[dshans]

I would've gone with Pangloss.

Is this not the best of all possible worlds?

 

[Bogtrotter07]

Bottom line is if you look at a math model that gives you over 100 to fill 85 spots as opposed to a model that uses 85. So that adds validity to the Bears old answer to the question posed, as to why he had such luck. He said, "I don't rightly know, I recruits speed, and luck follows!"

Well Saban recruits numbers and luck follows, and all the weasel words thrown out by Finance and Bishop, (I like Bishop, he at least has some decency, and doesn't act like an arrogant buffoon expecting us to believe half-a$seed assertions and playing passive aggressive games)!

Seriously, do the model, every time you have a choice between two, what that does to improve your end of season performance! It is amazing. The way to test it is limit everyone to 85 and see what happens.

The other thing is no amount of football is going to improve schools. In fact high powered football wants to see schools remain poor, otherwise they loose a captive group of participants!

 

[Bishop2b5]

Also, "much" higher would be like 3 or 4 to everyone else's 1.18... 12 to 1.18 is almost inexplicable as "chance" and anyone with any kind of statistics background knows that. You're talking truly astronomical odds.

Comparing 1.18 medical hardships per year that the rest of the NCAA schools average to Bama's 12 is a bit innacurate to say the least. Bama doesn't average 12 per year. We've had 12 in a 6 year period, so it's 1.18 to 2. Higher than average, but certainly not extraordinarily so.

I'm not going to spend several hours researching every player we've put on medical scholarship to analyze their injuries, find copies of their medical reports, etc. This is a discussion forum, not an NCAA investigation hearing that requires hundreds of pages of evidence and documentation.

You said no doctor would ever take a look at a player who had taken a medical because they would be ineligible to play. Of course they would. That player could still go see any doctor he wanted. If he wasn't seriously injured, could still play, and had been forced to take a medical that wasn't justified by his injuries, a player would have little trouble getting cleared by another doctor and getting the NCAA to not only allow it, but probably start investigating the school for abusing the practice. Whether a player would want to do that to his school is open to debate, but the fact remains that of all the dozen players Bama has put on medical scholly over the past few years, even those who wanted to keep playing and felt they could, only one was ever able to get a doctor - any doctor - to clear them, and he had to diagnosis shop for 2 years and several doctors to get that.

I know some of you really want to find some smoking gun that proves Bama is cheating like mad, screwing over kids to win at all costs, abusing the rules, etc., but this just isn't it. We've had a few more medical hardships than average and there simply isn't any evidence that they weren't all legitimate.

 

[Bishop2b5]

Bottom line is if you look at a math model that gives you over 100 to fill 85 spots as opposed to a model that uses 85. So that adds validity to the Bears old answer to the question posed, as to why he had such luck. He said, "I don't rightly know, I recruits speed, and luck follows!"

Well Saban recruits numbers and luck follows, and all the weasel words thrown out by Finance and Bishop, (I like Bishop, he at least has some decency, and doesn't act like an arrogant buffoon expecting us to believe half-a$seed assertions and playing passive aggressive games)!

Seriously, do the model, every time you have a choice between two, what that does to improve your end of season performance! It is amazing. The way to test it is limit everyone to 85 and see what happens.

The other thing is no amount of football is going to improve schools. In fact high powered football wants to see schools remain poor, otherwise they loose a captive group of participants!

Well, I disagree with you about high-powered programs wanting to see schools remain poor, but I think there is a simple solution to the entire problem, and one I've seen a few others in here advocate: raise the scholarship limit to 100. Let schools sign 25 new recruits per year and allow them to have 100 on scholarship. It cuts out any incentive to manage your roster by pushing kids out, since there would be no need to do so. Few schools would ever bump into the 100 cap and most would average 90-95 on scholarship after normal attrition.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

Well, I disagree with you about high-powered programs wanting to see schools remain poor, but I think there is a simple solution to the entire problem, and one I've seen a few others in here advocate: raise the scholarship limit to 100. Let schools sign 25 new recruits per year and allow them to have 100 on scholarship. It cuts out any incentive to manage your roster by pushing kids out, since there would be no need to do so. Few schools would ever bump into the 100 cap and most would average 90-95 on scholarship after normal attrition.

You are the voice of reason. A hundered then it would be. 101 would result in sanctions.

You know why they lowered it don't you? To avoid the rich getting richer, the big schools grabbing all the top talent, and sitting it, until an injury happens . . .

I like 85 because it requires roster management. Roster management requires taking care of the individuals. I have seen enought of meat grinders in life. You make a person, company, school, military, used to having a wealth of talent, they squander it. No, the more I think about it, I like 85.

If a school like Bama has anything on the ball, and does anything but cut the corner like 95% of the people on this thread have asserted, there merits should sufice with 85 on the roster, like, 100, or 85, either should work. 85 means the individuals have more value so that is my choice. You don't really need the 100 unless we all are right in the first place, do you?

 

[Bishop2b5]

You are the voice of reason. A hundered then it would be. 101 would result in sanctions.

You know why they lowered it don't you? To avoid the rich getting richer, the big schools grabbing all the top talent, and sitting it, until an injury happens . . .

I like 85 because it requires roster management. Roster management requires taking care of the individuals. I have seen enought of meat grinders in life. You make a person, company, school, military, used to having a wealth of talent, they squander it. No, the more I think about it, I like 85.

If a school like Bama has anything on the ball, and does anything but cut the corner like 95% of the people on this thread have asserted, there merits should sufice with 85 on the roster, like, 100, or 85, either should work. 85 means the individuals have more value so that is my choice. You don't really need the 100 unless we all are right in the first place, do you?

Raising the limit to 100 total doesn't really benefit a school very much at all. Let's face it, very few if any of those guys from 86-100 would see much playing time, let alone be major contributors. The rich wouldn't get richer, as a school still couldn't bring in more than 25 new recruits per year. With normal attrition rates, few schools would ever get close to the limit of 100. It would just eliminate any potential abuse from roster management. The benefit is to those borderline players that might otherwise feel pressured to leave the program to make room under the current cap of 85. Raising the limit to 100 totally eliminates that problem.

 

[IrishLax]

Comparing 1.18 medical hardships per year that the rest of the NCAA schools average to Bama's 12 is a bit innacurate to say the least. Bama doesn't average 12 per year. We've had 12 in a 6 year period, so it's 1.18 to 2. Higher than average, but certainly not extraordinarily so.

What? Are you serious? I'm comparing 12 to 1.18 for the period of 2008-2010. That's the only period I actually have stone cold numerical data provided to me on.

This above quote just proves how little you are actually trying to learn the facts here.

I'm not going to spend several hours researching every player we've put on medical scholarship to analyze their injuries, find copies of their medical reports, etc. This is a discussion forum, not an NCAA investigation hearing that requires hundreds of pages of evidence and documentation.

So, in other words, unlike actual serious career ending injuries that most fans could name off the top of their heads for any of their players who suffered them.... you can't name any. Not a single one, much less 12. So unlike the bank in you analogy, you have zero proof of being on the up and up... whereas I've given at least one one concrete example of you not approaching things as intended.

You said no doctor would ever take a look at a player who had taken a medical because they would be ineligible to play. Of course they would. That player could still go see any doctor he wanted.

Uhhhh.... what are you not understanding? WHY would they? If they have no intention of trying to play again because they WANT TO STAY AT ALABAMA AND FINISH SCHOOL then what would ever be the logic for shopping around for medical opinions?

If he wasn't seriously injured, could still play, and had been forced to take a medical that wasn't justified by his injuries, a player would have little trouble getting cleared by another doctor and getting the NCAA to not only allow it, but probably start investigating the school for abusing the practice.

This, again, doesn't make sense. If you're getting forced into a medical AND YOU ACCEPT IT then you aren't going to do this. If you're getting forced into a medical and you say "no way, I can play" then you simply transfer and it's a moot point. Nothing you are saying makes any sense at all in the logical course of events.

Whether a player would want to do that to his school is open to debate, but the fact remains that of all the dozen players Bama has put on medical scholly over the past few years, even those who wanted to keep playing and felt they could, only one was ever able to get a doctor - any doctor - to clear them, and he had to diagnosis shop for 2 years and several doctors to get that.

Yet you don't provide any numbers on how many of the 12 even tried to get cleared by someone else (see above logic) or what the injuries were. For all we know this one player is the only who went on medical and then changed his mind and looked for a second opinion. You haven't provided any evidence to the contrary yet or a single example of someone who went on medical and went shopping for second opinions and was unsuccessful.

I know some of you really want to find some smoking gun that proves Bama is cheating like mad, screwing over kids to win at all costs, abusing the rules, etc., but this just isn't it. We've had a few more medical hardships than average and there simply isn't any evidence that they weren't all legitimate.

Yeah, saying this over and over and over and burying your head in the sand doesn't make it true. I had always assumed you aren't an idiot but this is bordering on either blind homerism or true ignorance. I'll summarize key bullet points for you that you so far cannot or will not respond to.

1. Over a 3 year period Alabama used 12 medical scholarship, the average for the entire period was 1.18. To put it in mathematical terms, Alabama is over 8 standard deviations away from the norm which has a .0000000000001% chance of occurring randomly. Or, to put it another way, there is a 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 chance of this result occurring randomly. Fun illustration: it's 100 million times more likely that an Alabama player gets attacked by a shark than that all 12 of these medical exemption scholarships were legit.

2. Of the 12, 3 have stated they felt pressured into taking them, 1 was clearly not injured to the point of being incapacitate or unable to participate by virtue of the fact that he was practicing full time when the coaches approached him about taking the medical. This one example in and of itself is an irrefutable case of Alabama abusing the medical exemption by-laws as set forth by the NCAA.

3. While any other fan base can name career ending injuries for their players off the top of their head, you can't and won't supply any information on the injuries sustained by your players to support your point. Odd for someone who spends so much time on here arguing his side of things that you won't do something that would take any reputable fan maybe 15 minutes tops (with research) to do for their team.

 

[Bishop2b5]

What? Are you serious? I'm comparing 12 to 1.18 for the period of 2008-2010. That's the only period I actually have stone cold numerical data provided to me on.

This above quote just proves how little you are actually trying to learn the facts here.



So, in other words, unlike actual serious career ending injuries that most fans could name off the top of their heads for any of their players who suffered them.... you can't name any. Not a single one, much less 12. So unlike the bank in you analogy, you have zero proof of being on the up and up... whereas I've given at least one one concrete example of you not approaching things as intended.



Uhhhh.... what are you not understanding? WHY would they? If they have no intention of trying to play again because they WANT TO STAY AT ALABAMA AND FINISH SCHOOL then what would ever be the logic for shopping around for medical opinions?



This, again, doesn't make sense. If you're getting forced into a medical AND YOU ACCEPT IT then you aren't going to do this. If you're getting forced into a medical and you say "no way, I can play" then you simply transfer and it's a moot point. Nothing you are saying makes any sense at all in the logical course of events.



Yet you don't provide any numbers on how many of the 12 even tried to get cleared by someone else (see above logic) or what the injuries were. For all we know this one player is the only who went on medical and then changed his mind and looked for a second opinion. You haven't provided any evidence to the contrary yet or a single example of someone who went on medical and went shopping for second opinions and was unsuccessful.



Yeah, saying this over and over and over and burying your head in the sand doesn't make it true. I had always assumed you aren't an idiot but this is bordering on either blind homerism or true ignorance. I'll summarize key bullet points for you that you so far cannot or will not respond to.

1. Over a 3 year period Alabama used 12 medical scholarship, the average for the entire period was 1.18. To put it in mathematical terms, Alabama is over 8 standard deviations away from the norm which has a .0000000000001% chance of occurring randomly. Or, to put it another way, there is a 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 chance of this result occurring randomly. Fun illustration: it's 100 million times more likely that an Alabama player gets attacked by a shark than that all 12 of these medical exemption scholarships were legit.

2. Of the 12, 3 have stated they felt pressured into taking them, 1 was clearly not injured to the point of being incapacitate or unable to participate by virtue of the fact that he was practicing full time when the coaches approached him about taking the medical. This one example in and of itself is an irrefutable case of Alabama abusing the medical exemption by-laws as set forth by the NCAA.

3. While any other fan base can name career ending injuries for their players off the top of their head, you can't and won't supply any information on the injuries sustained by your players to support your point. Odd for someone who spends so much time on here arguing his side of things that you won't do something that would take any reputable fan maybe 15 minutes tops (with research) to do for their team.

IrishLax, lighten up, please. I don't want to spend hours arguing about this. I come in here to discuss football and relax. I don't want to spend every minute debating and doing hours of research to argue a point that really has no major bearing on my life. I'm busy being a dad and working 60 hours per week. This is supposed to be relaxing and fun, not non-stop hard work.

As for the 1.8 and 12, I simply misunderstood you. You weren't clear about time frames and I thought you were stating the NCAA average was 1.8 per year and that Bama averaged 12 per year. Not trying to bury my head in the sand or misrepresent things. I just don't have the time nor the desire to spend several hours researching it to that degree. If you want to beat this issue to death and interpret everything in the most negative way possible, go ahead. I don't believe there's anything I can say to change your mind and I don't want want to spend my entire day off in a fruitless effort to do so. I don't see any evidence that my school has abused the practice of medical scholarships other than their numbers are higher than expected. If it's that big of a deal to you, go ahead, but I don't want to spend all my time in here under attack and arguing about something that doesn't really affect either of us personally and neither of us has any control over. Is that OK?

 

[Bogtrotter07]

Raising the limit to 100 total doesn't really benefit a school very much at all. Let's face it, very few if any of those guys from 86-100 would see much playing time, let alone be major contributors. The rich wouldn't get richer, as a school still couldn't bring in more than 25 new recruits per year. With normal attrition rates, few schools would ever get close to the limit of 100. It would just eliminate any potential abuse from roster management. The benefit is to those borderline players that might otherwise feel pressured to leave the program to make room under the current cap of 85. Raising the limit to 100 totally eliminates that problem.

With all due respect, this post constitutes blowing it out of your a$s. You suggested the 100 player limit. It is an extra 15. A small class! It functionally is enough for the "average" SEC to cheat at a level that they can compete with the big cheaters.

 

[Bishop2b5]

With all due respect, this post constitutes blowing it out of your a$s. You suggested the 100 player limit. It is an extra 15. A small class! It functionally is enough for the "average" SEC to cheat at a level that they can compete with the big cheaters.

Explain to me how raising the limit to 100 helps the school in any significant way. Schools could still only bring in 100 players over a 4 year period, just as they can today, so they wouldn't be getting any more players. All raising the limit would do is keep schools from having to struggle to stay under the 85 cap, meaning no incentive to push a couple of kids out the door. In practice, few if any schools would ever approach the 100 limit. Even with redshirting and fifth year seniors, normal attrition would keep virtually all schools down in the 90-95 range, and those extra "above 85" players aren't likely to be big contributors anyway. Those are the borderline players that never make it into the 3-deep rotation.

I'm curious as to why you insist on making this an SEC matter. If the scholarship limit was raised, it would apply to all schools obviously. I think you're missing the point of raising the limit. It isn't to allow schools to pack more players into their program. It's to take away any need or incentive for programs to push underperforming players out in order to stay at 85 or under.

 

[IrishLax]

IrishLax, lighten up, please. I don't want to spend hours arguing about this. I come in here to discuss football and relax. I don't want to spend every minute debating and doing hours of research to argue a point that really has no major bearing on my life. I'm busy being a dad and working 60 hours per week. This is supposed to be relaxing and fun, not non-stop hard work.

As for the 1.8 and 12, I simply misunderstood you. You weren't clear about time frames and I thought you were stating the NCAA average was 1.8 per year and that Bama averaged 12 per year. Not trying to bury my head in the sand or misrepresent things. I just don't have the time nor the desire to spend several hours researching it to that degree. If you want to beat this issue to death and interpret everything in the most negative way possible, go ahead. I don't believe there's anything I can say to change your mind and I don't want want to spend my entire day off in a fruitless effort to do so. I don't see any evidence that my school has abused the practice of medical scholarships other than their numbers are higher than expected. If it's that big of a deal to you, go ahead, but I don't want to spend all my time in here under attack and arguing about something that doesn't really affect either of us personally and neither of us has any control over. Is that OK?

Alright fine. I'm impassioned because I guess, more than anything, I'm a bit disappointed. I've always enjoyed your posts and defended you and just really though I would get more thoughtful consideration from you towards changing your viewpoint. But I haven't been able to get you to even rationally discuss (except for the first bullet point, which you've tried to mitigate the compelling nature of it):

1. The 1 in a QUADRILLION odds of this happening by pure chance. This isn't opinion, this is math.

2. The documented Kirschman episode where he was clearly able to participate in athletics as he was actively practicing but then was placed on medical... which is only supposed to be for people who are completely incapacitated and incapable of ever playing their sport at a collegiate level again.

3. Of the other 11 cases, it would sure seem easy to provide some affirmative information as to why the medical was required. But I've never found an Alabama fan willing to even broach this topic.
-------
The most ironic thing is... I personally believe there is a case to be made for it being probably more ethical to put kids on a trumped up "medical" grant-in-aid rather then just kicking them to the curb like a lot of places do in basically all sports. There is nothing stopping a school from just dropping a kid from scholarship just because he is under-performing. I shared on here earlier the story of a personal friend of mine who was a top 10 lacrosse recruit, signed with Syracuse, and then they brought in a #1 guy who he lost his spot to... and then the coaches told him flat out to clean out his locker to make room for some new guys. Did nothing wrong but get beat out by a younger guy and a transfer... and this happens basically everywhere.

Is it "wrong" or "unethical" that Alabama gives kids the option to finish their degree rather than just kick them out for a "violation of team rules" or no reason at all? No, not really in my book. It's an abused loophole but there is nothing necessarily wrong with it with regards to the student or the alternative. I just wish you all would own up to it, accept it, and admit it's a competitive advantage over schools like Stanford/ND/Big Ten/etc. Because it does happen and the numerical, empirical, and anecdotal evidence really isn't even debatable.

 

[FinancePhD]

A lot for me to catch up on for sure. I guess this is a very active board and I am sorry that I am simply unable to keep up. I think I will need to just write out a long post and hope I address the issues without trying to quote and answer point by point. I am sorry if I miss any key points in doing so as that is not intentional and I trust that someone will point out anything that I omit.

Where exactly is the 1.18 number coming from? I have dug around the internet and all I see is a Michigan blog saying that the average for just the SEC was 1.18 from 2008-2010. Is there a data set that shows team by team how many are medical redshirts and how many are medical exemptions each year? If so then we can talk about the statistics but you have to remember CLT requires iid and I think that is a very bold assumption in this case.

As to the broader issues of medicals, limits, grey shirts, JuCos, and transfers I think I will need to write up a large single post. I hope to do that this evening when I get home.

 

[IrishLax]

A lot for me to catch up on for sure. I guess this is a very active board and I am sorry that I am simply unable to keep up. I think I will need to just write out a long post and hope I address the issues without trying to quote and answer point by point. I am sorry if I miss any key points in doing so as that is not intentional and I trust that someone will point out anything that I omit.

Where exactly is the 1.18 number coming from? I have dug around the internet and all I see is a Michigan blog saying that the average for just the SEC was 1.18 from 2008-2010. Is there a data set that shows team by team how many are medical redshirts and how many are medical exemptions each year? If so then we can talk about the statistics but you have to remember CLT requires iid and I think that is a very bold assumption in this case.

As to the broader issues of medicals, limits, grey shirts, JuCos, and transfers I think I will need to write up a large single post. I hope to do that this evening when I get home.

To answer your Qs... medical redshirts are irrelevant to the discussion, medical exemptions are what is meant by "medical hardship" here. It's tough because there is often an equivocation between the terms when they're really completely different things/by-laws. Medical redshirt == redshirt for a year, still an active counter. Medical exemption == what we're talking about, you become a non-counter and end your career.

The 1.18 number initially comes from the other 11 SEC teams taking 13 total medical exemptions over the same three year span. I used this as a conservative number because what I had seen on TV was an NCAA average of slightly less than 1 over the period in question... but because I couldn't find the broadcast on the web, I decided to use the more conservative number to give Alabama the benefit of the doubt. I don't know any way to find a full blown chart of every school.

If you want to give Alabama the absolute best case scenario for it happening by chance, we can throw out completely all the other schools and just look at the SEC because we have those hard numbers locked in... you get a standard deviation of ~3 from a mean of ~2 putting Alabama only 3+ deviations outside the norm for the conference meaning there is roughly a 99.9% probability of 12 medical exemptions NOT occurring naturally. Sure, you could refine the model quite a bit and there is margin for error... but there is no way to slice it except that there is a VERY small probability of Alabama have 12 medical exemption situations occur by happenstance when you look at the data for the rest of the pool.

In my quick perusing of other major football programs, I have yet to find a single school with 3+ in a three year span much less 12.

 

[UmphreakDomer]

In my quick perusing of other major football programs, I have yet to find a single school with 3+ in a three year span much less 12.

just to play devils advocate for a second--dont we have 2 or maybe 3 in 2 years?

again, reps for all of your previous posts about this. but, this is just a question i'm asking myself, because i know there are at least two in the last two years and i dont remember any from the previous 5. i just want to make sure i didnt dream something and am remembering it as truth.

 

[FinancePhD]

First I want to clear up your error in statistical inference. Each player would be a Bernoulli trial of healthy (p) and injured sufficiently to no longer be able to play (1-p). Since we have 85 (max) trials, that would result in a binomial distribution for each team year. That is a discrete distribution bound at 0 and an upper bound of the number of scholarship players which is not necessarily the same for each team, particularly when you consider that graduating seniors will be excluded. The importance there is you are trying to assume normality under, I presume, central limit theorem which requires the variables be iid and for N to be large. Both of those are violated in this case.

Since I am a finance guy I will talk about the financial markets. What if you assume normality and independence in stock returns?

The crash of 1987 would be 22 standard deviations from the mean. That is obviously with a very large sample size (roughly 20,000 trading days). The problem is even worse in the case you cite which is 12 teams over 3 years or 36 total observations. To try to then say that this is a smoking gun is at best to not understand the underlying distribution properties.

On to the points I was wishing to address.

Other than the issues raised by Bishop, I will just point out that the article has been discussed at length elsewhere. The Sports Blog Nation - The Oversigning Retort The Medical Exemption Scandal This is a case of he said/he said and some believe the kid and some believe the doctors involved. Since there is no evidence, which would be addressed by the NCAA, then there is really nothing I can say to prove that all available documents are legit. BTW saying that a graduate would not turn on the alma mater down the road does not hold. If you doubt that do a Google search on Gene Jelks. SEC schools would do anything possible to bring down a rival school so all it would take is a rival booster with deep pockets for it to come out.
I see no issue necessarily with the number of medical hardships. I had asked specifically if there were numbers for medical hardships and medical redshirts because that would help see where the issue is. If Alabama has more of both then perhaps the strength and conditioning is too much or there is insufficient time given for rest or however many possible causes to really break young men’s bodies. If Alabama has fewer redshirts and more hardships then it could be Alabama doctors are very quick to pull the trigger saying that it is the end or we should see if something is more likely to lead to a catastrophic injury. We simply do not know what the case is without data; unless you simply have a desire to maintain your bias.
The issue of JuCo is that the players are not academically qualified to enter school. The SEC allows coaches to get an LOI knowing they will not qualify (or more accurately being pretty darn sure they will not qualify) which is one reason why they can get 28 LOI when only 25 can actually sign. Again it is a huge deal here to be part of the event and since they are not enrolling I am not sure if all here count that as oversigning. Sure you can say it is public relations because sign and place means the coach and player keep a good relationship as well as the high school coach appreciates the fact that the player was given a shot. Naturally recruiting is all about relationships. To say that the JuCo acts as a farm team is something else that needs to be examined. Deion Belue was a JuCo sign in 2009 that came back to UA but the only other one that comes to mind that signed back with the same team was Nick Fairley. Fairley signed with Auburn under Tubberville and went JuCo. He went to Auburn in 2009 to play under Gene Chizik. Again, if there is data to show that this gives some sort of advantage then we can explore it but currently there is nothing to show that it is the case.
Greyshirting is also something I support, presuming it is done the right way. By that I mean the player knows about it beforehand. I agree that what happened to Elliot Porter was not right but generally the player is told ahead of time that it is a possibility. Again, we can check and see how many of those do not get a scholarship the following year but currently there is nothing showing that the LOI are not being honored.


Sorry for the longish post and I will finish these issues tomorrow and clear up other questions.

 

[FinancePhD]

I really did post something just FYI. It is just waiting for a moderator to approve it. I have to go to bed but I will come back tomorrow evening.

 

[IrishLax]

First I want to clear up your error in statistical inference. Each player would be a Bernoulli trial of healthy (p) and injured sufficiently to no longer be able to play (1-p). Since we have 85 (max) trials, that would result in a binomial distribution for each team year. That is a discrete distribution bound at 0 and an upper bound of the number of scholarship players which is not necessarily the same for each team, particularly when you consider that graduating seniors will be excluded. The importance there is you are trying to assume normality under, I presume, central limit theorem which requires the variables be iid and for N to be large. Both of those are violated in this case.

Since I am a finance guy I will talk about the financial markets. What if you assume normality and independence in stock returns?

The crash of 1987 would be 22 standard deviations from the mean. That is obviously with a very large sample size (roughly 20,000 trading days). The problem is even worse in the case you cite which is 12 teams over 3 years or 36 total observations. To try to then say that this is a smoking gun is at best to not understand the underlying distribution properties.

Yeah.... this is roughly what I was expecting you to post. I'm sorry that I don't have hours upon hours (much less the tools) to research every single FBS school over the past decade or so and grab a full set of data with regards to medicals they've issued. My rough math is far from perfect, but it's also not far off and the premise still holds.

For all your huffing and puffing you have to admit, unless you're being intellectually dishonest, that there is still a very low probability of Alabama getting to 12 medicals on pure chance. I did attempt anecdotal research the big schools out there and haven't even found a single one that has gotten to 3+ in that span much less 12.

In this case, flawed methodology != flawed conclusion.

 

[IrishLax]

On to the points I was wishing to address.

Other than the issues raised by Bishop, I will just point out that the article has been discussed at length elsewhere. The Sports Blog Nation - The Oversigning Retort The Medical Exemption Scandal This is a case of he said/he said and some believe the kid and some believe the doctors involved. Since there is no evidence, which would be addressed by the NCAA, then there is really nothing I can say to prove that all available documents are legit. BTW saying that a graduate would not turn on the alma mater down the road does not hold. If you doubt that do a Google search on Gene Jelks. SEC schools would do anything possible to bring down a rival school so all it would take is a rival booster with deep pockets for it to come out.

I see no issue necessarily with the number of medical hardships. I had asked specifically if there were numbers for medical hardships and medical redshirts because that would help see where the issue is. If Alabama has more of both then perhaps the strength and conditioning is too much or there is insufficient time given for rest or however many possible causes to really break young men’s bodies. If Alabama has fewer redshirts and more hardships then it could be Alabama doctors are very quick to pull the trigger saying that it is the end or we should see if something is more likely to lead to a catastrophic injury. We simply do not know what the case is without data; unless you simply have a desire to maintain your bias.

The irony here is insane. You quoted a post by an Alabama fan -- whose profile pic is him in all 'Bama gear with his child in all 'Bama gear -- as support and then get on everyone else about "bias."

The flaws here are just... wow:
1. You compare a case of a druggy and actual NCAA violations and someone with vehement feelings against Alabama and someone paying them substantial money to put Alabama in hot water... to kids who willingly accepted grant-in-aid to stay in SCHOOL because they like the University of Alabama so much as a place and value being a graduate of there and no actual NCAA violations and mild feelings and no one willing to bribe them into talking about something that would have no ill-effect on Alabama even if proven true. How exactly are those situations related again? And why would an SEC rival shell out loads of money to get testimony on something.... that would never lead to any penalties? Yeah...

2. In the article you linked, the following statements are made:
2A. A misunderstanding of the by-law in his first paragraph. It is NOT about being able to play at a high level... it's about being able to physically participate period. If a kid can make it through a practice and wants to continue playing then he is not supposed to be a candidate for a medical exemption under the spirit of the rule. If you look up medicals for other teams they are all basically spinal injuries, severe head trauma, heart conditions, paralysis, and the player asking for a medical because severe/repeated ligament injuries have them in so much pain they don't want to continue. You don't ever see a doctor going to a kid who is healthy enough to be practicing/lifting/etc. and tell them to go on medical for a condition that isn't life threatening.
2B. In the second paragraph, the 'Bama fan commits a logical fallacy in stating that the other two players don't feel as the article suggests just because they don't want to go on record with quotes. That is an illogical conclusion, and the most plausible conclusion is that they spoke off the record stating they "felt pressured" or the author could not have included it.
2C. The fourth paragraph refers to a project looking at actual attrition rates between SEC and Big Ten schools... do you have a link to this? Does this guy have a database of medicals around the country? I really hope it does and would love to see it. It's been a year since the article you linked... so if he hasn't followed through as he stated you can throw out his credibility right there.
2D. In the 6th paragraph he says the "medical cannot be forced on anyone" and that's BS. If you tell a kid he's losing his spot either way but can sign a paper in stay in school to finish his degree or he has to transfer... that is forcing someone. (And yes, schools can and do say things like that to players. Please don't dispute it. I've seen it first hand.) If you put a gun in my hand and say I have to shoot my dog or my cat or you're going to kill them both... and I pick the cat... just because I had another adverse option doesn't mean you didn't force me to kill the cat. This is quite a simple concept... colloquially known as being between a rock and a hard place.
2E. 10th paragraph keeps beating the Hoke straw man. This is how you can tell the 'Bama fan really wants to make his point about the OTHER author being biased. *eye roll*
2F. 11th paragraph has one epic jump-to-conclusion. Might be right, might be wrong. But talk about reading what you want to read.
2G. The 12th paragraph is the best though... really the best. This is when the author ADMITS that he wants Alabama to abuse the rule... he just doesn't know it, because he doesn't know the rule and has probably never read the by-law: "If he was hurt I have no problem with them pressuring him to take the medical, and I have no problem with them wanting to do it so that they can replace him with a new recruit. If he is injured and can no longer compete because of it, that is what the medical scholarship is for." No... that is not what a medical exemption is for. Not even close. What utter ignorance. And this is the article you cited as a rebuttal? See the by-law I linked above... it is designed such that if you are injured so severely that you can no longer PARTICIPATE IN ATHLETICS then you can keep a scholarship while being a non-counter. It is not for "well, John is only 90% after that ACL surgery... didn't come back as strong as we wanted... I don't see him ever cracking the depth chart because we've got these 5 guys coming in... let's give him a medical." I simply cannot believe that the author doesn't even understand the fundamentals of the by-law he is writing about.
2H. All of the paragraphs on Griffin... the guy came back well enough to play, but wasn't really good enough to compete. "Fails a physical" can mean anything... and this practice is one of the main reasons why the SEC enacted legislation following this article such that more detail/signoffs is required for a medical to be approved. There isn't much to say here except that when a guy feels "not as mad" about being pressured into the taking the medical, is "shocked" that he failed the physical, and was well enough to be working/out competing... well, 'Bama fans will read that how they want... but to other people it sure seems like an obvious abuse of the by-law for someone well enough to PARTICIPATE because he wasn't good enough to compete for time.

 

[FinancePhD]

Yeah.... this is roughly what I was expecting you to post. I'm sorry that I don't have hours upon hours (much less the tools) to research every single FBS school over the past decade or so and grab a full set of data with regards to medicals they've issued. My rough math is far from perfect, but it's also not far off and the premise still holds.

For all your huffing and puffing you have to admit, unless you're being intellectually dishonest, that there is still a very low probability of Alabama getting to 12 medicals on pure chance. I did attempt anecdotal research the big schools out there and haven't even found a single one that has gotten to 3+ in that span much less 12.

In this case, flawed methodology != flawed conclusion.

We have no idea if it is rare but if we had data then we could see. I cannot admit it is a low probability of occurance because I honestly do not know what the probabilities are. If your question is does it raise a concern then I would say it does as much as Alabama having 3-4 players (a couple of running backs and a maybe a couple of wide receivers) being injured this past year and having to sit out the rest of the year. I do not know if it is the style of football that leads to injury or if it is a training issue or if all teams have so many players go out and because I do not see the news reports I have a selection bias. Currently Alabama has 8 running backs and people worry how many will finish the year. The fear is not of a false medical exemption. If we knew how many medical redshirts as well as exemptions then it would help in that regard.

Then again currently everyone here is worried about sinkholes after that man was swallowed up by one in Florida last month. The risk is no different but people are looking for it. This issue may be the same where most players do not have much fanfair when they go out on medical scholarship but because UA is under a microscope it gets media attention.

I do freely admit that it could simply be that UA is very quick to pull the trigger on a guy that would get a ride on the pine at a different school. I personally think it is in very bad taste when a player comes on and they find cancer or he gets a spinal injury or something and they make a big deal about keeping him on the team. To me, it is just using is a sick or injured kid for publicity. I know others feel that moving to a medical is wrong because the other players need to rally around and support him and let him know he still belongs. That is a position that does not have a right or wrong side. It is just a personal preference on how it is treated.

We could even do a thought experiement. Let's say a kid strains his back really bad in the workouts and it nags for a while. Eventually they find it is some disk injury and nerve damage. This guy could maybe play through it but the doctor says that the collisions are not recommended because it could get so much worse. I think most teams would make the right decision and sit the kid out. I do not know if teams would get a medical exemption or not. That is more than likely going to be based upon the culture of the team. Some teams are made of individuals that want to succeed themselves, others want to have success for the other people on the team (as individuals), others want to see the team as a whole win and they are just happy to be a bunch of cogs. Naturally in the real world there is a mix but the overall culture I think may drive that. I cannot say that with confidence as that is just a hunch and not based on anything.

The issue raised was that Alabama games the system to put out kids that are not hurt (sufficently?) to make room for a better kid. I do not know if that happens but I presume if it did then an Auburn/Georgia/LSU/Florida booster would help that kid come forward with evidence.

To use what little evidence we have to paint a large picture of that issue is at best finding what you want to see. I freely admit that pro and con oversigning would do it but neither position is currently supported by data with regard to medical exemptions.

 

[FinancePhD]

The irony here is insane. You quoted a post by an Alabama fan -- whose profile pic is him in all 'Bama gear with his child in all 'Bama gear -- as support and then get on everyone else about "bias."

I have a bias as well. It was not a pajorative. We are coming to a scene and based upon our personal histories (and the predominant colors in our tee shirt drawers) we are more or less inclined to see something in the best or worst possible light. Just like when the stuff about Manti came out, there were two very different conclusions that people jumped to. Some gave him the benefit of the doubt and others thought it was a grand conspiracy by coaches, a player, a family and even the media. That initial reaction (without any real knowledge of the facts) was naturally biased.

The flaws here are just... wow:
1. You compare a case of a druggy and actual NCAA violations and someone with vehement feelings against Alabama and someone paying them substantial money to put Alabama in hot water... to kids who willingly accepted grant-in-aid to stay in SCHOOL because they like the University of Alabama so much as a place and value being a graduate of there and no actual NCAA violations and mild feelings and no one willing to bribe them into talking about something that would have no ill-effect on Alabama even if proven true. How exactly are those situations related again? And why would an SEC rival shell out loads of money to get testimony on something.... that would never lead to any penalties? Yeah...

They would do it just to hurt future recruiting. The hatred is really strong (as I imagine it is most places). After the SEC championship, Urban sent everything they had on UA preps to Utah because that was his old school and he wanted to help them against Alabama. When the Newton stuff was dying down someone at Florida released a lot about Newton's time at Florida before he we JuCo and potentially violated FERPA to do it. I honestly believe that if it is truly a high number then they could get at least one to go public.

Then the artlice stuff.

I wasn't saying that the article I linked to was a perfect refutation. I wanted to point out that we down here know all about the WSJ article and that we are simply going to talk past each other if we keep bringing that up because it is a he said he said and we will give more weight to the guy we want to believe.

 

[IrishLax]

We have no idea if it is rare but if we had data then we could see. I cannot admit it is a low probability of occurance because I honestly do not know what the probabilities are.

See, this is BS and you know it. There might not have high confidence in the numbers due to sample size, but the numbers ARE the numbers. And my original model took into account all FBS teams... but I dropped that, just for you, because I can't find the OTL broadcast online that talked about all those schools in FBS and their use of medicals. It was a special they ran in the course of a week where they talked about oversigning, grey shirting, medicals, etc. and the pros/cons to all of the practices. They talked about the LSU kid and all of that during this week. I have an average from that which is easy to extrapolate fairly (just give an even distribution between 0,1,2,3 medicals such that it averages out to a conservative 1.2 with the highest standard deviation possible... which is what I did for 120 total data points to account for "all" FBS schools then throw in 'Bama at 12 to the pool). Flawed? Yes. Imperfect? Yes. Passable for rough math giving a very rough approximation? Absolutely.

You're hiding behind the uncertainty in the model as an excuse for Alabama 4x more medicals than any other school we can anecdotally find. That's a pointless argument to make because there is not a single independent person who will look at the data and come to the conclusion that Alabama's significant higher numbers than everyone else is most likely from pure chance.

The issue raised was that Alabama games the system to put out kids that are not hurt (sufficently?) to make room for a better kid. I do not know if that happens but I presume if it did then an Auburn/Georgia/LSU/Florida booster would help that kid come forward with evidence.

Why? It's not violation. There is no end game there. That's a ridiculous conspiracy theory. That also hinges on someone being so embittered and cash starved that they want to take the bribe.

To use what little evidence we have to paint a large picture of that issue is at best finding what you want to see. I freely admit that pro and con oversigning would do it but neither position is currently supported by data with regard to medical exemptions.

No, your refusing to acknowledge to suggestive picture that the "little evidence" paints to take the position most flattering to your school is "finding what you want to see." There is no scenario where Alabama's insanely higher than average medicals are most explicable by chance. There is no scenario where when you apply Occam's Razor that the simplest solution is that Alabama players just happen to get debilitating and incapacitating injuries rendering them incapable of even participate in sports at a rate that exceeds every other school.

 

[GoldenIsThyFame]

 

[IrishLax]

I have a bias as well. It was not a pajorative. We are coming to a scene and based upon our personal histories (and the predominant colors in our tee shirt drawers) we are more or less inclined to see something in the best or worst possible light. Just like when the stuff about Manti came out, there were two very different conclusions that people jumped to. Some gave him the benefit of the doubt and others thought it was a grand conspiracy by coaches, a player, a family and even the media. That initial reaction (without any real knowledge of the facts) was naturally biased.

This is all very valid (minus your spelling of pejorative... I kid, I kid). But what I will say is that you've probably missed what I've said on medicals previously in the walls of text... but I've always supported the liberal use of medicals to keep a kid in school who you would otherwise force out through other means. Most schools would just trump up violation of team rules or strongly "encourage" them into a transfer or just cut them altogether for no reason at all. As an athlete with lots of athlete friends at lots of different colleges, I know that pushing players out happens in every sport at every school.

So I'm not biased against the practice... I just want you Alabama people to admit that your school is probably putting kids on medicals who are still physically able of PARTICIPATING in the sport even if they aren't going to be a big time contributor.

They would do it just to hurt future recruiting. The hatred is really strong (as I imagine it is most places). After the SEC championship, Urban sent everything they had on UA preps to Utah because that was his old school and he wanted to help them against Alabama. When the Newton stuff was dying down someone at Florida released a lot about Newton's time at Florida before he we JuCo and potentially violated FERPA to do it. I honestly believe that if it is truly a high number then they could get at least one to go public.

All good points, but I really doubt someone shell out tens of thousands of dollars for something that "might" hurt recruiting (let's be serious, it wouldn't). If it was something serious? I could see it. Definitely. But the two examples that you just gave all involve someone taking an hour out of their day to release some damning info... that's far less of a barrier than going out of your way to attempt to buy testimony on a topic that would have minimal impact at best to Alabama. No one thinks kids are really going to give a crap about something as little as this when Alabama is destroying every CFB team in the country

The WSJ article is an example of the far extents people are willing to go to "prove" this against 'Bama and disparage them... there is no way someone is paying $10k+ to someone to go on record with allegations of something that isn't a violation in any way shape or form.

Then the artlice stuff.

I wasn't saying that the article I linked to was a perfect refutation. I wanted to point out that we down here know all about the WSJ article and that we are simply going to talk past each other if we keep bringing that up because it is a he said he said and we will give more weight to the guy we want to believe.

Fine. Nothing more to be said here.

(BTW, I have a day off today... if you couldn't tell... so keep it coming haha)