My Irish friends,
I’ve been lurking here…for the same reasons many of us like to visit other schools’ boards—out of curiosity for what fans of those other schools are thinking or talking about regarding situations such as this. I hope you won’t mind my posting here. I figured some of you might want to hear the thoughts of someone outside the Notre Dame family, someone at what is perceived, in this instance, as the “rival” school.
First of all, I have found the thread quite interesting…I think, as fans, we all get somewhat wrapped up in recruiting and invested in individual players. It is only natural that, when something goes “sideways”, as it did here, there is an overly emotional response by the fans. Another issue, aside from the expected bias, is that speculation and misinformation tend to run wild a bit. Perhaps a different viewpoint might add to your collective understanding.
First, I’ll address a couple of minor points:
To Bogtrotter07: Your recollection of the drive from the Sacramento area to Los Angeles may be based on old info—like before the completion of Interstate 5. My younger daughter attended UC Davis and now lives in Sacramento, so I’ve made the drive many times…Using I-5, from my house, as lightly longer distance than from the UCLA campus, I can regularly make the drive in five hours flat…Yeah, that’s driving a bit fast—averaging 80 mph…but, believe it or not, those speeds are common on that road. Also, the trip, by air, is only one hour…and Southwest Airlines regularly runs specials for as low as $39 each way.
As to the issue that keeps coming up questioning whether Alabama wasn’t Eddie’s second choice:
I believe Alabama was actually somewhat of a “Red Herring” in the recruitment. Eddie was originally committed to USC. Then, USC’s season started going downhill and there was a lot of grumbling by their early pledges. With the NCAA sanctioned scholarship limits and all, they started trying to push around some of their early commits--not Eddie, but a couple of others that Eddie had become rather close to during the recruiting process. SC had been pushing kids to graduate high school early and enter SC last year so they could count them against last year’s limits rather than this one. Then they realized they were beyond the limit there as well and started asking kids to defer. Players started decommitting. Two of these other recruits with whom Eddie was close ended up signing with UCLA and actually entered UCLA last Winter and Spring Quarters. Eddie WAS set to join them, then took his visit to Notre Dame and was swayed during the visit. Still, it was a tough decision down the stretch to sign with Notre Dame. But UCLA, not Alabama, was really the other school in close competition.
Now, the main point I wanted to get to: The Options…
People here have laid out what they BELIEVE to be the options…But I think there has been quite a bit of misinformation passed along with it.
The biggest part of that is the notion that a school can restrict where a signed recruit can go with his release. There is a lot of anecdotal stuff around the media over the years about schools granting releases conditioned on the player not being able to go to one school or another. But the truth is, they really can’t do this. There is no legal mechanism for it. At best, it may be part of an informal, yet unenforceable negotiation: “Hey, we’ll grant you that easy and quick release if you agree NOT to sign with some school or another.” But there’s very little “teeth” in this. About the only case where there is a modicum of enforceability is where the target school is the new employer of the first school’s former coach—and the threat there is really to the coach, not the kid…based on some sort of “tampering” logic—or something contractual with the former coach’s release from the first school. But, really, once a kid is released from his Letter of Intent, he’s a “free agent”. Public policy issues would prevent a school from restricting the recruit based on a mere Letter of Intent. And, as noted, if the school doesn’t grant the release, they really have no say in the matter either—only the kid is punished by having to sit out a year and lose a year of eligibility. You cannot compel a kid to attend and play for a school. Personal services contracts are not subject to injunctive relief.
So, it is really a case of, if the recruit does not want to attend the school with which he has signed, you have only two options:
1. Release the kid and he plays wherever he wants immediately…with five years to play four; or
2. Don’t release the kid and he MAY have to sit out the coming year and then have three years of eligibility to play thereafter.
There are a lot of posters on this site who seem to be hanging on to the hope that, by denying the request, they can compel Eddie to play at least a year at Notre Dame. I guess that is the one vestige of hope they have…however, it is a bit delusional. IF Eddie intends to attend elsewhere, there really isn’t any advantage to him or, really, to Notre Dame, for him to play one year, then transfer. He’d still end up losing a year to a redshirt…and then it either mean he plays less, losing his likely more productive second year…or that he pushes out his expected entry to the NFL (All blue chip recruits think that’s where they are destined) for another year. For the school, they are investing in developing a player that they don’t think will be there for the future at the expense of developing another young player who will…and they have a player who is likely not happy.
In this case, I don’t think many of you really understand how far along this situation is. Just because it seems to have come up quickly in your consciousness doesn’t mean it has. It has actually been going on for some time now. To my knowledge, a couple of months. Eddie asked for his release some time ago and Notre Dame said no…but, then there is an appeals process…which has also been ongoing. All of this is why the family hired an attorney. At this point, it should be clear to everyone that Eddie will not attend Notre Dame. Forcing the family to go through the lengthy process and the expense of hiring an attorney has not helped their cause.
As was noted by a poster earlier in this thread, out of 700 cases like this last year, ONLY 30 were eventually denied their release. The odds of retaining a player under these circumstances are really not very good at all. And, even if denied the release, it is still likely Eddie goes elsewhere and just sits on the bench and concedes the year of eligibility.
Is there any real advantage to Notre Dame to NOT release the kid?
Probably not. The two most noted are:
1) Vengeance—never a good reason to do anything
2) Setting a precedent. Problem here is that, assuming the odds hold, there will be no precedent set. The player will get his release one way or another and Notre Dame would have spun their wheels and caused a little bad will in some recruiting circles.
How do other schools handle this? They usually just let it go and release the recruit. UCLA did it JUST A FEW WEEKS AGO. One of our signed basketball recruits—a Top 100 ranked guard named Allerick Freeman, star of the #1 high school team in the country, Findlay Prep of Nevada, asked for his release and it was immediately granted. Some might say there is a difference—there was a change in head coaches—but, after the hire, the kid had come out and said he was excited about the new coach and looked forward to the opportunity. It was other factors that led to his asking for the release. UCLA also did it several years back in Football, with a blue chip recruit named Jesse Simms—the grandson of UCLA great Jackie Robinson—asked for a release, it was granted, so he could go to Penn State instead.
It actually happens quite a bit with little fanfare. These are 17-18 year old kids. Luckily, most sign their letters and consider it final…but not always.
I also wanted to address the question that’s been repeatedly been brought up here of alleged tampering by UCLA. A natural reaction by fans to imagine the worst—since we all expect that, once signed, it should all be smooth sailing. “What went wrong?” Well, sometimes, there have been DOCUMENTED cases of tampering, for example, former coaches trying to pry away their star recruits. But, pretty much MOST schools—though it may be “open season” BEFORE letters of intent are signed—will concede that it’s over once the letters are signed. I personally know a number of the coaches and members of the Athletic Department at UCLA and am pretty certain that there would have been absolutely no contact by them AFTER the letter was signed with Notre Dame. Up until that point, however, they were obviously in constant contact with Eddie—they sent him a letter of intent form to sign, if he had chosen to come to UCLA. They had sent him forms acknowledging his acceptance into school at UCLA, etc. All of this is fairly standard at any school with any recruit. But, once the letter was signed and recruiting over, end of story. They have likely still not spoken with him—unless he called first, in which case, their response would necessarily be “Ask for your release from Notre Dame or from the NCAA and then come back and we will speak to you”.
Of course, for practical sake, he likely has a pretty good idea that if he gets his release or, even if he doesn’t, but wishes to sit out the year, that UCLA will find a scholarship for him and NOT turn him away.
Another point to clear up: Should he come to UCLA, even without a release from Notre Dame or from the NCAA, he CAN be on scholarship. Ineligible to PLAY, but he CAN participate in practice, training, working with the coaches and team and be on an athletic scholarship (which does count against the NCAA limits)—just like any other redshirt.
Another note on contact with UCLA: Though I am fairly certain there is no contact with coaches or athletic department personnel, I am guessing that he DOES have contact with his friends at UCLA. Sort of expected in this age of text messaging, twitter, facebook, e-mail, etc. I’m guessing this goes on nowadays at EVERY program with every athlete…and that the NCAA really doesn’t care. There is no real way to enforce anything against the school. Old friends, former high school team mates, family members, etc. attend and play for different schools. You cannot really restrict them from communicating.
Bottom line here is that we are already actually pretty far along in the process. I’d be 99.9 percent sure Eddie will not be attending Notre Dame…and 90% sure he WILL be at UCLA. And I think it will all come down pretty quickly from here on out. I don’t think it’s my personal bias here…I think it should be pretty well universally acknowledged by those who know at least a bit about the case.
Good luck next season. Beat $C…
