'13 CA DT Eddie Vanderdoes (UCLA)

[Emcee77]

Nothing d!ckish about making him honor his LOI. We could p!ss off one family in this case, or the entire CFB world. Looks like we chose the latter.

EDIT: Hasn't been confirmed we let him out.

I hope it was clear that I wasn't saying that there was ... just that that's how the Vanderdoeses hope it will look to casual observers.

 

[NDWorld247]

Prediction on ND ‘comment’:

The University of Notre Dame expects all student-athletes to honor their Letter of Intent when signed and submitted to the University. It is our policy to not release a student-athlete from their LOI unless extenuating circumstances apply. After an extensive review, we do not believe this to be the case and have no intention of releasing Eddie Vanderdoes from his LOI. We wish Eddie the best of luck at UCLA and will continue to focus on the student-athletes that desire to be a part of our program in preparation for what should be a successful 2013 football season.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Agree with LA, but let's stop shitting on the 6 hour thing. There's a sizable difference between that and S Bend. Not like the NCAA told Carlisle he had to go to Purdue when they granted the waiver.

It's a legitimate question. If there's a "family issue" at stake serious enough to merit breaking one's NLOI, being able to drive home on weekends is a pretty weak justification for UCLA > ND. And we'll be the first to admit that Carlisle's transfer and waiver were head scratchers.

The kid didn't want to come here. He's following the rules. Let it go. Kiel, Lynch and Prestwood all had drama and are all gone. Him coming to ND probably wouldn't have helped things.

The staff is allegedly furious with Mora. What if he tampered? What if UCLA leveraged Baylee's scholarship to get Eddie to break his NLOI? Should we just let that go? I agree that there's little point in directing vitriol at Eddie personally. But there seems to be a lot more at work here than a flaky teenager.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

So in reality, nothing happened?

Except for a bunch of posters all got their tits in a twist.

That Sac Bee guy is a piece of work. Check that a douche nozzle.

Guess who the bag and solution appear to be?

Deuces. Good luck at UCLA when Mora bails. There is exactly 0% chance that this was all Eddie and his family. UCLA/Mora are dirty, and will now be regarded as such.

Lovin' it dude! Rock on!

 

[Kak7304]

@Isaacrochell88: So it's true.... Can't believe him

 

[Anchorman]

It's a legitimate question. If there's a "family issue" at stake serious enough to merit breaking one's NLOI, being able to drive home on weekends is a pretty weak justification for UCLA > ND. And we'll be the first to admit that Carlisle's transfer and waiver were head scratchers.



The staff is allegedly furious with Mora. What if he tampered? What if UCLA leveraged Baylee's scholarship to get Eddie to break his NLOI? Should we just let that go? I agree that there's little point in directing vitriol at Eddie personally. But there seems to be a lot more at work here than a flaky teenager.

I think we'd all agree it depends on the issue. Berkeley to Auburn is 1:40 according to Google, so realistically he'd be home for only weekends either way.

I'm sure the staff isn't happy with mora, but we've also heard reports about just about everything. Maybe those were wrong, or maybe they were sorted out. My guess is there's a lot of questions about tampering, etc. with most transfers, decommits, etc. Proving those are almost impossible.

As for the scholarship, I'm not sure it is all that unheard of for scholarship offers freshman year, particularly in more minor sports. Sure, it sounds sketchy, but on the other hand if she has a bunch of offers then maybe she's simply deserving. ND hiring McDermott's brother during his recruitment probably seems a little strange from afar too.

 

[GoldenIsThyFame]

The Vanderdoes family was obviously publicly begging for a release and by painting themselves in an appreciative light it now makes us look like a bunch of asses for denying it....


And frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

 

[fitz_bu47]

Deuces. Good luck at UCLA when Mora bails. There is exactly 0% chance that this was all Eddie and his family. UCLA/Mora are dirty, and will now be regarded as such.

 

[ACamp1900]

@schadjoe: Vanderdoes: "I take my commitments seriously, but as circumstances changed, the most important commitment is to family."

USC and Notre Dame would like you to clarify...........

 

[Bogtrotter07]

This is why you should never freak out and post immediately after news breaks until you hear more of the story.

Good for ND. This is exactly how it should have played out. He sits (congrats on training so hard and getting your body into such incredible shape!) and loses a year of eligibility.

Ugggghhh, this one hurt at first but now it's a big I-don't-give-a-****-good-riddance thing. Recent history says he would have transferred anyways.

Hey EV, I'm glad that 7 hr drive is just a stone's throw away from your family (you know, far closer than say, Cal or San Jose St., right???).

I agree with everything in this post.

GB if you are lurking, I didn't give-a-shiit a month ago! LOL!

And my kids have one thing to say, here on June 4, 2013:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/iQkU6fHP0fM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Deuces. Good luck at UCLA when Mora bails. There is exactly 0% chance that this was all Eddie and his family. UCLA/Mora are dirty, and will now be regarded as such.

I wish him all the luck of Clemson with Danny Ford!

Clemson Coaches Guilty Of Stupidity


January 12, 1990|By DAVID TEEL Columnist


Prior to the 1984 season, Clemson football players strutted around campus wearing t-shirts with the team's motto: "On probation and still kickin' ***."

It seemed harmless at the time. Borderline humorous. Certainly true. Sanctions for recruiting violations couldn't mask the fact that Clemson was the Atlantic Coast Conference's premier program.

More than five years later, with Clemson sinking fast in another quagmire of NCAA violations, the t-shirts symbolize a sickness that still infects Clemson football. Probation wasn't a punishment. It was a badge of courage. Forget remorse. Just kick ***.

Such arrogance. Such stupidity.

Mere months after winning the 1981 national championship, Clemson was slapped with a two-year NCAA probation for serious recruiting violations. Most of the nastiness occurred under former coach Charley Pell. Some occurred under Danny Ford, Pell's successor.

The ACC added an extra year of sanctions, barring Clemson from postseason play in 1984. School officials were furious and talked of leaving the conference. The talk was cheap.

Now we learn that talk of reform was just as cheap. According to the NCAA, Clemson coaches made 11 improper recruiting contacts between November, 1984 and September, 1987. Translation: Clemson was ignoring the rules even while on probation.

And that's just one of 14 violations.

But don't dare believe that the Tigers are victims of some obscure, ambiguous NCAA regulation, of which there are many. Recruiting dead periods are clearly defined, and Clemson ignored them.

Why? Clemson already had the ACC's premier program. Its facilities are incomparable on a national scale. You don't have to cheat to recruit at Clemson.

But after the 1981 national championship, Clemson aspired to more than mere ACC titles. Major bowl bids and top-10 rankings were the goals. Clemson expanded its recruiting base and courted players previously reserved for the Notre Dames, Miamis, Auburns and Southern Californias.

Ford and his staff held their own. Their recruiting classes were touted as among the nation's best, and those players produced on the field, leading the Tigers to three ACC championships, and a combined 38-8-2 record from 1986-89. During that time Clemson defeated marquee programs Penn State, Oklahoma and West Virginia in bowl games.

"The program is in better shape than it's ever been," assistant coach Chuck Ready said during the 1989 season. "The last four-five years we've gradually broadened our recruiting base. Every year we seem to get into another area."

Many head coaches plead ignorance when their assistants are nabbed for recruiting violations. Ford won't have that luxury.

"He's more involved in recruiting probably than any head coach in the country," Ready said. "We meet every week on recruiting and talk about every player. We have about 200 names on the board, and he wants to know about them all."

That's why Danny Ford has coached his last game at Clemson. When he was named Clemson's athletic director in 1985, Bobby Robinson vowed to purge all rule breakers from Clemson's athletic department. He has not retracted that promise.

Ford's resignation or dismissal may be the only measure that can save Clemson's program from an NCAA-ordered shutdown. The NCAA would have shut down Kentucky basketball if the school hadn't canned Coach Eddie Sutton. And cheating while on probation, which Clemson did, is just as serious as the skullduggery at Kentucky.

Speculation concerning Ford's successor already has started. North Carolina State's Dick Sheridan has been mentioned, which is foolish. Sheridan is a straight-laced South Carolina grad who last season rejected offers from his alma mater and Georgia.

William and Mary's Jimmye Laycock is a former Clemson assistant - before any NCAA violations - with an excellent reputation. Furman Coach Jimmy Satterfield guides a successful Division I-AA program right up the road from Clemson. Air Force Coach Fisher DeBerry's son is a sophomore on the Clemson baseball team.

Many others - big names - will be interested. Clemson is a tremendous job. Cheating is not a prerequisite to national success.

Cheating anywhere is shameful. Cheating at Clemson is arrogant and stupid.

 

[UmphreakDomer]

The Vanderdoes family was obviously publicly begging for a release and by painting themselves in an appreciative light it now makes us look like a bunch of asses for denying it....


And frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

to who? ESPN? Mark May? we dont give any credence to the crap they spill onto the college football audience anyway, right? why is this any different?

and i agree, i dont give a damn either. i quit that about a month ago when it was merely speculation.

Later EV.

rip off the band aid guys.

 

[Brown]

LOL@ veteran posters here insisting that coach Kelly and his staff are not at fault.

They may not be the only ones at fault for all of the recent spurns the last several years, but they are without question apart of the problem.

You don't recruit guys who don't want to be apart of your program. You identify any red flags and you save your room/scholarships/time for people who you know will be 100% committed. Yes, sometimes even after doing all of your homework, some simply fall through the cracks.

But this isn't just a few slipping through the cracks. It's consistently the biggest, most valuable, most important recruits and players defecting every single season. I don't even want to go through the list of star players & star prospects this team has lost. Guys the coaching staff recruited hard. Guys the coaching staff waited on, and reserved spots for, while other more qualified candidates got past up on.

In any scouting (baseball, basketball, football, etc.) there's the mental/psychological side. YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR HOMEWORK. You have to choose wisely what players you are going to invest in. THIS IS A VERY CRITICAL part of any player evaluation; especially in college football where so much is riding on the stability/sanity/loyalty of the kid.

ND has the resources to do their homework on kids...and figure out which prospects to simply stay away from. A lot of opportunity cost went into recruiting/coaching guys like Neal, Lynch, Vanderdoes, Anzalone, Darby, Kiel, Greenberry Shephard, etc. etc. etc. with no legitimate plan B in place when these guys left.

ND is losing the very top percentile of talent in the program, taking massive blows to their ability to compete with the upper echelon programs in college football.

Don't kid yourselves, all of these defections are going to cost ND big time in the W/L column well into the future.

 

[chicago51]

Three Points:

A- There has to be an NCAA investigation into UCLA for their recruiting practices, and possible tampering? at least you would think?

2- "Family issues" is very vague. The whole goal of the Vanderdoes family is generate sympathy in their favor. You think they would be more specific would them generate more simpathy unless of course the actually specific reason would not generate simpathy.

D- Finally some actually substance has returned to the thread.

 

[Damion704]

+1

 

[Kak7304]

Except for a bunch of posters all got their tits in a twist.

That Sac Bee guy is a piece of work. Check that a douche nozzle.

Guess who the bag and solution appear to be?

Agreed. He was the original source of the vague story then repeatedly called out ND fans for speculating as to what happened. If you don't want speculation, don't release a story until there are more details.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

LOL@ veteran posters here insisting that coach Kelly and his staff are not at fault.

They may not be the only ones at fault for all of the recent spurns the last several years, but they are without question apart of the problem.

You don't recruit guys who don't want to be apart of your program. You identify any red flags and you save your room/scholarships/time for people who you know will be 100% committed. Yes, sometimes even after doing all of your homework, some simply fall through the cracks.

But this isn't just a few slipping through the cracks. It's consistently the biggest, most valuable, most important recruits and players defecting every single season. I don't even want to go through the list of star players & star prospects this team has lost. Guys the coaching staff recruited hard. Guys the coaching staff waited on, and reserved spots for, while other more qualified candidates got past up on.

In any scouting (baseball, basketball, football, etc.) there's the mental/psychological side. YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR HOMEWORK. You have to choose wisely what players you are going to invest in. THIS IS A VERY CRITICAL part of any player evaluation.

ND has the resources to do their homework on kids...and figure out which prospects to simply stay away from. A lot of opportunity cost went into recruiting/coaching guys like Neal, Lynch, Vanderdoes, Anzalone, Darby, Kiel, etc. etc. etc.

I understand what you are saying, but look at the timeframe and the value of the recruit.

He wasn't sold by anybody until the night before. That was 2/6/13. By March he wanted out. That is bull shiit, and not from Kelly's end. Already UCLA is going to be under the microscope. There will be about 120 institutions with them in their cross-hairs. That is a big gamble for one player!

 

[T Town Tommy]

He still hasn't given an explanation as to why he didn't want to play for the Irish. The "things have changed" answer isn't good enough for me... and not good enough for Notre Dame either. Kudos Irish.

 

[Kingbish01]

Good luck kid....What the saying?? Oh ya, break a leg!

 

[Grahambo]

It's everything we thought from the beginning since this saga began. Only difference is EV finally released his statement after saying he was going to release a statement last week.

Joe Schad says in his article that "Several coaches across the country have reached out to Notre Dame and also Florida State coaching staffs to ask they not release high-profile incoming freshman from their NLIs.

These coaches feared that a precedent could be set forcing staffs to continue to recruit incoming freshmen after they already signed. "
Also according to the article EV's father came out and said ND won't release EV from his NLI. (Eddie Vanderdoes, Notre Dame Fighting Irish' top DT recruit , going to UCLA - ESPN Los Angeles)

Again, that's nothing we didn't already know but it should be stated again.

ND will come out fine and nothing else needs to be said about an 18 year old kid. It's becoming clearer that a true statement will never be released (unless ND comes out with the truth which I doubt).

This is what happens when dealing with someone who goes through the process for a long time, commits/de-commits, can't make up their minds.

Mora will be out of UCLA quicker then people think.

 

[SoDakDomer]

I don't fault the staff at all. They are recruiting 17 to 18 year old kids. They change their minds, more now than ever as all these big time high school recruits are pampered and spoiled.
I can't believe the Vanderdoes family would really try to black mail us into releasing EV from his scholarship by threatening to go to USC. If thats actually the case how great would it be if we actually told the EV family that if he enrolls at UCLA we will release him from his LOI, and when he enrolls we say nope sorry not sticking to our word. KARMA. I really feel like the staff and university are to mature and civilized to do something like this (I'm not). I honestly think there is some serious tampering from MORA going on here. A kid doesn't do this two weeks before he is set to come to campus if there isn't some sort of tampering. Hasn't MORA been accused of some other violations too recently?

 

[dudesthisisthebest]

They may not be the only ones at fault for all of the recent spurns the last several years, but they are without question apart of the problem.

I agree

 

[Whiskeyjack]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23NotreDame">#NotreDame</a> HC Brian Kelly statement: "Eddie Vanderdoes will not be attending the University of Notre Dame." (Cont.)</p>— Rachel Terlep (@eTruth_Irish) <a href="https://twitter.com/eTruth_Irish/status/341981977236369409">June 4, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Kelly: "We did not release him from his national letter of intent in order to protect the integrity of that very important program..."</p>— Rachel Terlep (@eTruth_Irish) <a href="https://twitter.com/eTruth_Irish/status/341982056928124928">June 4, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Kelly: "...but we have worked with the Vanderdoes family so that Eddie can continue his education this fall at a school closer to his home."</p>— Rachel Terlep (@eTruth_Irish) <a href="https://twitter.com/eTruth_Irish/status/341982148678520832">June 4, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Kelly: "We understand Eddie’s interest in remaining closer to his family and wish him well.”</p>— Rachel Terlep (@eTruth_Irish) <a href="https://twitter.com/eTruth_Irish/status/341982256438575105">June 4, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Emcee77]

Looking ahead, how do we go about identifying families like the Vanderdoeses and Anzalones before we get burned like this again?

Man, I don't know if you can ... unless you want to resort to avoiding all players who were previously committed to other schools. But as we've said before, that would cost us some quality guys, such as KLM (originally committed to TAMU) and Hounshell (originally committed to UF), not to mention Golson (UNC).

 

[clashmore_mike]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p>What was supposed to be a quick Q&A about Eddie Vanderdoes but ended up rather lengthy: <a href="http://t.co/6ImpVm6q2e">http://t.co/6ImpVm6q2e</a></p>— John Infante (@John_Infante) <a href="https://twitter.com/John_Infante/statuses/341981028413493248">June 4, 2013</a></blockquote>

 

[Whiskeyjack]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>ND not releasing Vanderdoes from the NLI is a matter of legal protection for the NLI. Have to do this if they want it to remain enforceable.</p>— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) <a href="https://twitter.com/Andy_Staples/status/341982401884483585">June 4, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Kak7304]

He still hasn't given an explanation as to why he didn't want to play for the Irish. The "things have changed" answer isn't good enough for me... and not good enough for Notre Dame either. Kudos Irish.

Because his explanation most likely isn't a good one. If it was, he probably would have been released.

 

[phork]

I see going to USC as a punishment. I would have let that be the only school he would be allowed to go to. Best part is that Kiffin is screwed either way.

 

[chicago51]

Does anyone think there is going to be an NCAA investigation into UCLA? Sure the way these investigations work we'll finally know something 4 years from now and if there is any sanctions they won't be handed down until like 6 years from now, still I would feel better if I knew UCLA was going to be investigated for tampering.

 

[Emcee77]

Do think there is going to be an NCAA investigation into UCLA? Sure the way these investigations work we'll finally know something 4 years from now and if there is any sanctions they won't be handed down until like 6 years from now, still I would feel better if I knew UCLA was going to be investigated for tampering.

Well, putting two and two together after reading BK's statement and Clash's linked Q&A, I guess we granted EV permission to contact other schools; we just didn't didn't release him from the NLI. So not sure UCLA broke any rules regarding EV.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Do think there is going to be an NCAA investigation into UCLA? Sure the way these investigations work we'll finally know something 4 years from now and if there is any sanctions they won't be handed down until like 6 years from now, still I would feel better if I knew UCLA was going to be investigated for tampering.

If Mora steps on enough toes, maybe. Even then, only stupid coaches get caught for recruiting violations. If you do it right, there's very little to worry about.