The Truth about integrity in Recruiting

I was contacted by a father of a High School Senior which had been recruited by Big Time Football Programs throughout the U. S. This particular parent’s son had committed to a well known college program (thinking that he had a "Full Ride"); however, at the last minute, the school rescinded the scholarship, and offered his son and another player a “grey-shirt”. Had the school signed these 2 players, on National Signing Day this year, their “overall” rating would have dropped them out of the Top 50, and put them behind one of their arch rivals in recruiting; however, by grey-shirting these two players, the school maintained it’s “Top 50” Status, maintained a ranking slightly higher than the arch rival, and managed to piss off a bunch of parents in the process.

It is well known that one of the recruiting services only averages the Top 20 prospects of a schools signees, so by in effect dropping the lesser rated players this causes the ranking of a school’s class to go up

This ploy is just dead wrong on several fronts. First, a school should be upfront with prospects and tell them up front that they plan on “Grey-shirting” them, and not wait until National Signing Day or almost signing day to reveal this to the kids.

Second, this ploy shows one of the asinine aspects of ranking Recruiting Classes IE How can signing a prospect in effect “Lower” your class ranking? If, you average it out (IE via the Star Method) of course it is going to lower your ranking (which is still stupid!).

The bottom line is that the more players you sign, the better your chances of having depth and potential impact players regardless of the Stars.

The Words of this particular parent were “the coach and school are making a lot of people mad by doing this and in effect, both the coach and the school are going to suffer the repercussions from situations like this” He then went on to say that “several parents are mad and that word is getting around about what happened to the two students in question”.

It wound up that at least one of the students in question signed a LOI to play at another school, and did not sign with the original school to which he had "verballed"

My personal observation about this situation is that it is difficult at best to get teenagers to trust us as adults, situations like this ruin college programs and create mistrust amongst players, coaches (especially HS coaches that have been told that their players are getting a “full ride” only to have it pulled), administrators, and even college coaching staffs (especially, if an assistant has spent many hours talking the kid into coming to that particular institution).

Trust me on this one!! This one is going to go public at some point, and the embers that are smoldering now may potentially “Flame out” the particular program and coach in question.

Sadly, it will be interesting to watch.


And No, neither of the institutions in question is UK.