Is Nick Saban playing fast and loose with medical scholarship rules?

Hmmmmm, all that greyshirtin’ and medical scholarshipin’ stuff at Alabama has started to raise some eyebrows. Hannah Karp and Darren Everson of the Wall Street Journal shed some light on the methods Nick Saban uses to rapidly turn his roster over:

Former Alabama football players say the school’s No. 1-ranked football program has tried to gain a competitive edge by encouraging some underperforming players to quit the team for medical reasons, even in cases where the players are still healthy enough to play.

At least 12 times since coach Nick Saban took over the program in 2007, Alabama has offered players a “medical” scholarship, according to public statements made by the team. These scholarships, which are allowed under NCAA rules, are intended to make sure scholarship athletes who are too injured to play don’t lose their financial aid. A player who receives one of these scholarships is finished playing with that team.

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. (Wall Street Journal)

What the story barely touches on is how Saban keeps oversigning recruits when it’s clear the current roster can’t absorb that many new kids, even when accounting for academic flame outs and thugs like Jimmy Johns. It’s amazing how he can do that, almost like he can see into the future…

While Karp and Everson glazed over that, they also failed to mention another important factor in all this: athletic scholarships are one-year awards.

That means that after the academic year is done, a coach can use ANY reason to not renew an award. For example, if Steve Spurrier came to believe at the end of last season that Stephen Garcia sucked just that bad, then the program wasn’t obligated to provide the same award or offer any scholarship at all to Garcia for this academic year.

But how often do you hear of a program cutting loose a perfectly healthy student-athlete with decent grades? Not often, because it’s not as publicized as when a player loses a scholarship for stalking an ex-girlfriend or some knuckleheadedness like that.

In the cases of non-renewal due to being buried on the depth chart, it’s most common for a coach to get rid of the kid via transfer. Besides the medical schollies, this has been another means for Saban to clear out what he perceived as the program’s dead weight. Refer to the cases of Jermaine Preyear, Charlie Higgenbotham, Corey Smith, Jennings Hester, Chris Jackson….

Finding a kid a spot on some other school’s roster is obviously the preferred method, because simply non-renewing a kid and leaving it at that looks BAD. If you do that too many times, opposing coaches will pounce on you on the recruiting trail. “Hey Mrs. Williams, I know Coach Saban says he’ll take care of Jake Jr. here, but did you realize he just yanks away scholarships from perfectly deserving kids? You didn’t? Well, let me find this list here…”

The aforementioned Spurrier discovered just how much hot water a coach can get into when he starts waving around the non-renewal sword. Back in 2005, Ol’ Ball Coach was trying to clear out some of the players from the Holtz regime and slapped a non-renew on defensive back Trent Usher.

But it just so happened that Usher’s dad was former Central Pageland coach Al Usher, who had lettered in football at South Carolina in the early 70’s. The elder Usher got in contact with his buddies at the South Carolina High School Coaches Association and it mushroomed from there. The SCHSCA’s Executive Board actually issued a statement calling the OBC “unethical” because he had revoked scholarships.

Hmmmm, I wonder why South Carolina’s taken a minute or two to get itself right under Spurrier. Could it be that it’s taken years for him to mend fences with Palmetto State high school coaches over that fiasco? And while he did absolutely nothing wrong within the confines of NCAA rules, you can see how non-renewals played in the court of public opinion.

So it’s obvious why Saban avoids non-renewals like the plague. Hell, with all things considered, you can make the argument that in theory, Saban is actually doing the medical scholarship kids a favor since the alternative is to bounce them out of Tuscaloosa altogether.

Yeah, that’s one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that Saban is not really honoring the spirit of the medical scholarship rule and using it as a means of playing fast and loose with his roster numbers.

I’m sure Bama fans have no problem with anything that Saban is doing.  Hell, they’re absolutely thrilled.  It just goes to show you how a subject like this can bring the homerism out in any college fanbase.  If Tennessee or Auburn were winning titles and using the same tactics, Bama fans would be screaming to the heavens about the unfairness of it all.

It’s okay if we do it and not right if you do it.  Ahhhh, college football, you gotta love it.

Latrell Sprewell helps us learn about English word structure

Are you a sports fan who’s confused about inflectional morphemes?  Fret not, let examples from Latrell Sprewell’s glorious career shed some light on the subject:

I have to disagree with the first example, that one being “Latrell hates all coach-es.” True, he might hate PJ Carlesimo, probably doesn’t exchange Christmas cards with Jeff Van Gundy and wouldn’t give Flip Saunders the time of day, but I’m sure there’s plenty of love in his heart for his coach from his days at Alabama, that being one Winfrey “Wimp” Sanderson.

You see, Wimp helped to create the Latrell that we would all come to know and love.  Turn the clock back to 1992, when Wimp was patrolling the Tide bench in his plaid jackets and Latrell was helping lead the team into the NCAA Tournament.

On March 17 of that year, right in the thick of March Madness, Wimp went a little crazy and punched his secretary, Nancy Watts, right in her eye.  One settled lawsuit later and the guy’s 32-year association with the school was over.

Instead of using his coach’s actions as a cautionary tale, though, Latrell decided from then on he’d “go Wimp” on anyone who got in his way.  There was the 1995 incident where he threatened to hit his Golden State Warrior teammate (yes, TEAMMATE) Jerome Kersey with a two-by-four.  Then two years later came the infamous choking fiasco cited in the examples above.

I’m glad some sort of positive outcome has come out of that ugliness from so many years ago.  Maybe the next version of this textbook can provide some updates on Latrell’s life, such as:

“Latrell’s house was foreclose-d on”

“Latrell is miss-ing his yacht”

“Latrell is the brok-est of all the former players”

In college football, stats don’t lie…but they can stretch the truth

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m often guilty of taking statistics in college football at face value when judging a unit. For example, I’ll glance at passing efficiency defense rankings, see a team putting up solid numbers, and think, “That’s a great team at defending the pass.”

However, I might forget to take into account that the team in question might be marginal in terms of stopping the run. If that’s the case, then the opposition might not even be emphasizing the pass. Hell, why fling it when you can run it? In such a scenario, you have to take stats with a grain of salt.

So I’ve come to have the belief that while stats don’t lie, they can definitely stretch the truth a little bit. A case in point is the Texas Longhorns’ run defense from a season ago.

After the final numbers were compiled, they were the nation’s stingiest run defense, yielding a paltry 72.4 yard per game on the ground. That came on 458 carries by the opposition through 14 games. Next in line was Alabama at 78.1 ypg on 395 carries in 14 contests.

There’s been an emphasis by Mack Brown in recent years to get his various defensive coordinators (Gene Chizik, Duane Akina and Will Muschamp) to get tougher on the run. The trend says that’s exactly what’s been happening:

2009: #1 at 72.4 ypg
2008: #3 at 83.5 ypg
2007: #6 at 93.4 ypg
2006: #3 at 61.2 ypg
2005: #33 at 130.9 ypg
2004: #16 at 107.4 ypg
2003: #58 at 152.5 ypg

It’s interesting to note that the Longhorns’ second worst recent showing in this category came in the national title year of 2005. However, that particular Texas defense ended up finishing 10th nationally against both land and air attack while the offense blew up with Vince Young at the helm.

Here’s an interesting factor concerning the run defense from that championship year: Texas played five teams that finished in the top 25 nationally in rushing (Ohio State, Rice, Missouri, Texas A&M and USC). Against that kind of competition, giving up 130 ypg on the ground was no crime at all.

So using that notion, that a very good defense still has trouble shutting down a very good running team, brings us to an obvious conclusion: the fewer solid ground games you face, the fewer yards you allow.

And as the decade has wore on, the Big 12 has fielded fewer solid ground games because no league in the country has embraced pass heavy spread attacks the way it has.

For example, take 2008, a year in which five Big 12 teams (including Texas) finished in the top ten nationally in passing offense. Total touchdown passes thrown by that quintet of squads? A mindboggling 208. Two hundred and eight.

The league’s shift toward passing didn’t generate quite the same kind of numbers last season, but the emphasis was still there. Big 12 teams in the top 25 in passing? Six. Big 12 teams in the top 25 in rushing? One.

But the dearth of Big 12 teams at the top of last year’s rushing rankings isn’t nearly as fascinating as the glut of teams at the other end of those rankings. Four league members - Kansas, Baylor, Colorado and Texas Tech - finished in the bottom top 25 nationally.

And guess who got to play them all? That would be Texas, and as you can expect, the result was pretty ugly: those opponents were credited with a combined 106 rushes for 89 yards. Yup, less than a yard a pop.

Compare that to the two occasions when Texas got most generous last season, against Texas A&M and Alabama. Those teams ran it a combined 91 times for 395 yards on the Longhorns. In the BCS title game alone Alabama notched four rushing touchdowns, which was one fewer than Texas had allowed going into the contest.

As mentioned earlier, Alabama finished second nationally against the run in 2009, but unlike Texas put those numbers up against running attacks that were statistically superior. The Tide played five teams that finished in the top 25 in rushing and it’s also worth noting that none of Alabama’s SEC compatriots finished in the bottom 25 nationally in this category.

Even with the addition of a grizzled SEC coaching veteran like Tommy Tuberville at a pass happy school like Texas Tech, I don’t expect the nature of the Big 12 to change much this season. This is still a conference full of schools that love to throw the football.

So if the landscape is unchanged, you have to be a little bit weary of Texas’ true ability to stop the run when it counts the most. That’s because the league in which stats are compiled is just as telling as the numbers themselves.

Top ten reasons Terrence Cody flunked his Ravens physical

Ravens second-round draft pick Terrence Cody failed his conditioning test today and was forced to sit out the team’s first training camp practice.  The 349 pound Alabama product has never missed a meal, and apparently he’s added even more meals that he doesn’t miss.

Here are the top ten factors that went into Cody flunking his physical:

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College football notebook 7/22

In the notebook today we have a new spin on stadium use, the NCAA’s agent dragnet continues, Georgia recruits acting a fool once they leave the Peach State and K-State doing something I didn’t think I’d ever see…

Florida Atlantic’s radically student friendly stadium

Ted Hutton of the South Florida Sun Sentinel shared some pics of Florida Atlantic’s new football stadium, as well as the following tidbits:

There was a lot of talk about keeping the stadium open during the week. This area could become a student lounge, with internet access and indoor and outdoor seating.

The idea is that students who live in the dorms can wander over and use the facility as a study or social area, so the stadium becomes more than just a place to gather five or six times in the fall.

It could also be the site of watch parties for away games. All that sounds good to me.

The more use the stadium gets between games, the better, especially with it located right next to the dorms and in close proximity to everything else on campus.

Be a shame to have it locked up 360 days of the year. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

You wanna know what would happen to students trying to get into places like Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn or Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on a non-game day? It would be like a lot like this, only more violent:

The NCAA’s anti-agent rampage continues

With the NCAA already sorting out who has and who hasn’t been partying with agents in South Beach (those investigations have already touched Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina) and whether or not Maurkice Pouncey took $100,000 from an agent while still at Florida, college football’s reigning Heisman Trophy is also being scrutinized.

Alabama’s Mark Ingram apparently attended a party on May 12th in Washington D.C. at the District nightclub. The party was a celebration for players who’d just been drafted, and the guest list included Florida’s Joe Haden. TMZ provides some more details:

The University of Alabama says Ingram is on the up and up. The Compliance Department tells us, “Mark asked if he could visit Joe Haden at his home in Baltimore. We checked with the NCAA and they approved this trip as long as Mark provided receipts for his expenses.” (TMZ.com)

As with the Marvin Austin investigation at North Carolina, the NCAA probably needs more details on how travel was paid for and who picked up the tab once Ingram was in D.C.  I hope for the sake of Alabama fans that Ingram hasn’t followed Austin’s lead and uploaded a ton of pics to Twitter that would cause even more head scratching among NCAA investigators.

Why do recruits lose their heads once they leave the Peach State?

It’s been a bad summer for highly recruited wide receivers from the Class of 2010 who left the state of Georgia to play elsewhere.  First, Tennessee’s Da’Rick Rogers got into that bar fight in Knoxville and his status with the team is still uncertain.

Then word came last week that Notre Dame’s Tai-ler Jones was nabbed at a party in South Bend and charged with underage drinking.

The other highly prized Georgia wide receiver from the Class of 2010 who left the state was Markeith Ambles of McDonough, who followed Lane Kiffin to USC after being considered a Tennessee lock.  Ambles was ranked by Rivals as the state’s second best recruit behind Rogers (Jones was tabbed as the state’s 9th best prospect).

As of this writing, there is no word on Ambles having gotten in a brawl at a club or getting nabbed with a brew in his hand.  But there’s still some summer to go…

2010’s biggest scheduling surprise

Remember Bill Snyder’s first run as Kansas State coach?  Back then, you had a better chance of being abducted by a Sasquatch family than seeing Snyder’s Wildcats schedule a decent out of conference opponent.

Take the 1998 team that won the Big 12 North for example, they played the following OOC murderer’s row: Indiana State, Northern Illinois and ULM. Those teams ended up with a combined 12-21 record and K-State beat the three of them by a combined score of 201-14.

Fast forward to the present day and K-State is trying to get back up that mountain following a 6-6 season.  But in very un-Snyder-like fashion, the Wildcats will attempt to do so while not feeding exclusively on cupcakes.  Oh, the Missouri State and North Texas games should be W’s, but the other two non-Big 12 opponents are UCLA and UCF.

I know, it’s not like Snyder will be leading his team onto the field against Alabama and Penn State.  But two OOC bowl teams visiting Manhattan in the same season?  That’s strange for me to see on paper.