Spurrier: “Can anyone teach me how to Dougie before I see Jadeveon?”

Steve Spurrier has never had the reputation of being a coach who promised the moon and stars to recruits.  Hell, when you were winning like he was at Florida, just showing up in a kid’s living room was damn near enough to secure a commitment.

But since arriving at South Carolina, Spurrier hasn’t exactly had SEC East titles and national championships to pitch to recruits.  As a result, the Ballcoach has had to get more creative in his methods.

Take the case of Marcus Lattimore, the stud running back who was a solid Auburn lean during most of his recruitment last year.  Lattimore’s mother Yolanda Smith shed some light on how Spurrier slipped in and swayed the blue chipper into becoming a Gamecock:

Smith also said South Carolina coaches Steve Spurrier and Jay Graham even did the Cha Cha Slide at Lattimore’s house during the recruiting process. “[Spurrier] had some smooth moves,” said Smith, who added that no coaches from any other schools were brave enough to dance for Lattimore.

“It sealed the deal,” Smith said about Spurrier’s dance moves. “I think dancing shows off your human side, and it showed us that he’s a regular person like the rest of us.”  (wistv.com)

You think Spurrier ever danced for Terry Dean?  Probably not.  Today, the Ballcoach has another important in-home recruiting visit with the bluest of the current blue chippers, Rock Hill prospect Jadeveon Clowney.  I wonder if Spurrier’s been watching the following on a continuous loop, trying to get the moves just right:

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.

Weslye Saunders ends Steve Spurrier’s run of good luck with the Tar Heel State

The state of North Carolina’s been pretty damn good to the Ol’ Ballcoach the last few years.  You see, while Steve Spurrier’s recruiting cupboard is mostly stocked from the fertile recruiting grounds of his own South Carolina, he does from time to time head north to raid the Tar Heel State.

While he’s supplemented his roster with North Carolinians (the count is 17 right now), he’s also had his win total padded at the expense of his northern neighbors.   In ‘07, the Gamecocks beat UNC in Columbia and won both ends of a home and home with NC State the last two seasons.

However, South Carolina’s latest link to North Carolina is one of a decidedly less positive nature.  It seems Gamecock tight end Weslye Saunders is good friends with Marvin Austin, the Tar Heel defensive tackle who’s the center of the NCAA investigation in Chapel Hill. Lo and behold, the NCAA is now showing Saunders some love as well.

Did Saunders accompany Austin on that now infamous trip to Miami back in May? As of right now that’s not clear, and if Spurrier knows anything, he’s not tipping his hand.  But in true Ballcoach fashion, he couldn’t resist taking a shot at another school when questioned about the Saunders probe:

“All I know is they had talked to him, and talked to some players at North Carolina. That’s all I know,” Spurrier said. “Whatever comes (of it), we’ll just have to wait and see. But I can assure that all of our players, our team, has been well-versed or taught about agents or people giving them gifts or money or whatever. … So if we have a player that accepts money, gifts from agents or whoever, they’ll be ineligible to play.

“We’re not going to look the other way like possibly Southern California did. We’re going to abide by the rules.”

Spurrier said he had no knowledge Saunders had broken any rules.

“I’m not accusing Weslye of anything. He may be innocent. He may just know those (North Carolina) guys,” Spurrier said. “But we’ll just have to wait and see how it all comes out.” (The State)

Of course, whenever something like this happens to a school, fans of its fiercest rival take to the streets and dance with joy.  But if I’m not Clemson, I wouldn’t be so quick to revel in South Carolina’s current misfortune.

In a previous post over the weekend I referenced that Austin’s troubles may be tied to his dealings with former Tar Heel teammate Kentwan Balmer, who currently plays defensive end for the 49ers.

It appears that the NCAA is focusing on whether or not Austin and teammate Greg Little (and possibly other North Carolina players) had improper contact with agents.  Since Gary Wichard is Balmer’s agent, suffice it to say that he might be the agent at the center of the probe.

Here’s a very big hypothetical, so follow along with me.  Let’s say Wichard is in the habit of getting his current stable of NFL clients to help him procure new clients.  The easiest way to do that would have them reach out to the prospective clients they know best: their old college teammates.

Maybe Wichard nudges guys like Balmer to go back to the alma mater and show NFL ready players like Austin a good time.  Then fancy trips to Miami are paid for, introductions are made, and so on and so forth.  Call it a form of networking that the NCAA doesn’t like one bit.

Another Wichard client happens to be Clemson product C.J. Spiller, who was drafted this past April by the Bills.   If I’m a Clemson fan, I gotta hope that Spiller hasn’t done anything along these lines with players on the current team.  It’s a huge a stretch, but who knows, maybe this is Wichard’s M.O.  Hey, I’m just speculating, but let’s be brutally honest, is it that much of a stretch to say an agent would stretch the rules to get what he wants?

With the NCAA on the rampage right now, stones are getting overturned everywhere.  Go ahead and laugh at your rivals if they happen to be one of the schools that’s already caught it on the chin.  But this is the biggest net I’ve ever seen the NCAA throw, so you’d better hope your team isn’t in queue to get its own probe.