OSU_D/;1866032; said:
You are correct, correlation is not causation. However, I disagree in that it appears to me that their opinions are 100% due to their fandom.
It is no coincidence that the people out there that object most strenuously to any sort of rules on oversigning are SEC fans.
Seeing as how several of my posts addressed a number of ideas on how to institute rules to prevent oversigning abuse, your statement in bold is either willfully ignorant (if you were unaware of that), or meant to be intentionally provocative (if you were). Either way, what you say lacks merit on its face.
OSU_D/;1866032; said:
1st: Gator. He claimed that there is NO evidence that it really helps teams on the field, particularly in the dominating D lines that have helped win BCSNCG. Well, I posted on the article regarding Dareus and how as a 3* and Alabama's 30th commitment really shouldn't be at Alabama if they didn't oversign. Of course there was no acknowledgment of this point.
Because at the time I was discussing this with a bunch of folks at once, and there was little in your post to make me want to stop and address it when there were more interesting side issues to tallk about. Talk has died down, so I'm happy to address your post. You say "no evidence". If I did, I meant it as I have in all other facets of the discussion: to mean "no convincing evidence of statistical correlation between or within programs." Look at the mighty tOSU. Number 10 on the signing scale in the Big-10. Mighty Purdue and Minnie beat you every year by signing four more kids. That is forty per team over ten years. They must kick your ass, right? You all blow this off as if it has no bearing on the subject. We have talked it to death.
To start, your prior post used Dareus to show how oversigning was an advantage. To be fair, you were also responding to me saying that our D-line guys (the area where I think the SEC has the greatest advantage over other conferences) were likely not the last guys signed. Now, since the SEC has 12 teams, and we have the luxury to look back over ten years of classes at four BCSNC wining programs to prove your point, you found Darius. More accurately, the oversigning site did, and you pointed out that he was the 30th verbal to Bama. The site - and you - took that to mean that Darius would not have been signed but for oversigning. Both you and that site like to work backward - to make a conclusion and then find reasons to support it. You are both the antithesis of the scientific method. So as much as it annoys you to have your assumptions looked at critically (and I get that answering your sloppy logic with actual analysis might be deemed "lawyer talk"), I'm gonna go there.
1) First, there is no law or rule or practice that says that all signed LOIs will be honored in some kind of order based upon the original date of verbal commit. There are none. We all know that verbal commits mean less than crap legally until a LOI is sent in. So we can all agree that "reserving" a spot for a graduating freshman by date of verbal offer holds no special significance. (I don't want to hear moaning about "keeping your word" right now, as I am only addressing the narrow concept of what special legal or moral right a kid has to a place "in line" over the other kids because of
the date of his verbal - nobody is saying you can lie to kids, and I am not using this language for any other purpose)
In fact, there is no right to enroll until an LOI is sent in (assuming you qualify). You could be the very first damn kid to verbal, but if you wait two weeks to send in a LOI while you take a look around, you can't very well insist on ownership of "the number one spot" when you send your LOI in later than the twenty something other guys who faxed theirs in at six in the morning of NSD. And that is one reason why your pointing to the #30 verbal will not automatically or conclusively show that Dareus would not have been playing for Bama absent oversigning abuse.
2) Second, aside from the utter lack of the binding nature of a verbal, and aside from the fact that there is no rule or law or custom that makes the order of verbals some mandate that effects the order of acceptance of LOIs, the order of verbal also ignores the fact that every class tries to be filled by position need. If your last verbal was a pretty good prospect DT, he very likely would be more valuable to your program than your second long snapper or your seventh receiver. Big nasty dudes on the line (and good mistake free quarterbacks) win championships. Long snappers and even above average receivers are not as valuable.
Your logic assumes that the order of date of verbal has more to do with who will be enrolled than position need. Position need is on the minds of every coach. And not just the "general" position value, there is the specific position value. If a program just saw the graduation and early NFL departure and injury of its entire LB corp, then I guaran-damn-tee ya that a couple promising LBs at 29 and 30 will be enrolled before the number 22 verbal DT - if they happen to be unusually DT rich that year. Now, if the second long snapper was left out in the cold because he was lied to about his place in the class, then that would be horrible. Leaving the snapper out in the cold
could be an oversiging abuse. It would
in fact be an oversiging abuse if the kids were lied to and the coaches knew what the numbers were and kept his true chances to sign with Bama from him.
But stay focused: we are talking here about your assumption that but for oversigning abuse, the number 30 verbal DT would not have been signed. I do not follow the gumps well enough to know their position needs in 2008, so I am not saying that I know conclusively how that all works out in his commitment to Bama, but I do know that this is the second good reason why your pointing to his #30 verbal status will
not automatically or conclusively show that Dareus would not have been playing for Bama absent oversigning abuse.
3) I hope you have been actually reading along as this thread explored a bunch of topics, one of which was a quote from Tubberville. He said:
"I always liked to oversign seven or eight just to sign kids, to motivate them, and then we're going to put you in junior college," Tuberville said. "Once you sign, then we can continue to call you and motivate you to go to class, get your grades higher. Then you go to junior college, and you'll be in a lot better shape. Now, you're not going to be able to do that."
So you tell me OSU/D - since the practice of sign and place goes on down here more than up there, how many of Bama's verbals were from kids that both parties knew would not make it in Bama because of qualification problems? Because if there were - say - seven of these kids, then despite the fact that y'all intend every verbal you accept to be qualified, Bama would be accepting Dareus as its
Number 23 verbal in the real world of who was actually knew would be eligible to enroll. Do I know how Bama's class of verbals shook out academically? No. I do not know the answers to all of those questions.. but I do know that the unknowns of it all comprise the third good reason why your pointing to the #30 verbal commit status will not automatically or conclusively show that Dareus would not have been playing for Bama absent oversigning abuse.
4) Fourth, how many of the 30 Bama verbals
actually enrolled that year, regardless of the number signed? Were some of the 2008 Bama enrollees signing day surprises? Did any of the prior 29 sign a LOI to another school on NSD, and so never wound up "in front" of Dareus, no matter if you adopted the "first in verbal, first in right to enroll" theory? If so, the ones who sent an LOI elsewhere moved Dareus lower in that verbal commit line you love to talk about. Did any of the prior 29 get placed in Juco? Did any of the prior 29 fail to enroll because of criminal or personal problems? Did any of the prior 29 get injured or have to have surgery prior to signing, and became medical red shirts? Did any of the prior 29 fail to qualify and so signed with nobody - JUCO or rival program? Did any of the prior 29 talk to the staff and had a fully disclosed deal that they would grey shirt or take an academic scholarship their first year...not a forced thing, but a disclosed grey shirt handshake? I do not know the answers to all of those questions, but I do know that our not knowing the answers to all of them make that unknown the fourth good reason why your pointing to his #30 verbal commit status will not automatically or conclusively show that Dareus would not be playing for Bama absent oversigning abuse.
Hey man, you may even be correct about Dareus when all of the facts are known. I will keep an open mind about it. But for you to make that leap of logic based upon the shoddy assumptions of that biased site, and to expect me to agree with you that the order of verbal commitment of Dareus is proof positive that but for oversigning he would not be playing for the Tide, and thus not helping Bama win it BCSNC, is too attenuated for me to accept blindly. If you gave that opinion on the witness stand and were not able to answer those questions I posed in a
Daubert hearing (which is to decide who can give an opinion, and if the opinion is based upon sound methodology), you might not even be allowed to offer it to a jury. And, no, this is not a trial. But yes, even if it isn't a trial, logic and proof still need to supersede speculation and poorly grounded assumption.
Well, they don't
have to.....but they should
OSU_D/;1866032; said:
2nd: SmoovP. This guy is lost in semantics. Here is a guy complaining that LSU's info on oversinging.com is incorrect (as a disclaimer I don't know who runs the site, how much time he/she or others can devote to it, etc). Okay, so LSU is actually 7 players over the limit and not 9. So that's his defense? The site sucks because some specific details can be wrong? Sorry, but that doesn't invalidate the whole issue that oversigning is a benefit; that is an argumental fallacy. Of course I'd be arguing for oversigning if I knew my coach and the future of the program will take a hit if oversigning is ruled illegal at some point by the NCAA.
Smoov, I tender the sloopy thinker.
OSU_D/;1866032; said:
This is SEC homerism plain and simple. No doubt about it. Any sort of hard cap on scholarship offers will have backsides puckered all across the SECwest and one in the east.
There is a hard cap on scholarship offers. That is why there are so many loopholes around the cap. That is why we offered up some suggestions that would eliminate, or at least provide a disincentive, for coaches to get around it.
If you'd spend more time trying to figure out how the rules and practices worked in real life we might have a better chance of addressing the concerns of coaches and athletes. Yes, the athletes should come first, but where my opinion differs somewhat with some on this board is my thinking that the coaches and programs also deserve some kind of meaningful protection from the non-binding nature of the verbals, and the vagaries of the 17 and 18 year old mind.
