Fungo
College coaches are forced by the NCAA to get innovative with their offers. With a meager 11.7 scholarships they are forced to offer more scholarship money than they actually have. How and Why? First of all, not all players accept the offers. Many will end up going to another school or turning pro. Coaches cannot afford to twiddle their thumbs while these players make up their mind only to find out they have lost them. They have to place time limits and make multiple offers in order to secure the blue chip players. For sake of discussion let’s say a coach has only one full scholarship left to offer. This coach offers player “A” the scholarship and then offers player “B” the same scholarship, then does the same with player “C”. In actuality he has three scholarships offered, but can only deliver one. This happens! One D-1 coach admitted he had 17 scholarships offered but was quick to point out everything would fall into place by the NCAA compliance date. I would guess that particular coach would either have to reduce scholarships or pull back offers. You know, it’s tough to ask a player to honor his word when you know the recruiting coach isn’t. I agree we should all play by the rules but I think we all need to understand the rules too. Nothing is firm until the NLI is signed. The NLI is in place because it’s needed. The NLI is very similar to a business contract because college baseball is a business. Yes, business to the colleges! But to you, me, and our sons, it is pure emotion. We tend to do dumb things when we operate on emotions. I know; I just gave in to emotions. . . . I spent $190.00 this afternoon at Sunglass Hut on a pair of Oakley “Sweeps” with extra lenses.
Fungo
Fungo