[Husker] Huskers Pull Penn Linebacker Scholarship Offer

[Nick Chevance]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 1:11 PM, jon johnston <jon.johnston at gmail.com> wrote:
> The NCAA had to make the 7th grade declaration to bring kids that young into
> falling under NCAA guidelines for considering them recruiting prospects.
> That says as much about how nuts it is, doesn't it?
>
> Jon Johnston
> http://www.cornnation.com
>
> On Jan 30, 2009, at 12:09 PM, Mike Jaixen wrote:
>
>> In a word, yes.  Recruiting has gotten WAY out of hand, IMHO.  I think if
>> teams weren't allowed to rescind scholarship offers, we'd see teams take a
>> much more careful approach with recruiting.  We're seeing offers made to
>> ninth and tenth graders, and the NCAA just declared that 7th graders are
>> classified as prospects.

Hold the phone, Mable!!!  You guys a way off track here.  Do I agree
that recruiting 7th graders is nuts? Yes.  Do I think trying to get
commits before they can form a coherent sentence (not that some ever
will) is a bad idea?  Yes, a thousand times YES.

But this guy committed last April.  April 2008.  At the end of his
Junior year, and before he played his senior year.  Not a sophomore, a
freshman, or even in Junior High.

He apparently was injured (the article doesn't say diddly about the
injury or whether it was even football related, just that he was
injured) and he had trouble regaining his form and didn't play as well
as he had as a junior.  Maybe we shouldn't take junior commitments,
but holding Nebraska to such a commitment after some sort of injury,
when apparently nobody else wants the kid, seems a bit much.  If April
is too soon to take a commitment, then when should that date be?  At
the start of the senior year?  After the end of the football season?
Christmas?  January 1?  When?

We agree that 14 years old is way too early, and that even 16 may be
pushing it.  But the issue here really doesn't have to do with the
kid's age at all.  It has to do with whether Nebraska honors a
commitment when the commit may not be able to live up to his side of
the bargain.  Really tough for the kid, I know (I got one in college
and one heading there in a year).  But he's not the same kid they made
a commitment with.

Nick
-- 
"If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
Anatole France