What If - Alabama begins using other schools as farm teams?

[GojiraCane]

I was thinking about this possibility today, and I would not be surprised to see this happen and be overlooked just like everything else with enhanced recruiting. I'll use Alabama as the theoretical example.

What if....as a means of getting around the current 85 person scholarship limit, or any attempts to lower that scholarship limit, Alabama were to unofficially and behind the scenes affiliate with various Group of 5 schools? Let's say you have a 4 star recruit that is on the bubble of being worthy of an Alabama roster spot. Saban is unsure if he should waste the spot. So let's lay out the following hypothetical:

- Rather than bring him to Alabama, the recruit is directed to commit to one of the affiliates. Let's say Arkansas State. And so he does.
- An Alabama booster delivers a $350K payment to a parallel Arkansas State booster
- The Arkansas State booster pays the recruit $200K, and the remainder is then used for Arkansas State's own illicit recruiting or donated to the school's athletic department
- Following favorable performance by the former recruit, Alabama then "calls him up" a year later. Taking advantage of the NCAA's new rule that allows a one time, no penalty transfer, the recruit jumps to Alabama

Under this scenario, Alabama could literally form behind the scenes agreements with several schools and stash dozens of borderline players commit to Group of 5 schools, with the promise that a roster spot could be available for them the following year if their development and performance warrants it. Most wouldn't make it, but the side benefit would be that it removes players from recruiting pool for competing Power 5 schools, and instead directs them to lower tier programs and widens the gap further for the Crimson Tide.

 

[CFLCane]

L O L , yall really starting to make me question my ties to this website.

 

[RightSaidFred]

Why doesn't Miami do that?

 

[Deleted member 26015]

Not happening.

 

[M3N]

Already happens

 

[Page305]

Why doesn't Miami do that?

Because most likely that G5 school has better coaches than us so the recruit would just end up staying.

 

[GojiraCane]

Already happens

Really?

This idea popped up when another poster today posted that Yahoo article that suggested lowering scholarship numbers to increase parity. Someone had responded that they would find a way around it, and this was one way that came to mind.

 

[Empirical Cane]

I was thinking about this possibility today, and I would not be surprised to see this happen and be overlooked just like everything else with enhanced recruiting. I'll use Alabama as the theoretical example.

What if....as a means of getting around the current 85 person scholarship limit, or any attempts to lower that scholarship limit, Alabama were to unofficially and behind the scenes affiliate with various Group of 5 schools? Let's say you have a 4 star recruit that is on the bubble of being worthy of an Alabama roster spot. Saban is unsure if he should waste the spot. So let's lay out the following hypothetical:

- Rather than bring him to Alabama, the recruit is directed to commit to one of the affiliates. Let's say Arkansas State. And so he does.
- An Alabama booster delivers a $350K payment to a parallel Arkansas State booster
- The Arkansas State booster pays the recruit $200K, and the remainder is then used for Arkansas State's own illicit recruiting or donated to the school's athletic department
- Following favorable performance by the former recruit, Alabama then "calls him up" a year later. Taking advantage of the NCAA's new rule that allows a one time, no penalty transfer, the recruit jumps to Alabama

Under this scenario, Alabama could literally form behind the scenes agreements with several schools and stash dozens of borderline players commit to Group of 5 schools, with the promise that a roster spot could be available for them the following year if their development and performance warrants it. Most wouldn't make it, but the side benefit would be that it removes players from recruiting pool for competing Power 5 schools, and instead directs them to lower tier programs and widens the gap further for the Crimson Tide.

Interesting concept. It is actually already done in D1...

Service Academies use (outright abuse... don't get me started...) their Prep Schools for football development. Those teams compete against JUCOs.

Alabama could easily "adopt" a JUCO and then begin a Transfer Portal beltway right into their program.

Clever actually.

 

[DamnLiesAndStatistics]

I was thinking about this possibility today, and I would not be surprised to see this happen and be overlooked just like everything else with enhanced recruiting. I'll use Alabama as the theoretical example.

What if....as a means of getting around the current 85 person scholarship limit, or any attempts to lower that scholarship limit, Alabama were to unofficially and behind the scenes affiliate with various Group of 5 schools? Let's say you have a 4 star recruit that is on the bubble of being worthy of an Alabama roster spot. Saban is unsure if he should waste the spot. So let's lay out the following hypothetical:

- Rather than bring him to Alabama, the recruit is directed to commit to one of the affiliates. Let's say Arkansas State. And so he does.
- An Alabama booster delivers a $350K payment to a parallel Arkansas State booster
- The Arkansas State booster pays the recruit $200K, and the remainder is then used for Arkansas State's own illicit recruiting or donated to the school's athletic department
- Following favorable performance by the former recruit, Alabama then "calls him up" a year later. Taking advantage of the NCAA's new rule that allows a one time, no penalty transfer, the recruit jumps to Alabama

Under this scenario, Alabama could literally form behind the scenes agreements with several schools and stash dozens of borderline players commit to Group of 5 schools, with the promise that a roster spot could be available for them the following year if their development and performance warrants it. Most wouldn't make it, but the side benefit would be that it removes players from recruiting pool for competing Power 5 schools, and instead directs them to lower tier programs and widens the gap further for the Crimson Tide.

If Alabama starts paying for recruits to go elsewhere, they deserve to be that stacked I guess

 

[cway313]

Someone here has never heard of IMG academy I see.

 

[GojiraCane]

Interesting concept. It is actually already done in D1...

Service Academies use (outright abuse... don't get me started...) their Prep Schools for football development. Those teams compete against JUCOs.

Alabama could easily "adopt" a JUCO and then begin a Transfer Portal beltway right into their program.

Clever actually.

If they - or another school - adopted that model I could see them becoming a much more powerful version of what Kansas State used to bring to the table. Basically they sign only 5-8 players out of high players a year (certainly a QB and a RB would be part of that). Then the other 20-17 spots are used on the 40 to 50 players that they have sprinkled in the Group of 5 schools, allowing the Crimson Tide to then bring up kids with 1-3 years of eligibility left. You'd have more roster churn, but the tradeoff is that you have a roster that is more lopsided towards older players. That too provides a competitive advantage.

I remember how Kansas State manhandled that 2012 Hurricane team. It wasn't that they were some incredibly talented team. It's that their starters were all 21-23 years old, and most of our guys were true freshmen.

 

[Empirical Cane]

If they - or another school - adopted that model I could see them becoming a much more powerful version of what Kansas State used to bring to the table. Basically they sign only 5-8 players out of high players a year (certainly a QB and a RB would be part of that). Then the other 20-17 spots are used on the 40 to 50 players that they have sprinkled in the Group of 5 schools, allowing the Crimson Tide to then bring up kids with 1-3 years of eligibility left. You'd have more roster churn, but the tradeoff is that you have a roster that is more lopsided towards older players. That too provides a competitive advantage.

I remember how Kansas State manhandled that 2012 Hurricane team. It wasn't that they were some incredibly talented team. It's that their starters were all 21-23 years old, and most of our guys were true freshmen.

"... That is a bad, bad, bad football team those Miami Hurricanes..."
- Dan "CIS Porster Extraordinaire" Sileo

 

[miamimike305]

Remember if you just thought about it someone already is doing it. How many business ideas I’ve had that I never knew already exists.

 

[Canesq]

I was thinking about this possibility today, and I would not be surprised to see this happen and be overlooked just like everything else with enhanced recruiting. I'll use Alabama as the theoretical example.

What if....as a means of getting around the current 85 person scholarship limit, or any attempts to lower that scholarship limit, Alabama were to unofficially and behind the scenes affiliate with various Group of 5 schools? Let's say you have a 4 star recruit that is on the bubble of being worthy of an Alabama roster spot. Saban is unsure if he should waste the spot. So let's lay out the following hypothetical:

- Rather than bring him to Alabama, the recruit is directed to commit to one of the affiliates. Let's say Arkansas State. And so he does.
- An Alabama booster delivers a $350K payment to a parallel Arkansas State booster
- The Arkansas State booster pays the recruit $200K, and the remainder is then used for Arkansas State's own illicit recruiting or donated to the school's athletic department
- Following favorable performance by the former recruit, Alabama then "calls him up" a year later. Taking advantage of the NCAA's new rule that allows a one time, no penalty transfer, the recruit jumps to Alabama

Under this scenario, Alabama could literally form behind the scenes agreements with several schools and stash dozens of borderline players commit to Group of 5 schools, with the promise that a roster spot could be available for them the following year if their development and performance warrants it. Most wouldn't make it, but the side benefit would be that it removes players from recruiting pool for competing Power 5 schools, and instead directs them to lower tier programs and widens the gap further for the Crimson Tide.

Too many parties involved. And the farm school isn’t under the protection of the NCAA like bama is so they wouldn’t risk it.

To make it cleaner bama could agree to play them and pay them a little more than usual.

The hypothetical you state is basically the relationships nba teams have with their d league affiliates.

It’s crazy but you better believe any changes bama will try and exploit to get more powerful. Saban has this machine rolling that it may be hard to stop even after he retires.

Wasn’t it bama getting 4 stars to grayshirt?

This is the way.

 

[GojiraCane]

Too many parties involved. And the farm school isn’t under the protection of the NCAA like bama is so they wouldn’t risk it.

To make it cleaner bama could agree to play them and pay them a little more than usual.

The hypothetical you state is basically the relationships nba teams have with their d league affiliates.

It’s crazy but you better believe any changes bama will try and exploit to get more powerful. Saban has this machine rolling that it may be hard to stop even after he retires.

Wasn’t it bama getting 4 stars to grayshirt?

This is the way.

Yes, they were. I always presumed that there was simple enhanced incentives to allow for that. This would be taking it a step further.

 

[HamburgerSV]

I was thinking about this possibility today, and I would not be surprised to see this happen and be overlooked just like everything else with enhanced recruiting. I'll use Alabama as the theoretical example.

What if....as a means of getting around the current 85 person scholarship limit, or any attempts to lower that scholarship limit, Alabama were to unofficially and behind the scenes affiliate with various Group of 5 schools? Let's say you have a 4 star recruit that is on the bubble of being worthy of an Alabama roster spot. Saban is unsure if he should waste the spot. So let's lay out the following hypothetical:

- Rather than bring him to Alabama, the recruit is directed to commit to one of the affiliates. Let's say Arkansas State. And so he does.
- An Alabama booster delivers a $350K payment to a parallel Arkansas State booster
- The Arkansas State booster pays the recruit $200K, and the remainder is then used for Arkansas State's own illicit recruiting or donated to the school's athletic department
- Following favorable performance by the former recruit, Alabama then "calls him up" a year later. Taking advantage of the NCAA's new rule that allows a one time, no penalty transfer, the recruit jumps to Alabama

Under this scenario, Alabama could literally form behind the scenes agreements with several schools and stash dozens of borderline players commit to Group of 5 schools, with the promise that a roster spot could be available for them the following year if their development and performance warrants it. Most wouldn't make it, but the side benefit would be that it removes players from recruiting pool for competing Power 5 schools, and instead directs them to lower tier programs and widens the gap further for the Crimson Tide.

Why would a kid that had a legit Bama offer go to Ark state lmfao. **** just go to another big time program. Plus Bama has 5 star and 4 star undeclassmen (who have been in their system for a couple years) ready to step in and ball out

 

[nuprin]

Too many parties involved. And the farm school isn’t under the protection of the NCAA like bama is so they wouldn’t risk it.

To make it cleaner bama could agree to play them and pay them a little more than usual.

The hypothetical you state is basically the relationships nba teams have with their d league affiliates.

It’s crazy but you better believe any changes bama will try and exploit to get more powerful. Saban has this machine rolling that it may be hard to stop even after he retires.

Wasn’t it bama getting 4 stars to grayshirt?

This is the way.

Agree...too many parties involved for a power program to risk it. Under their current plans they just gotta keep it within the walls of the KKK gatherings.

If changes are made to the rules on transfer IC's, not just a 1 time thing, but permanently...Bama will just have their handlers talk to anyone they covet at another school to enter the portal (with incentive$ of course) and they will get them that way while still getting the max number of HS recruits per year.

 

[GojiraCane]

Why would a kid that had a legit Bama offer go to Ark state lmfao. **** just go to another big time program. Plus Bama has 5 star and 4 star undeclassmen (who have been in their system for a couple years) ready to step in and ball out

I used a Group of 5 school in this scenario because I thought it would be easier to pry him away from such a school versus let's say, Georgia or Tennessee.

 

[GojiraCane]

Agree...too many parties involved for a power program to risk it. Under their current plans they just gotta keep it within the walls of the KKK gatherings.

If changes are made to the rules on transfer IC's, not just a 1 time thing, but permanently...Bama will just have their handlers talk to anyone they covet at another school to enter the portal (with incentive$ of course) and they will get them that way while still getting the max number of HS recruits per year.

Yes - Alabama and a few other schools could literally recruit any player that they wished on any college program throughout the course of their college careers.

 

[Andrew]

Why would Alabama need to pay any school? If you are a legit player, just transfer to Alabama.