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

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Alabama would rather team with the other major state schools to remove the 85 scholarship limit before they would go through with something like this.
 
How many players does Bama take from the portal? It it in their best interests to do this sort of thing because it could chase off potential incoming recruits.
 
GojiraCane said:
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.
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LMGDAO
 
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GojiraCane said:
In essence, wasn't this what Randy Shannon was worried that Florida was trying to do with us in 2009 when they supposedly were after Marve?
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i don’t even know what this OP is talking about. alabama boosters paying 350K for kids who don’t even go to alabama? the only people who would be more ****ed than UGA about this would be the alabama boosters who get squeezed. imagine what they have to pay for the kids who actually do go to alabama.

The entire premise is more absurd than an episode of the X files
 
GojiraCane said:
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.
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....and I thought our politics was bad.
 
Ethnicsands said:
i don’t even know what this OP is talking about. alabama boosters paying 350K for kids who don’t even go to alabama? the only people who would be more ****ed than UGA about this would be the alabama boosters who get squeezed. imagine what they have to pay for the kids who actually do go to alabama.

The entire premise is more absurd than an episode of the X files
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Supposedly the Gators were after Marve towards the end of the 2008 season, and that initial huge group of schools that Randy refused to allow him to transfer to was to cover for his unwillingness to be used as a feeder team for Urban Meyer. Fast forward to last year. The Gators got Lingard to transfer from Miami, and supposedly tried to do the same with another Miami player. Again, we wouldn't want to be an unwilling feeder team for Florida or any other school, and I think that's ultimately where the idea came from.

As for the premise being absurd, maybe. But if you were Alabama or Ohio State and you felt threatened by a reduction in scholarships from 85 to let's say 70, what might you do to get around these limits? This was one idea. The other poster who proposed that the school might just put the feeder schools on their schedule with a higher than normal payout is probably onto something. And as others have suggested, the easiest thing might be for the bag-man to pay the fringe player to go to a Group of 5 school and avoid any interaction with the other program altogether. And yes, it's a bit of an extreme scenario. But in a college football world where a program has a HC that leases cars to his own players and its players can post pictures of wads of cash on signing day without any pushback from the NCAA or ESPN, why wouldn't the same school feel the freedom to do something like my suggestion - or even worse - to keep the money rolling in?
 
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GojiraCane said:
Supposedly the Gators were after Marve towards the end of the 2008 season, and that initial huge group of schools that Randy refused to allow him to transfer to was to cover for his unwillingness to be used as a feeder team for Urban Meyer. Fast forward to last year. The Gators got Lingard to transfer from Miami, and supposedly tried to do the same with another Miami player. Again, we wouldn't want to be an unwilling feeder team for Florida or any other school, and I think that's ultimately where the idea came from.

As for the premise being absurd, maybe. But if you were Alabama or Ohio State and you felt threatened by a reduction in scholarships from 85 to let's say 70, what might you do to get around these limits? This was one idea. The other poster who proposed that the school might just put the feeder schools on their schedule with a higher than normal payout is probably onto something. And as others have suggested, the easiest thing might be for the bag-man to pay the fringe player to go to a Group of 5 school and avoid any interaction with the other program altogether. And yes, it's a bit of an extreme scenario. But in a college football world where a program has a HC that leases cars to his own players and its players can post pictures of wads of cash on signing day without any pushback from the NCAA or ESPN, why wouldn't the same school feel the freedom to do something like my suggestion - or even worse - to keep the money rolling in?
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You must be smoking some good isht mane. Or you ate some weird mushrooms.
 
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Alabama sends kids to the portal...not use the portal.

They are recruiting at a huge clip for years and years they have 5 star recruits that ride pine for 2 years. It serves no purpose..just like this post. lol
 
1. It would be a little suspicious if a fringe Alabama player blows off Oklahoma and commits to Arky State.
2. You give that Arky State booster a $300K bag??? Man, he'll never be heard from again. He gone!
 
gogeta4 said:
Alabama sends kids to the portal...not use the portal.

They are recruiting at a huge clip for years and years they have 5 star recruits that ride pine for 2 years. It serves no purpose..just like this post. lol
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You're on point, tho!
 
The fact this man put this much thought into this and still thought it sounded like a plan worth discussing is alarming.
 
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GojiraCane said:
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.
Click to expand...
Using the baseball minor league analogy, would UM be AAA, AA, or Rookie League? Perhaps, American Legion Ball?
 
miamiphd said:
Using the baseball minor league analogy, would UM be AAA, AA, or Rookie League? Perhaps, American Legion Ball?
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They would likely view us as AAA.

But I'd envision them stashing valued recruits in small, out of the way schools. Putting them in a Miami, FSU, or Tennessee runs the risk that:

1) The program gets too good on its own
2) Player doesn't want to leave
 
NJshoreCane said:
1. It would be a little suspicious if a fringe Alabama player blows off Oklahoma and commits to Arky State.
2. You give that Arky State booster a $300K bag??? Man, he'll never be heard from again. He gone!
Click to expand...
This is only plausible in an environment where the NCAA doesn't enforce against Alabama. So, I mean...current state.
 
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