It’s a Roll Tide type of world, isn’t it?
College football oversigning: Alabama, Washington, Virginia leading the way
Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide are once again standing on top of the college football landscape.
John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports
The Alabama Crimson Tide have the best college football team two years running. They have probably the best recruiting class in the country once again. They'll be contending for titles and stacking up their teams for years to come as long as Nick Saban is in town.
But they're also up for other honors that are not as exhilarating. Alabama is in solid Fulmer Cup contention after multiple Tide players were arrested for violent robbery. And they're deep in the red as far as scholarships go.
Oversigning is a college football practices whereby coaches sign more players than they can possibly take on. It can turn out detestably for some players.
Teams are allotted 85 scholarships. Occasionally a coach will promise more than that allotted number, then -- if natural attrition doesn’t solve the problem -- either yank them away or convince players to greyshirt (a year of no eligibility and no scholarship).
Matt Hinton tracks this year’s oversigning numbers at CBS Sports. Let’s take a look at just the five teams estimated to be the most oversigned.
1) Alabama is way out in front with 95 scholarships promised. The Tide signed 25 for the 2013 class, meaning they currently have to find 10 players to de-scholarship. Of course, four were recently suspended indefinitely after violent arrest charges, so almost half the difference could soon be made up right there.
2) Washington has hit the recruiting trail aggressively and appeared to be in a neck-and-neck battle with Oregon for the third best class in the Pac-12. It appears as if the Huskies will have more cleaning to do though, as they have 91 players promised 85 scholarships.
3) Virginia is probably not a team that strikes you as a typical oversigning candidate. Yet there they stand at 90 players after bringing on 22 freshmen.
4) Vanderbilt has had a nice turnaround story in the SEC. The Commodores signed 26 players and currently sit at 89 possible scholarship players.
5) Oregon State rounds out the top five with 88. It’s quite possible teams near the end of the list are expecting to lose a few players too that we aren’t aware of, but for now they stand just a little bit over the line. It’s nowhere near as callous as Alabama’s 10 extra men.
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