'The Commish said:
'gump said:
'The Commish said:
'gump said:
Alabama/Arkansas guys....talk to me about Darius Philon. What happened with/to him?
Most reliable sources seem to indicate:- Alabama offered, he committed last fall;- He was injured during his senior year;- Sometime before NSD (some say week prior, some say a few days before), Alabama had a numbers crunch and asked him to grayshirt...enroll next January;- Arkansas got in touch with him (or already had been in touch with him) a few days before NSD;- Philon showed up on NSD not sure what to do. He said he was undecided, put the Bama cap on but didn't sign his LOI, and then faxed his letter to Arkansas at 2:45 that afternoon.Feel bad for the kid, because he was obviously bewildered about having his scholarship pulled by Bama. That said, many are trying to unnecessarily crucify Saban over this. For all we know, the scholarship could have been conditional based on #s or the injury. We'll probably never know all the facts, but I'm just glad he's a Hog.
Unless a coach is telling the kid he's recruiting that his offer can get pulled (after he commits) if he gets hurt, then doing so after he gets injured is highly unethical for obvious reasons.
I'm just catching up on this story....but why is this unethical?The reports are that Philon has still not had surgery or even had the knee scoped to tell what the severity of the injury is, despite the Alabama staff asking him to do so. And the injury was enough to scare Auburn off, who had the chance to pick Philon's commitment back up after losing it a few months earlier...but didn't re-offer."It's not a big secret that the knee is worse than just a minor deal," said one person in the Mobile area involved in the sports scene. "He also hasn't had any success with any rehab."Alabama offered Philon a chance to play football...but conditional on him getting his knee fixed and working thru a 5 month rehab first.
Here's the problem, right? We don't know what the discussions were. We have to rely on what the coach said he said vs what the kid said the coaches said. Someone above added that Saban told him they were good as long as he didn't take any more visits and the kid supposedly didn't take any more visits after that. If that's true, I have a problem with it. There's a lot of "if that's the case/true" stuff though. So, if what Ray says above is true plus Saban told him not to visit anywhere else (and doesn't) and the kid gets hurt, what's the right thing to do? At the least, the "talk" should have been had as soon as the injury happened IMO.
It sounds to me like Philon is not doing what Alabama wants him to do....get fixed. So Saban offers him a scholarship he can pick up after he gets fixed....but he has chosen to take one now from Arky instead.
That's one story. The other is the kid's. We'll never know the truth. Best any coach can do is avoid this stuff completely.
I guess it depends on how badly you want to win. Nick Saban is paid to win games, period. He does that, and he does it with ruthless efficiency. He doesn't make all those millions to be a nice guy or someone that makes others feel all warm and fuzzy. Nobody should blame Nick Saban for that, these are the rules that are set forth to play by. College football has become big business and for the most part coaches are evaluated more like NFL coaches than ever before, the bottom line of wins and losses. The facts remain Alabama had better players than Philon and Taylor commit to them and no longer had room in this class for them. They did offer the players grayshirts, and the players declined. There have been other instances just this signing period of players statuses changing based on class numbers. OT Patrick Miller ended up at Auburn rather than LSU when LSU didn't have a slot for him to early enroll as they had agreed to. That literally happened when he went to enroll. Things change and LSU had a player who failed to graduate when he was expected to and rather than pay his own way the first semester Miller moved on to Auburn. In Philon's case this was unfortunate as it appears he wanted all along to go to Alabama and be it the injury or the early morning commitment from Korren Kirven, in the end Kirven essentially filled that spot. T.J. Yeldon essentially filled Taylor's spot, which was the other high profile player that was offered a grayshirt from Alabama. Rumor had it that on signing day Philon reached out to several SEC programs and of those contacted only Auburn and LSU refused to have interest. A teammate of his had committed to Arkansas, who themselves had lost out on several recruiting battles so they had spots open. My guess is he chose Arkansas based on the fact he had a teammate heading there and he had spoken with him about the coaches. Philon hasn't even visited Fayetteville so I hope this works out for him.
I don't disagree that this is how things are. It doesn't make it right though.
It will be this way unless colleges change their priorities though. Given what a revenue driver having a winning football team is I don't see what would cause anything to change. I'm not saying it should or shouldn't change but that is reality. The public in general just wants to win, to feel that they are a part of a winner. To feel a part of it, they will spend a huge amount of money on tickets, shirts, hats, etc. Nick Saban is the perfect example. When he was hired, there was a huge budget crisis in the state and there were complaints about a football coach being paid that kind of money. Nick Saban has given Alabama more return on their investment though than anything else could have. They went up enough on ticket prices in year one (2007) due to the excitement to cover his salary. On top of that, consider the extra merchandise Alabama has sold over that time. It's hard to put an exact total on it but while it is a given today that Alabama will sell 101,000 tickets to each and every home game, prior to his arrival it wasn't even guaranteed they would sell the stadium out. Keep in mind that Alabama has added two additional end zone upper decks over that time. I don't recall exactly but I think it's in the range of 20,000 extra seats. Even if you just say he's filling those seats, and assume all the other seats would have been sold with another coach, at an average of $65/game for 7 games that comes to $9.1MM/year. Granted, you have the construction cost of the stadium expansion but filling those seats ensures you can pay for it and have the long term benefit of a top notch facility and capacity to continue to sell more seats.From a financial impact I don't see any way that having Saban and the program be where it has been over the past 5 years hasn't benefitted Alabama to the tune of $10MM/year. Again, not saying the scholarship situations are right or wrong but while everyone may feel bad for Darius Philon, etc. I don't think anyone at the University feels bad enough to fork over that revenue. Keep in mind as well, aside from the money aspect this is in a state where people would rather you spit on their child than talk bad about the team they affiliate with, so winning is pretty much the priority.
Although after pulling off what he did over the last couple months, I won't be that upset.
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