Comments on: Get Ready For Complaints: Bama Switches Recruit’s Scholarship To Grayshirt

By: bret75taylor

bret75taylor — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:11:48 +0000

Trying to clarify a “grayshirt.”
1. An athlete has 5 years of eligibility to play. His “clock” starts the semester he enters college.
2. Most grayshirts do not enter college until January. That is when their 5 year clock starts. In effect they get one extra semester of college. They get the advantage of going through a Spring practice (just like early enrollees) before their freshman year of football.
3. If they choose to enter college in the fall, which most do not, then (a) they are responsible for the cost of school and (b) their 5 year clock starts.
4. If I had a son, I would love for him to grayshirt. An extra semester of college paid for. If he also redshirts, he has two Spring practices plus his redshirt season to adapt to college and to prepare to play. He has 5 1/2 years of scholarship, plus summers. He can earn his masters degree, not just his 4 year degree, while on full scholarship.
5. Unless your intention is to get out of school and into the NFL in 3 years, grayshirting is a great deal for the student and his parents.

By: John at MrSEC

John at MrSEC — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:17:40 +0000

@gregpomeroy1

It is a half-year in terms of semesters… instead of enrolling in the fall, he’ll enroll in the spring. But I was referring to the calendar year… instead of inking this February and enrolling in 2013, he’ll ink and enroll in 2014. Either way I write that, someone’s going to take it the other way.

Thanks for reading the site,
John

By: gregpomeroy1

gregpomeroy1 — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 03:01:46 +0000

John, you say a grayshirt delays his enrollment until the following year, but don’t they always enroll mid-year because they would have graduated high school anyway? They either have to pay for the fall semester and start on scholarship in January, or lay out of school a few months until January. Either way doesn’t seem like a huge deal, especially with a player who’s still recovering from injury.

By: saginaw

saginaw — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 01:34:12 +0000

There’s no problem with gray-shirting as long as both parties agree to it. Saban has used it ever since LSU, as have other schools. Last year there was a big stink about it because that was the first year of the new cap on recruiting and Saban miscalculated the numbers and had to ask two recruits to gray-shirt late in the process. LSU and South Carolina are two other schools who got into some controversey about it previously. Last year was the only year Saban has ever screwed it up and with the new rules put in, I think it was a one-off situation. If it ever happens again with Saban, I too will villify him, we’ll see. As I understand it, the kid will now come in for the winter quarter next January, along with early enrollees and essentially will be one of them in all respects.

By: GeoffDawg

GeoffDawg — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:55:39 +0000

@alamoaggie08 I don’t believe that’d be the case. I think if you’re accepted as a student, regardless of your athletic status, your acceptance is final. I can’t envision a scenario where the registrars office would rescind an invitation to enroll because the player won’t be on the team in the Fall. My guess is the impact would be financial with the player and his family having to bear the full burden of attending classes and living on campus for the next year. To me, that’s an unfair expectation in general although in this case, it appears that the player had plenty of advance notice so that does mitigate it somewhat.

By: alamoaggie08

alamoaggie08 — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:58:02 +0000

so out of curiousity, does a grayshirted player have to wait to start going to school? unless he wants to pay for his own classes he can’t start going to school there yet because his scholarship isn’t active? that’s the main problem i’d have with this situation

By: GeoffDawg

GeoffDawg — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:13:28 +0000

I think I know the answer to this but just to clarify, if a player is grayshirted, he’s personally responsible for paying full board and tuition his freshman year in college, correct?

By: saber1234

saber1234 — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:00:12 +0000

elimination proces stats again by uat & saban.. How many mre?? Wonder why they were keeping i on the low. And if he knew about it months before he was just informed this weekend.. Uuummm???