<p>Though this incident does not revolve around admissions surrounding ivy-league and other elite university admitting athletes, it still speaks volumes about the ongoing battle between College Admissions Offices and the Athletics Departments of all schools. What does everyone think? </p>
<p>I personally think that Spurrier should not play the role of admissions officer when recruiting and that he has no reason to complain. I feel bad for the young men who were promised a spot in the University and the Team. But seriously, I believe the admissions office did the right thing, though they probably should have had established a better communication with Coach Spurrier.</p>
<p>you have no idea what you are talking about. first off, both recruits were qualified according to NCAA standards. if they have met standards, SC should realize that they are in football and they have hired Spurrier, a legend, to rebuild their football program, which has been in shambles for years. You do understand they are in the SEC, the toughest conference in the NCAA. i wonder how many recruits LSU, UF, or Georgia admissions turned away this late. Spurrier knows about admissions and has never violated anything. He even worked at Duke so he knows elite school admissions as well. Communication is one thing you're right on though. By hiring Spurrier, SC has to realize better recruits are going to come naturally. If SC wants to rebuild their football program and have shown committment by hiring Spurrier, they have to let his recruits, which have to be good, into the university if they have met NCAA standards. You cant have a coach promise these kids spots and then take them away. That is ludicrous. Can you tell I'm a sports fanatic? :)</p>
<p>We will never know all the details but these recruits, at least according to Spurrier, met the NCAA acadmic minimums and USC rejected them. There are lots of schools have floors on academic performance for recruits well above the NCAA minimums ... Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, BC, etc. I have no idea what understanding Spurrier and USC have on recruiting ... from the tidbits of the story it sounds like they may not have had an explicit understanding on the recruiting guideline ... but I would guess they will very soon.</p>
<p>It's not that they got rejected per se, but rather that they were told they were going to get in, at least tacitly, by the football coaching staff, and then they were turned away. What Spurrier is angry about - and rightfully so - is that if he tells recruits they're in and then admissions denies them, his word will very quickly be taken with a grain of salt by recruits, and then SC will begin to lose talent to other teams.</p>
<p>What it comes down to is communication between Admissions and the Athletic Department. If Spurrier did his due diligence, and he's been around long enough I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, then he would have seen these kids' grades, known a fairly accurate standard they needed to meet, and if they signed letters, then they had to have met these standards. If admissions wants to raise their standard of admission, that's fine, and I'm all for it. But you can't do it without talking to your coach first, and even if he adamantly objects, you can't hang him out to dry like it appears they have done.</p>
<p>Something tells me, though, there's more to this story than we know right now. It just doesn't seem plausible they rejected these kids for no good reason when the coaching staff was under the impression they were in.</p>
<p>Clearly, Spurrier knew these athletes had to be reviewed by admissions before a final decision to admit them could be given. On the other hand, the lateness of the final decision does seem unfair to the atheletes.</p>
<p>It sounds like the coach may have offered more scholarships than he had available and perhaps is blaiming the admissions people so he does not lose potential recruits in the future. He also kept those players off the market for other competing schools by dragging this out so long. One of the worst things that can happen to a coach is if recruits don't feel he can be taken at his word and they then fail to commit early verbally or sign a LOI. Maybe his public apology is meant more to save his reputation than it is to console the athletes. FWIW, the LOI day is MONTHS before July so the university woud have had to review their applications earlier in order to prepare the LOI. It could be that these athletes had committed to taking courses that weren't completed or did not get the grades that they said they would. Not many schools agree to accept students based solely on their NCAA qualifying as the standards for qualification by the NCAA fall far below the standards of many admissions offices. In any case, it is the responsibility of the coach to know what the admissions people can live with and it is his responsibilty to be honest with incoming college students so they can be confident about one of the biggest decisions they will ever make.</p>