BAMANEWSBOT
Staff
On national signing day, the hopes and dreams of high school football players come true.
For some, the rug gets pulled out from under their feet during the days that follow.
In what has become one of college football's ugliest traditions, the Thursday and Friday after signing day resulted in several assistant coaches around the country either moving to other jobs or getting canned by head coaches who used their recruiting prowess to lock prospects into their national letters of intentādocuments that give virtually all the power to the school and none to the player.
Among the moves, LSU head coach Ed Orgeron reassigned running backs coach Jabbar Juluke within the athletic department and outright canned wide receivers coach and ace recruiter Dameyune Craig.
"We appreciate the work that Dameyune and Jabbar did for LSU," Orgeron said in a statement emailed by LSU. "We wish them nothing but success in the future."
The future.
Something that some of those players who entered into one-sided contracts just one day beforeāincluding defensive linemen Neil Farrell (Mobile, Alabama) and Justin Thomas (Spanish Fort, Alabama)āthought would include work together on the field with those coaches.
Farrell took to Twitter to express his disappointment:
LSU isn't alone in this practice, and this is not meant to be a slight against Orgeron or the Tigers. This is a college football problem.
Florida announced Friday via email that West Virginia running backs coach JaJuan Seider will take an offensive assistant position in Gainesville. Auburn let Craig walk to LSU in mid-February last year, and Ohio State running back Mike Weber famously wrote that he was "hurt as hell" after running backs coach Stan Drayton bailed the day after signing day in 2015.
Grown-ups should be the ones acting like grown-ups. Signing recruits while knowing that the staff dynamic will be different in less than 24 hours reeks of immaturity.
No, it's actually worse than that. It's outright lying by either head coaches or assistant coaches who know their futures aren't with the programs they're selling to high schoolers.
Grown men are lying to kids in an effort to further their own professional careers.
That's sickening.
These jobs didn't just pop up overnight. These moves were a month in the making and sometimes longer. When the dead period gets lifted in early January, coaches are forced to focus on recruiting after spending the quiet month building a staff.
If that staff isn't complete by the time recruiting starts in January, that's a head coach problem and an assistant coach problem. Not a player problem.
Instead, they pass those problems on to the high school kids who willingly locked themselves to the head coach, the program and the staff.
This shouldn't happen, and you should be outraged.
Players should know better too. They need to ask questions about staff makeup post-national signing day and approach their commitments with a somewhat critical eye. Plus, since the coaching industry is nomadic, it's always important to commit to the school, not the coach.
Nevertheless, players should have an out.
If they had the ability to nullify their national letters of intent in the event their primary recruiters and/or future position coaches are either fired or move on after signing day, it would make things easier, better and most importantly fair.
Somewhat fair, at least.
We are in a day and age when player welfare is at the forefront, the full cost of attendance checks get cut every year, and the time dedicated to football is being focused on more and more. Those movements are all fantastic and could result in players being treated a little better in a sport that is big business under the guise of amateurism.
But let's start small.
Let's force the adults in the situation to be adults, because they aren't doing it on their own.
Post-Signing Day Coaching Changes Show the Ugly Side of College Football
For some, the rug gets pulled out from under their feet during the days that follow.
In what has become one of college football's ugliest traditions, the Thursday and Friday after signing day resulted in several assistant coaches around the country either moving to other jobs or getting canned by head coaches who used their recruiting prowess to lock prospects into their national letters of intentādocuments that give virtually all the power to the school and none to the player.
Among the moves, LSU head coach Ed Orgeron reassigned running backs coach Jabbar Juluke within the athletic department and outright canned wide receivers coach and ace recruiter Dameyune Craig.
"We appreciate the work that Dameyune and Jabbar did for LSU," Orgeron said in a statement emailed by LSU. "We wish them nothing but success in the future."
The future.
Something that some of those players who entered into one-sided contracts just one day beforeāincluding defensive linemen Neil Farrell (Mobile, Alabama) and Justin Thomas (Spanish Fort, Alabama)āthought would include work together on the field with those coaches.
Farrell took to Twitter to express his disappointment:
LSU isn't alone in this practice, and this is not meant to be a slight against Orgeron or the Tigers. This is a college football problem.
Florida announced Friday via email that West Virginia running backs coach JaJuan Seider will take an offensive assistant position in Gainesville. Auburn let Craig walk to LSU in mid-February last year, and Ohio State running back Mike Weber famously wrote that he was "hurt as hell" after running backs coach Stan Drayton bailed the day after signing day in 2015.
Grown-ups should be the ones acting like grown-ups. Signing recruits while knowing that the staff dynamic will be different in less than 24 hours reeks of immaturity.
No, it's actually worse than that. It's outright lying by either head coaches or assistant coaches who know their futures aren't with the programs they're selling to high schoolers.
Grown men are lying to kids in an effort to further their own professional careers.
That's sickening.
These jobs didn't just pop up overnight. These moves were a month in the making and sometimes longer. When the dead period gets lifted in early January, coaches are forced to focus on recruiting after spending the quiet month building a staff.
If that staff isn't complete by the time recruiting starts in January, that's a head coach problem and an assistant coach problem. Not a player problem.
Instead, they pass those problems on to the high school kids who willingly locked themselves to the head coach, the program and the staff.
This shouldn't happen, and you should be outraged.
Players should know better too. They need to ask questions about staff makeup post-national signing day and approach their commitments with a somewhat critical eye. Plus, since the coaching industry is nomadic, it's always important to commit to the school, not the coach.
Nevertheless, players should have an out.
If they had the ability to nullify their national letters of intent in the event their primary recruiters and/or future position coaches are either fired or move on after signing day, it would make things easier, better and most importantly fair.
Somewhat fair, at least.
We are in a day and age when player welfare is at the forefront, the full cost of attendance checks get cut every year, and the time dedicated to football is being focused on more and more. Those movements are all fantastic and could result in players being treated a little better in a sport that is big business under the guise of amateurism.
But let's start small.
Let's force the adults in the situation to be adults, because they aren't doing it on their own.
Post-Signing Day Coaching Changes Show the Ugly Side of College Football
