re: Alabama not allowing Brandon Kennedy to transfer to Auburn or Tennessee

Sounds like a win/win to me.

I wouldn't call it paradise, as it has it's issues as well, but the issues are generally much smaller and less infuriating. Having said that, Costa Rica is a really nice place to live. But there are lots of good countries to live in all over the world. Anywhere in Scandinavia is amazing for anyone with an affinity for cold weather. Germany and a number of European countries great. A few other spots in Latin America are nice. The list goes on.

Also, I'm speaking about the quality of life for an educated person moving to these countries and getting a good job or being self-employed. I'm the latter.

Also, I can drive down the street for 10 mins in Costa Rica and see more attractive women walking to the bus stop that in the best bar in Dothan, AL on a Saturday night. Latin women age well. American women, not so much.

I'm 39, and my wife is a smoking hot 31-year-old Costa Rican pharmacist. Life ain't bad, son.



I'll never move back to the US.

Yeah, you're a moron. I can't stand Bernie. Hence why I am against allowing the NCAA to run things like a socialist state.

Anyways done talking to you. You couldn't even give a valid retort to any of my points


@prevatt I see you're in enjoying life! Good on you

I'm doing my best, boss. Roll Tide.

Lol triggered

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Just because it works for the Pac12 doesn't necessarily mean its a good idea for the hyper competitive, football crazed SEC. That is why its a league rule not an NCAA rule. It would note the Big10 has the same rule. 

Also, because its a small percentage now doesn't mean that won't change. Significantly. It's also not a good deal for the "haves" like Alabama. This is third situation we have had now. We aren't likely taking Tennessee's 2nd or 3rd string player but they will go after ours. 

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I don't believe I ever said that the percentage would not change significantly or otherwise. I said the most likely scenario is that there would be approximately 5-10 inter conference grad transfers a year at worst. I think we disagree on whether that is "wild west free agency."

I disagree that the Pac 12 isn't a valid data point. While yes it is a different conference and attitudes toward football may not be as passionate, it is still 1 of 4 nearest comparables you can get. I didn't compare it to a Division II women's lacrosse league. There are vaild points of concern in regards to this in that this is only one year of data and the aforementioned regional bias, but to just dismiss the numbers from a power 5 conference that for the most part allows open transfers doesn't make any sense.

(Just as an aside, not pertaining to this, the Pacific Coast Conference is home to arguably the worst football scandal of all time, and they do cheat a lot at basketball.)

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The purpose and intent of this rule was never about athletics. It was about academics and allowing a player to further his graduate studies and paying for it will his football eligibility. It wasn't supposed to be about playing time. 

The rule as it is written now doesn't put any undue burden on the athlete as there are 120 Div 1 programs out there. In conference transfers aren't prohibited unless the coach feels like it is a competitive situation: which it is in this case and with Smith. We did allow a kid to go to Mizzou. 

The Smith transfer absolutely hurt us and it is a cause for concern regarding depth if Kennedy leaves us. It absolutely impacts us adversely. The argument he is going to leave anyway? That is true but I see know reason why that should benefit a direct competitor since its about playing time and not school. 

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I'm not sure that I have ever disagreed with this. I have said everytime under current rules everyone has acted appropriately and in their best interest. I simply wish for the rule to change. I have said before I just do not believe that any of the arguments other than I feel we shouldn't have to compete against someone we signed out of high school is legitimate (i.e. free agency, wild wild west, tampering etc.). I also believe that the benefit for the student is worth any loss that the school has to endure. I also feel there is a reasonable alternative to either option.

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Despite the low transfer numbers now, doesn't mean that won't change. Further, I think this will encourage tampering. It was established that Smart and Tucker were having back channel communications with the Mom. I am convinced UT and AU tampered here. This will only encourage more of this: Think Cecil Newton types running around. It will cause all kinds of problems. 

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Tampering is wrong and coaches should be punished severely if caught, I said that several times in the last thread. I disagree that there should be a rule to restrict grad student movement because the coaches can't be trusted. If this happens consistently you will likely see the same schools and coaches involved because the transfer numbers will likely be small. They should be held accountable.

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Lastly, when a kid commits, his athletic eligibility commits: period end of story. So if he decides to leave, there are rules around that....but to say he has or should have complete free will about the matter is ridiculous. 

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There are rules and he should abide by them, however rules can and often do change and that is what I hope happens with this.

I don't think NFL stuff was directed at me so I have no comment on that.

Look we desire two different outcomes and for me that has never been a point of contention. You would like to protect college football programs by making sure the investment they but in a player can not come back and harm the team based on a four year contract agreement. I believe that once a player graduates they should have the option to pursue any opportunity they see fit as long as they have eligibility. The current rule is that a graduate with eligibility can pursue those options with specific stipulations mandated by the NCAA, conference, and previous teams.

My issue has only been the expected outcome of widespread transfers or "free agency" and rampant tampering is unlikely. You said earlier that just because a large amount of grad transfers have not happened doesn't mean it will not. That is true, but an increase that leads to more than a handful of in conference transfers each year is still very small. The likelyhood of some large increase of early graduates, who are not happy at their current school, are good enough to compete at a rival school, and the other school is willing to offer up an important scholarship is not very large. Is it possible, yes, but it is nowhere near the most likely outcome. That is why the Pac-12 example, while not perfect, does provide some insight as to what you might expect. If we saw 35 grad in conference transfers this last year in the Pac 12 I think it is safe to say you would take notice. Again this is just a reference point, I'm not saying what happened there will definitely happen here.

Last year 952 football players competed as graduated students or about 7 per team in D1.
LINK
For the SEC that would be a pool of 98 students who would look to grad transfer in the SEC in an average year. Now say you just randomly up the number to 400 (28.5 grads per school per year) students because things went crazy because of the rule and everybody somehow started graduating early. The grad transfer rate is less than a half percent currently. Apply that to 400 it is 2 students. Up it to 3% and it is 12. Up it to 5% and it is 20. The graduate rate and the transfer rate would have to balloon greatly to get a transfer market of 20. And they would still have to be 20 players that other SEC schools actually want.

My point has always been the numbers don't make sense for anything I think is bad and some type of "wild west free agency."

Now I know that a couple of people believe one in conference transfer that hurts the team is too much and that is fine. But what I'm saying is the market just by what is available can only get so big and overall it will not be very good. And yes because we stack blue chips like Pringles we are more likely to lose a good player. I would rather err on giving the grad student a choice to pursue any option and I think the schools whether it is us or anyone else are setup well enough to deal with whatever hardship it might cause.

You bring good data and analysis to the table but I am afraid you haven't proven your point. Rather you have supported mine inadvertently......

Your argument is that the universe of the graduate transfers is small to begin with and assuming that "balloons" or increases to some non-historic level we still get some small percentage relative to the whole.

If that is the case according to you, then the number of students this affects is still inconsequential. Yet the outlier still seems to be Alabama because of the level of recruiting there is so far and above everyone else. So maybe this is more of an Alabama problem since this is second contentious situation in as many years.

However, given the relative insignificance of numbers of students this affects why then tamper with the rule as it exists today? There is literally no restriction on grad transfers as it exists today. They can transfer in conference. The single restriction is if, and only if, it is about an in-conference team offering or admitting grad student for playing time at position of need. Then it is up to the current coach/staff to sign off on that. It's not prohibited but it is up to their discretion. The reasons have been discussed ad-naueseum.

So if your analysis shows that the universe of grad students is small to begin with, and then forecasting that the potential numbers is still small relative to the whole and then the number of grad students that would be transferring for competeiive reasons would still be inconsequential, then why change the rule at all? The rule as it exists today affects a smaller fraction of small subset of a small subset.

In other words, the numbers of players affected are far smaller today than they would be if the rule was liberalized under your scenario. There is really no problem with the rule per se: rather it seems to a problem that is affecting Alabama. The rule as it was envisioned was to address a student athlete's ability to further his academic endeavors. The rule as you envision would further erode that mission and broaden the numbers of affected and further encouraging the types of behaviors that we are trying to discourage in college athletics. The numbers of affected today are inconsequential but you would prefer to open that up to whatever that leads to......

You say: Open it up because we are impacting the students ability to choose what is best for them..

I say: The students have complete free will and no one is holding them back. The number students could be potentially affected are so insignificant to begin with under the current structure that there is no need to potentially exacerbate the problem which is essentially what you propose. The rule doesn't impact the students ability to pursue their endeavors, the rule was put in place to prevent poaching....and poaching is precisely what happened under the Smith situation and is occurring again with Kennedy.

Fellas,
There's a major ideological difference between people and it manifests itself in certain areas...this is one and that's the reason I expressed an interest in the political makeup of the contributors to this thread. I find it interesting to see how the two sides view the situation from entirely different perspectives.

Suggestion: agree to disagree.

Hey coachcrisp,

I understand why you say agree to disagree but I think this conversation was very productive even if we didn't change each other's minds, which was never my purpose anyway. As long as people are reasonable which most have been it is good.

We got to exchange our experiences with non-competes. You may not care for mine but I was happy to learn about yours. I think I was able to show why grad transfers would likely not explode based on the numbers if there was a rule change. And I hopefully conveyed that, that unlikelyhood is not the reason I believe the rule should be changed. I learned a little about Costa Rica, I have relatives thinking of retiring there. I got to see that if you say country in a post, prevatt might go on a non partisan political diatribe. It is all good, I hope most never take this stuff personally.

I honestly have conversations like this all the time and they are usually great and produce relationships and understanding of people with all differenct ideologies and philosophies. Now I am painfully persistant if someone misses my technical reasoning as you saw here but I am also very respectful, I listen without interrupting (very key in person), am open to differing opinions and my opinion being challenged, and more than happy to agree to disagree. I know there is a point where all avenues of inquiry are exhausted or civility is lost, however so many people throw out agree to disagree because they can't handle disagreement. That is definitely not you by the way, you have been great, this is just more of a diatribe about how that phrase is used to combat discussion about controversial subjects.

We are all good, and for the most part always were. Roll Tide baby!

Either you have a rule or you don't. Still to the rule of remove the rule.

Oh and F Sankey.