Many SEC enthusiasts will claim that on a whole, their conference has faster players than the Big Ten. Apparently that’s not the only thing they have over Big Ten schools: SEC teams can sign more players at recruiting time, too.
When the Big Ten made the change in 2002, it instituted a policy where teams could oversign by no more than three players, and DiNardo said a detailed explanation behind the oversigning had to be submitted to the Big Ten. The SEC is among the conferences with no guidelines.
At the time, Michigan coach Lloyd Carr told reporters exactly why the Big Ten had to adjust, and a game like Monday’s national title game between Ohio State and LSU was part of his reasoning.
“When you look at our bowl hookup with the SEC . . . it’s an important rule,” Carr said then. “I can remember going to bowl games with 77, 76 guys on scholarship against a team with 85.
“In bowl games against conferences that have an advantage of doing that, Big Ten teams were at a severe disadvantage.”
For example, a school with 21 open scholarships could sign 26 players in February, with maybe 15 certainties and some group of six of the 11 other players expected to reach enrollment. Or perhaps three summer transfers would open opportunities if nine of the 11 were admitted to school.
If Team A and Team B are both allowed to recruit 85 players, but Team B can go over that amount and sign 10 more players than Team A, do they have a bigger advantage? I would say yes. Granted, Team B still has to recruit the right players and those players still have to perform on the field, but it’s still an advantage. If they get 10 more cracks at signing productive players than Team A does, isn’t that in their favor?
I never bought into the whole speed argument. Look at what Michigan did to Florida on New Year’s Day – both teams clearly had speed. Wisconsin hung with Tennessee just fine, too. However, this article brings up an interesting debate in terms of recruiting advantages and I think it’s worth noting at bowl time when we get to see the SEC take on the Big Ten in several instances.
