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  • Coaches' finger-pointing over recruiting is hypocritical, laughable
    • John Niyo

    What does it say about Miles as a leader that he feels the need to stand up at a campus recruiting celebration and trash Notre Dame signee Gunner Kiel for bailing on the Tigers? (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)


    This is rich. But they are rich ? and this is how they got that way ? so this probably shouldn't come as a surprise.
    Still, isn't it the height of hypocrisy for high-profile college football coaches like LSU's Les Miles and Notre Dame's Brian Kelly ? not to mention all those bickering Big Ten gentlemen ? to be blasting 17- and 18-year-old kids for having a change of heart? Or for saying one thing and then later doing another? Or for being swayed by the lure of a better promise?
    Really now, what does it say about Miles as a leader that he feels the need to stand up at a campus recruiting celebration and trash Notre Dame signee Gunner Kiel for bailing on the Tigers?
    "We needed a quarterback in this class. There was a young man from Indiana that thought about coming to the Bayou State," Miles said in a speech at the appropriately-named "Bayou Bash" ? a video of which was posted on YouTube by the LSU student newspaper. "(But) he did not necessarily have the chest and the ability to lead a program. So you know."
    So you know, Miles also made gestures as he spoke, pointing exaggeratedly at his chest, to drive home his message that Kiel (originally an Indiana commitment) didn't have the courage or the character ? or something like that ? to lead his powerhouse SEC team. (Unlike, say, Jordan Jefferson, last year's starter, who was kicked off the team following an August bar fight but later reinstated after his felony battery charge was reduced to a simple misdemeanor.)
    Then there was Kelly, he of the weekly red-faced tantrums on the sideline in South Bend, who had sharp words after a big one got away. Five-star receiver Deontay Greenberry did an 11th-hour about-face on his verbal commitment to the Fighting Irish and signed with Houston instead.
    But rather than taking the high road Wednesday, Kelly first told his university's website, "I used to have a saying about players like that, and that was I'd rather play against him for four games than with him for four years." Kelly had toned down his message by the time he held his signing-day news conference ? give him credit for that, at least ? but he'd already made his point.

    No one's squeaky clean

    And here's mine: All this finger-pointing is laughable, if only because hardly anyone is left untouched.
    Sure, Urban Meyer flipped eight or nine recruits committed to other Big Ten schools and signed them at Ohio State, which had the added bonus of two coaching staffs for a time this winter. But some of those players already would've been locked up by Ohio State if not for Jim Tressel's firing and the coaching limbo ? not to mention the feeding frenzy ? that ensued.
    So let's drop the pretense about ethics here for a minute ? it wasn't just the coaches at Wisconsin and Michigan State complaining this week, by the way ? and just admit everyone's guilty of poaching on some level.
    And let's remember that an SEC coach's grandstanding about a recruit's supposed lack of loyalty is severely undermined by the ugly ? and routine ? practice of oversigning and greyshirting that goes on in that conference. All too often there, today's coveted recruit is tomorrow's castoff. (Right, Les?)
    And let's not ignore that fact that some of these same coaches pounding their chests and selling their schools so passionately ? to recruits, to fans and to the media ? also are aggressively selling themselves to the next highest bidder. (Wasn't it Brian Kelly, the former Central Michigan and Grand Valley State coach, who ditched his Cincinnati players ? and a pretty sizeable recruiting class ? to jump to Notre Dame right before his school was to play in the Sugar Bowl a couple years ago?)
    So in the end, let's not forget this: For all the childish behavior we see from some of the teenagers in this crazy recruiting game ? from the last-minute broken promises to the multiple-hat shell games announcing their decisions ? most of them are just playing follow-the-leader.
    john.niyo@detnews.com
    Benny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."

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    • Spot-on, John Niyo!

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      • John Niyo's column is just stating the obvious. Any fucking moron could write that column. That's the problem with almost all sports writers. They merely write about crap that any idiot knows.

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        • stan.. they write for the lowest common denominator.
          Grammar... The difference between feeling your nuts and feeling you're nuts.

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          • True dat!

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            • Originally posted by entropy View Post
              stan.. they write for the lowest common denominator.
              The only thread here that pretty much everyone posts in is the osu one.

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              • Originally posted by UMStan White View Post
                John Niyo's column is just stating the obvious. Any fucking moron could write that column. That's the problem with almost all sports writers. They merely write about crap that any idiot knows.
                Are there any sportswriters or columnists that you do like, Stan? IMO, Niyo >>> Sharp, Chengalis, Parker, Wosnowski, Rosenberg, Albom, and most other current or recent writers in the Freep or Detroit News.

                Not only that, but I thought this particular column did a decent job of pointing out the hypocrisy of coaches like Mad Hatter, who, IMO, spouted off about Gunner Keil to deflect critics and fans of LSU Football that were unhappy not to have the top 5 class they're accustomed to down there.

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                • "Not only that, but I thought this particular column did a decent job of pointing out the hypocrisy of coaches like Mad Hatter, who, IMO, spouted off about Gunner Keil to deflect critics and fans of LSU Football that were unhappy not to have the top 5 class they're accustomed to down there."

                  Oh ...gee. it took a fucking genius to point that out. Uh.. no.. it took any hack to write about the obvious. Really Rob, was there a single point in that column that wasn't so obvious it would have smacked one ion the ass if they walked past it.

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                  • So it's not your cup of tea. Thanks for sharing
                    Benny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."

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                    • it took any hack to write about the obvious

                      On behalf of all hacks everywhere, please remember that our job is to write stuff people on sports forums already knew. It's in the job description, I think.

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                      • Originally posted by UMStan White View Post
                        "Not only that, but I thought this particular column did a decent job of pointing out the hypocrisy of coaches like Mad Hatter, who, IMO, spouted off about Gunner Keil to deflect critics and fans of LSU Football that were unhappy not to have the top 5 class they're accustomed to down there."

                        Oh ...gee. it took a fucking genius to point that out. Uh.. no.. it took any hack to write about the obvious. Really Rob, was there a single point in that column that wasn't so obvious it would have smacked one ion the ass if they walked past it.
                        Get real, Stan---maybe he wrote about what was the obvious to most "educated" CFB fans, but where do the majority of sports fans (whether they're just casual sports fans [young or old], fans that don't have time or reason to look past the surface of what's really going on, or fans that are just too plain lazy or mentally challenged to figure things out for themselves [picture the typical buckeye or sparty fan and you'll get what I mean]) get this perspective from?

                        I still think he did a much better job than most sports writers of connecting the dots and pushing more than a few readers to think things thru a little more deeply than they otherwise would, a little more deeply than readers of the Drew Sharps and other one-trick writers of the world would do. On top of that, how many casual sports fans think things thru any more than they have to, being often nothing but idiots that depend on ESPN and Sports Center for all their sports info and opinions?

                        Then again, maybe I'm nothing more than an idiot, one of those lowest common denominator types...
                        Last edited by Rob F; February 7, 2012, 10:24 PM.

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                        • (whether they're just casual sports fans [young or old], fans that don't have time or reason to look past the surface of what's really going on, or fans that are just too plain lazy or mentally challenged to figure things out for themselves [picture the typical buckeye or sparty fan and you'll get what I mean])
                          Note, He's writing this piece for a local newspaper so it is for general sports fan consumption. It's probably pedestrian to the rabid CFB fan who scours the web looking for the latest possible inkling of a twitch of a rumor on who is or isn't committing to their favorite school or its mortal enemy.
                          Benny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."

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                          • Niyo should be drawn and quartered and his family stripped of their citizenship.

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                            • ... or forced to move to Toledo ...
                              "in order to lead America you must love America"

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