Of course it's a terrible rule. But it wasn't an invisible rule. Every school must be very careful to limit contact with soft commitments because the rule exists.
So they won't foul up again. The risk they took to have more contact with this waffling recruit was a bad one. The coaches need to rethink their strategy of early signing of financial aid papers.
Did he sign an agreement for financial aid or an application for financial aid? If it was an agreement does the agreement have any commitments on his part? He sign papers like that with multiple schools?
A simple solution would be to limit the number of FAAs the recruit can sign. If he commits, and signs a FAA, then he cannot sign another one unless he then decommits and backs out of the 1st FAA. That way, the intentions are well known and established on both sides. The recruit still gets the advantage of early enrollee option, and the flexibility of being able to still change their mind.
Agreed. Additionally, the contacts the school makes during the executed FAA period shouldn't count as recruiting contacts.
Wish I could argue that one. If you want to read about the granddaddy of all natural disaster followed by catastrophic government response read "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America" by John M. Barry. The book was well researched and a great read. The flood made Huey Long and Herbert Hoover possible. It was the event that put Washington in the disaster response business. As you would expect, they botched it first time out of the gate.
That's hitting around the appeal the SEC filed on the original ruling. I think the name of the kid was Josh Malone. I know he was a player that signed with four schools; one being Tennessee. (FWIW, UT's signing more than 25 deals with the FAA as well.) The way the appeal was eventually ruled upon was if a kid signed an FAA only the first school would have unlimited contact. As mentioned, the way it's worded now is...well, it's a bad rule. With the NLI the NCAA actually has those submitted so they can keep track of who signs where. With the FAA's, there wasn't any oversight. So, a kid could sign with school A, then sign with school B, and all the while school A was under no obligation to report to school B he'd signed an FAA. Now, that really doesn't apply to this story. It's not a case where MW signed more than one FAA like the UT player did. But, it's just one example, of many, how this rule was in it's "beta stage" and instituted.
