37 MAN RECRUITING CLASS AT OLE MISS ALREADY DOWN TO 27

With NCAA rules allowing only 25 scholarship athletes per class, more than a few people did a double-take after Houston Nutt announced his 37 player recruiting class this year. With one player hopefully out in Jamar Hornsby, Nutt expressed little worry that he’d be able to get down to 25 athletes by August. It turns out he’s ahead of schedule.“It’s going real smooth right now because you’ve got about seven guys right now that we know for sure aren’t going to make it academically,” Nutt said last week at a news conference to discuss spring practice. “However, they love Ole Miss and so what we’re doing, to help out Mississippi junior colleges, is we are going to place them in the schools. “Really you’re down to about 27. Now there are some like Eric Smiley who signed with Butler Junior College so I wasn’t counting him. But take my word for it, it’s going good. Now we are about two over today and we’re in good shape.”Even after these seven, Nutt is still worried about academic casualties.“Four or five that are on the fence and probably won’t make it academically. The relationship you build with Mississippi junior colleges is important to me because we won’t ever be a staff that will sign 15 of 16 junior college kids a year.”Why the NCAA allows colleges to sign a dozen more players than they’re allowed to sign is beyond me. Does Nutt do it because of the bump it’ll give to his recruiting rankings at sites like Rivals and Scout? Is it out of kindness to the local junior colleges? Or just because these kids “love Ole Miss.” (Heart warming...)Last I checked it was a privilege and not a right to play major college football, and as the NCAA makes painfully obvious in their TV commercials, most football players will be going pro in something other than sports.The idea of parking a student at a college and getting their academics inflated at a junior college that may or may not care about academic integrity just wreaks of NCAA rules violations.While this isn’t a new practice or something that Houston Nutt invented (see Bruce Feldman’s Meat Market for an in-depth look at the world of SEC recruiting), a high-profile and glaringly obvious loophole is being taken advantage of, and it’s just another way college coaches are trying to work around the rules and their intents.