Post by Clemensbuff on Oct 2, 2012 8:12:00 GMT -6
Well, I've never been a blowu or Stoops fan and this more than assures me that I have been making the right decision all along.
This kid was a heck of a player and by all accounts a good kid.
Texas had almost the same type of situation a few years back with an O-lineman from A Westlake and they honored the scholarship they'd verbally offered the young man.
www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Stoops-strategy-against-the-sell-3905958.php
Tell me the SEC does it. Tell me this is about business.
Tell me the San Antonio recruit was only a verbal commit. Tell me kids change their mind all the time.
And tell me Oklahoma isn't running a charity, and that Bob Stoops needs to win, and that there is nothing wrong with what OU did this month.
But then, tell that to other recruits and other families.
Tell any of this to Matt Beyer, and he will shrug and talk about Plan B. He has reacted well considering his life changed this month with the speed of a snap.
In the summer, he committed to Oklahoma, and as recently as early September, Beyer said he “was feeling invincible.”
At 6-foot-6 and 285 pounds, invincible came easy.
Then, beginning his senior season at Reagan High School, he felt a tingling sensation and loss of feeling in his arms. The diagnosis: Spinal stenosis and bulging disks in his neck were putting undue pressure on his spinal cord.
This wasn't his first bout of back trouble, but he hadn't heard this warning before. One wrong hit, and he faced paralysis.
Beyer had no choice but to quit football, and he told the OU coach who had recruited him, Bruce Kittle. As the weeks passed, and he didn't hear back from Kittle, he began to prepare himself for what was coming.
“I guess I didn't want to leave myself vulnerable,” Beyer said Saturday.
But they're all vulnerable. They are teenagers, sure the NFL will be their next stop, which is why most parents would like to think their kid will get support from an athletic department.
Football programs go to great lengths, then, to foster some kind of family atmosphere. Coaches might encourage players to leave later, but they get them to campus with an embrace. It's part perception, and it's part real, and it's part of recruiting.
What OU did, then, was counter to this. Kittle told Beyer, sorry, we'd like you to visit this season if you can, but the offer of a scholarship has been rescinded.
“He said the decision was out of his hands,” Beyer said.
Meaning, it was in Stoops'.
Beyer earlier told a website that he understood and hopes Oklahoma finds a great player to take his place. That's likely Stoops' plan, too. His talent level isn't what it has been, and he could use another scholarship.
Doesn't this make sense? Stoops doesn't earn his millions by signing those who can't play.
Still, one scholarship doesn't change a roster, and a school can absorb costs in a number of ways. Besides, whatever scholarship someone such as Beyer would receive wouldn't necessarily count against a program's 85-man scholarship limit.
But more relevant is what OU risks with this kind of approach. These stories get passed around, after all, and sometimes in obvious ways. The Reagan head coach is on the regional board of directors in the Texas High School Coaches Association.
There also are other stories that have gone the other way. Florida State had its own this fall, then there's the one from Austin a few years ago. This involved another recruit named Matt, who was about the same size and age that Beyer is now.
This happened in 2006. Then, a University of Texas recruit, Matt Nader, suffered cardiac arrest in a game in his senior year at Austin Westlake. With an internal defibrillator implanted in his chest, Nader's college football career was over before it began, as it is with Beyer.
Nader kept his scholarship, however. He went on to graduate from UT with a degree in corporate communications.
Beyer plans on something similar. He says he's not bitter, and he will likely attend a Texas school now mostly to avoid out-of-state tuition.
“I'm going to have a great college experience,” he said. “Just a different one.”
But here's what is telling about the two. Nader was just a verbal commit, too, yet Mack Brown acted as if that made no difference.
“No matter what, he's going to be a Longhorn,” Brown said then. “The day he committed to us, we committed to him.”
So tell me about the SEC, or about business, or the difference between a verbal agreement and a letter of intent.
But is that what a recruit and his family want to hear?
Texas Mack Brown did indeed honor his offer to WL O-lineman Matt Nader as stated in this article linked below:
www.meanhorn.com/2006/09/texas-commit-matt-nader-ends-his.html
Is this a case where Mack did it for a 'local' boy, or would he have done it for a kid that was offered from OK just as well? IMO, it is the difference in two men.......one that cares about the young men he brings into his house........they other that cares only about the W/L column! Call me a hater, I don't care because actions of the two speak louder than anything else.
I've always thought of Stoops as a very, very rude man. That is easily seen by the way he continuously treats media. If he treats media that way........how does he act behind closed doors?
This kid was a heck of a player and by all accounts a good kid.
Texas had almost the same type of situation a few years back with an O-lineman from A Westlake and they honored the scholarship they'd verbally offered the young man.
www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Stoops-strategy-against-the-sell-3905958.php
Tell me the SEC does it. Tell me this is about business.
Tell me the San Antonio recruit was only a verbal commit. Tell me kids change their mind all the time.
And tell me Oklahoma isn't running a charity, and that Bob Stoops needs to win, and that there is nothing wrong with what OU did this month.
But then, tell that to other recruits and other families.
Tell any of this to Matt Beyer, and he will shrug and talk about Plan B. He has reacted well considering his life changed this month with the speed of a snap.
In the summer, he committed to Oklahoma, and as recently as early September, Beyer said he “was feeling invincible.”
At 6-foot-6 and 285 pounds, invincible came easy.
Then, beginning his senior season at Reagan High School, he felt a tingling sensation and loss of feeling in his arms. The diagnosis: Spinal stenosis and bulging disks in his neck were putting undue pressure on his spinal cord.
This wasn't his first bout of back trouble, but he hadn't heard this warning before. One wrong hit, and he faced paralysis.
Beyer had no choice but to quit football, and he told the OU coach who had recruited him, Bruce Kittle. As the weeks passed, and he didn't hear back from Kittle, he began to prepare himself for what was coming.
“I guess I didn't want to leave myself vulnerable,” Beyer said Saturday.
But they're all vulnerable. They are teenagers, sure the NFL will be their next stop, which is why most parents would like to think their kid will get support from an athletic department.
Football programs go to great lengths, then, to foster some kind of family atmosphere. Coaches might encourage players to leave later, but they get them to campus with an embrace. It's part perception, and it's part real, and it's part of recruiting.
What OU did, then, was counter to this. Kittle told Beyer, sorry, we'd like you to visit this season if you can, but the offer of a scholarship has been rescinded.
“He said the decision was out of his hands,” Beyer said.
Meaning, it was in Stoops'.
Beyer earlier told a website that he understood and hopes Oklahoma finds a great player to take his place. That's likely Stoops' plan, too. His talent level isn't what it has been, and he could use another scholarship.
Doesn't this make sense? Stoops doesn't earn his millions by signing those who can't play.
Still, one scholarship doesn't change a roster, and a school can absorb costs in a number of ways. Besides, whatever scholarship someone such as Beyer would receive wouldn't necessarily count against a program's 85-man scholarship limit.
But more relevant is what OU risks with this kind of approach. These stories get passed around, after all, and sometimes in obvious ways. The Reagan head coach is on the regional board of directors in the Texas High School Coaches Association.
There also are other stories that have gone the other way. Florida State had its own this fall, then there's the one from Austin a few years ago. This involved another recruit named Matt, who was about the same size and age that Beyer is now.
This happened in 2006. Then, a University of Texas recruit, Matt Nader, suffered cardiac arrest in a game in his senior year at Austin Westlake. With an internal defibrillator implanted in his chest, Nader's college football career was over before it began, as it is with Beyer.
Nader kept his scholarship, however. He went on to graduate from UT with a degree in corporate communications.
Beyer plans on something similar. He says he's not bitter, and he will likely attend a Texas school now mostly to avoid out-of-state tuition.
“I'm going to have a great college experience,” he said. “Just a different one.”
But here's what is telling about the two. Nader was just a verbal commit, too, yet Mack Brown acted as if that made no difference.
“No matter what, he's going to be a Longhorn,” Brown said then. “The day he committed to us, we committed to him.”
So tell me about the SEC, or about business, or the difference between a verbal agreement and a letter of intent.
But is that what a recruit and his family want to hear?
Texas Mack Brown did indeed honor his offer to WL O-lineman Matt Nader as stated in this article linked below:
www.meanhorn.com/2006/09/texas-commit-matt-nader-ends-his.html
Is this a case where Mack did it for a 'local' boy, or would he have done it for a kid that was offered from OK just as well? IMO, it is the difference in two men.......one that cares about the young men he brings into his house........they other that cares only about the W/L column! Call me a hater, I don't care because actions of the two speak louder than anything else.
I've always thought of Stoops as a very, very rude man. That is easily seen by the way he continuously treats media. If he treats media that way........how does he act behind closed doors?