Does This Make Matters Worse For uat?

[AUChizad]

http://blog.al.com/ray-melick/2009/03/ray_melick_coaches_punching_lo.html

Ray Melick: Coaches punching loopholes in NCAA rules with graduate assistants?
Posted by Ray Melick--Birmingham News March 20, 2009 7:31 AM
Virginia Athletics

Nick Saban, who is justifiably proud of his record of helping young coaches get into the profession, admits that bringing in Mike Groh is simply a favor for an old friend. Mike's father, Al, is a longtime NFL and college head coach.
Today, boys and girls, we get another lesson in why the NCAA rule book has become so thick and complicated.

In Tuscaloosa, Alabama is expected to bring on former Virginia offensive coordinator Mike Groh as a graduate assistant.

In Knoxville, Tennessee is reportedly set to make former Minnesota and Syracuse offensive coordinator Mitch Browning a graduate assistant.

In Auburn, Gene Chizik brought in his tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator from Iowa State, Scott Fountain, as Football Operations Coordinator.

And the NCAA is wondering, "What gives?"

Not just at Alabama, Tennessee and Auburn, because there is nothing illegal in any of these moves. And these three teams are not the first programs to do things like this. It goes on all over the highest levels of Division I.
 

But NCAA officials can't help but wonder if all of this isn't becoming another case of football coaches punching loopholes through rules that are designed to bring some measure of competitive balance across a broad range of very economically unbalanced Division I football programs.

The position of "graduate assistant" was created for young coaches just starting out, kind of like an internship. It's not supposed to be for veteran college coaches with years of experience who find themselves temporarily unemployed.

And there are concerns that the proliferation of non-coaching staff positions with titles like "director of operations" or "director of player development" are little more than ways of getting around the NCAA limit of nine assistant football coaches per staff.

Groh and Browning both have to be accepted into graduate school. And Saban, who is justifiably proud of his record of helping young coaches get into the profession, admits that bringing in Groh is simply a favor for an old friend. Mike's father, Al, is a longtime NFL and college head coach.

But it is impossible to justify bringing in longtime coaching veterans as "graduate assistants."

And there are those within the NCAA who fear these positions will be misused, that they will become stopovers for veteran coaches who are between jobs, rather than jump start a young coach's career.

And all those former coaches in these newly created administrative roles? Technically, they are not coaches. But in a February meeting, the NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet noted concern over "the disparity among institutions with varying resource levels and the difficulty of monitoring the work done by non-coaching personnel."

In other words, programs with money create these positions that less affluent programs can't.

And while these former coaches are barred from on-field coaching, the NCAA can't be sure they aren't doing everything else a coach does: evaluating personnel and recruits, breaking down film, offering advice in game planning, and perhaps doing out-of-season hands-on coaching as "assistant" strength and conditioning coaches.

Even if you give Saban and Chizik the benefit of the doubt in all this, is it so hard to see that less honorable coaches might be tempted to use these positions not for what they were originally intended but to gain some kind of competitive advantage?

If you don't believe coaches do that, you haven't been paying attention. So many of the NCAA rules seem silly. But the NCAA is a reactionary organization. Every silly rule was put in place because some coach somewhere found some loophole by which to violate the spirit of the law, if not the letter.

As a result, the NCAA Cabinet said it will look at proposing "legislative changes that could help stem the growth in non-coaching, sport-specific personnel ..."

In other words, the rule book will get thicker.

And coaches will have only themselves to blame.

Of course Melick can't report on the NCAA investigating bammer for this without mentioning that the trademark bammerism "Auburn & Tennessee do it too!", which is the whole angle he took with this article.

Chizik brought his tight ends coach to be a GA at Auburn. It makes sense that Chizik would want to help out a guy on his old staff by bringing them into the organization, if only in a minor role such as GA. That is a lateral move at the very worst. Saban bringing in Virginia's Offensive Coordinator as a GA? That's not apples and apples in my opinion.

Is it a huge deal anyway? Probably not, but the fact that they're staring down the barrel makes this just another turd to throw on the pile.

Saban Rule #573?

[El Guapo]

Chizik brought his tight ends coach to be a GA at Auburn. It makes sense that Chizik would want to help out a guy on his old staff by bringing them into the organization, if only in a minor role such as GA. That is a lateral move at the very worst. Saban bringing in Virginia's Offensive Coordinator as a GA? That's not apples and apples in my opinion.

Is it a huge deal anyway? Probably not, but the fact that they're staring down the barrel makes this just another turd to throw on the pile.

Saban Rule #573?

It's not homerism to point out others are doing it also. Sounds like you are being pissy that this isn't just something to can rag on Saban or Alabama for partaking in this trend. Ray is simply pointing out that this is something that the NCAA is going to look into because more and more teams are doing this. Get off your high horse.

Also, it says that in addition to that guy being a tight end coach, he is was also Chizik's recruiting coordinator. It is apples to apples in every way but former job title.