Question about Blueshirts

[Comebakatz3]

I was listening to the Knoxville sports radio yesterday and they had a UT recruit call into the show and talk with them. I don't think I caught his name, but my guess is that it is Jocquez Bruce. During the interview they were talking about how UT asked him to Blueshirt. I had never heard this term before and decided to look it up. It seems as though you're basically getting a free extra scholarship for one year. Basically it means that Bruce would be able to play and receive his scholarship for 2015, but it wouldn't go against the 25 scholarship limit for UT until 2016. The catch is that you cannot officially recruit the player. He cannot take an official visit, he cannot get an official in home visit, and he cannot sign a NOI. However, once he enrolls he is eligible to be a blueshirt and you can give him a scholarship that doesn't count against you for the current year. So, my question was whether or not UK had ever done this? Have we, to your collective memories, ever needed to use something like this and didn't? In the case of Bruce he is a Knoxville native and so he didn't need to take official visits because he has been around UT his whole life. Who would you guys consider a good candidate for something like this if UK were to use it? Should UK use it or do you think it is unnecessary?

 

[hmt5000]

We should avoid anything UT does with recruiting. They have been skirting the 25 limit since it was implemented and I think it will eventually come back to bite them.

 

[Comebakatz3]

We should avoid anything UT does with recruiting. They have been skirting the 25 limit since it was implemented and I think it will eventually come back to bite them.

Yea, they have definitely been playing with some fire. Still, it seems as though it could be a pretty good tool to use on rare occasions. Maybe when we have a pretty good Lexington kid that we know for 100 percent will come to UK and we can blueshirt him and not spend time recruiting him and still stay under the 25 scholarship limit for that year. Could be a good tool at times.

 

[WildCard]

A blueshirt is really just a 1st year walk on who is "promised" a scholarship for the second semester (i.e., the next recruiting year). Here is an easiest to read explanation. If you can find a prospect who is (1) good enough to warrant a scholarship and (2) willing to pay his own way for 1 semester (with nothing more than a "promise" of a second semester scholarship) it might make some sense from time to time but it is certainly not game changer.

Peace

 

[Comebakatz3]

A blueshirt is really just a 1st year walk on who is "promised" a scholarship for the second semester (i.e., the next recruiting year). Here is an easiest to read explanation. If you can find a prospect who is (1) good enough to warrant a scholarship and (2) willing to pay his own way for 1 semester (with nothing more than a "promise" of a second semester scholarship) it might make some sense from time to time but it is certainly not game changer.

Peace

I don't think you have that quite right Card. My understanding is that the player can enroll and be put on scholarship right after the start of the team's fall camp. So, he can be on scholarship before the season even begins and can play that first season on scholarship. However, the scholarship will not count against the team's 25 until the next year. So, the kid graduates in 2015 and plays in 2015 and gets a scholarship in 2015, but his scholarship actually counts against the 2016 numbers.

So, the player risks not signing a LOI and gives up being officially recruited and the team gains not having to count the scholarship until the next year. That's my understanding of it all anyway.

 

[TBCat]

I've heard about this before and I'm pretty sure we've done this at some point. The NCAA has 2 different limits that it tracks. The limit of recruited players per year which is 25 and the total number which is 85. A recruited player counts against both limits while a non recruited player only counts against the overall total. The catch as you pointed out is that they can't be "recruited" prospects. The NCAA fully allows this and there is nothing under handed about it. They still count against the total limit of players. The catch is that this is a bad deal for the recruit as he doesn't get the same guarantees of a roster spot as a recruited player. He has is limited in financial aid. Basically the school can wash it's hands of you at anytime but you are still subject to sitting out a year if you leave. Any athlete that wants to subject himself to that can but I wouldn't.

 

[C1180]

What Wildcard is describing is a grey shirt. I guess you could call it a blue shirt or an orange shirt if you wished to do so.

IMO you or the source you got your information from has not got the right information.

I remember several years back UK giving a kid a SS that sounded something like what you suggest but I think it was an academic SS not an athletic ride. He was on a ride that the way I understood it was better than an athletic SS was at that time. It was give by some foundation.

I do not think there is any legal way to do what you are describing and if UT is doing it they are bending the rules to a breaking point.

 

[Comebakatz3]

"Another practice the Vols may be using, according to the News Sentinel, is blueshirting - a practice where a player arrives as a walk-on, is awarded a scholarship sometime after his arrival, and although he may play immediately, his signing is counted in the following year's class." Source: Al.com

"Blue-shirting is an approach pioneered by New Mexico State, which used it recruiting junior college players. The NCAA allows athletes who were "not recruited" to arrive on campus as walk-ons, accept scholarships at the beginning of preseason practice and be counted against the next recruiting class instead of the incoming one. An athlete is only considered to have been recruited if he takes an official visit to campus, accepts an in-home visit from the coaching staff or signs a National Letter of Intent or other athletic-based financial aid agreement before arriving on campus." Source is a UT website


I suppose that you are essentially walking on the first semester. You have to pay for the first semester, but you can be awarded a scholarship at the beginning of fall practice. That won't count against your 1st semester tuition, but you will at least know very early that you have a scholarship starting the second semester. Does that sound right? I didn't really think about the timing of it before.

 

[jauk11]

Sounds to me like a lot of "recruiting" would be involved in a player agreeing to this deal, no matter what the school calls it.

Leave it to Thug U, they will always bend every rule, they are still having withdrawal pains from the NCAA outlawing the "Orange Pride", although the NCAA strangely gave them no penalties for their decades of cheating with that ploy, culminating in the 350 mile recruiting trip by the 22 year old woman to entice a couple of teenage four stars from SC, although I think the five star might have been their real target..

 

[WildCard]

I don't think you have that quite right Card. My understanding is that the player can enroll and be put on scholarship right after the start of the team's fall camp. So, he can be on scholarship before the season even begins and can play that first season on scholarship. However, the scholarship will not count against the team's 25 until the next year. So, the kid graduates in 2015 and plays in 2015 and gets a scholarship in 2015, but his scholarship actually counts against the 2016 numbers.

So, the player risks not signing a LOI and gives up being officially recruited and the team gains not having to count the scholarship until the next year. That's my understanding of it all anyway.

Ummm, upon further review, I think the coach's quote in the article I linked was incorrect. I reread the link I posted and it does say "after fall camp". But I'm not sure what is the definition of fall camp. Any practice before the 1st game (to me that is usually "summer" practice)? And since you practice during the season I think of the season as "fall camp". That's just me but the NCAA does not use words as ambiguous as "fall camp" and I cannot find a true NCAA definition of blue shirt.

So I took that coach's remark to mean "he can pay his own way and practice with the team during first semester (unlike a grey shirt player who cannot practice) then go on scholarship for second semester" (i.e., after "fall camp"). This article seems to support that definition (i.e., schools in 2nd semester).

And here is yet another blue shirt definition pertaining specifically to kids who are eligible to sign a financial aid agreement (but not an LOI) IF they are going to be December HS grads.

Without question there does seem to be conflicting information on the web as to "when" the scholarship actually starts for a blue shirt. But if it does apply for 1st (i.e., fall semester) there must be space available under the 85 player cap. The definition of a football counter is a player under scholarship as of the 1st day of class.

Confusing stuff.

Peace