College football bagman

305jacket

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
440
Awesome post, love these types of stories. I've heard of some things they do at Auburn that are pretty crazy.
 

Eric

Retired Co-Founder
Messages
12,734
Awesome post, love these types of stories. I've heard of some things they do at Auburn that are pretty crazy.

Same here.

I was good friends with a Auburn signee a few years back..he was playing Bama the whole way and got a good bit of cash from them.
 

GTRanj

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
333
Location
Atlanta, Georgia
Why sir, does an institute with one of the largest ROI for their degrees, not get highly rated prospects constantly lol.

That is a great read, makes you kinda sick. When there is something to be won, people always learn to cheat.

Then they try to make themselves feel better about it by saying "this kid could never afford a TV, now I got him one..." bunch of *****s, if you really cared about these kids, you'd be giving TV's or $50,000 to all of the recruits and not just the #1 rated player in the nation.
 

Fatmike91

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,264
Location
SW Florida
I only read part of that article, but I read enough to be disgusted.

I hope the IRS takes an interest someday, because the NCAA clearly never will.


/
 

00Burdell

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,298
Location
Parts Unknown
As Eric said, no program is clean because there is always someone willing to 'deliver the goods.'

And everyone who does it uses the same excuse: "we do it because they do it" - in other words, we are the good guys who break the rules to level the playing field so we aren't really the villain here - the other guy is - if they stopped, we'd stop.

Which, by the way, is complete BS.
 

johncu

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
209
Does GT pay players you think?

I doubt anyone actually affiliated with the school does, I guarantee you random boosters do.

I had a friend that worked in the athletic department while I was at Clemson (during the Bowden years), and he told me that he saw $50 handshakes all the time with random middle aged dudes that would show up.
 

dressedcheeseside

Helluva Engineer
Messages
14,027
This story made me sick. If one bit of it is true, the NCAA should be launching a massive investigation into every 5 star recruit and publicize their findings. Fans and media should know that recruiting results are being bought, not earned.
It'll never happen. 1) the NCAA doesn't want it stopped, too much money coming back to them personally, indirectly, but it comes back to them. 2.) Even if they wanted to stop it, they don't have the resources or expertise to set up the FBI style sting operations necessary to nab 'em.

It would take a bagman whistle blower to come out for some reason and even then, it's his word against their's because there's no paper trail.
 

Bruce Wayne

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,870
Watch the video interview here as well. Couple points of interests from it:

1) At 24:35 Godfrey says that every archetype of the SEC schools and their culture of bagmen applies to a school like Florida State, like Clemson and then says “Maybe a couple of years ago it applied to Georgia Tech, they may have fallen off.”

He suggests in the article the bribes can fall off due to the bagmen “not liking their coach” and finding the president or AD won’t “make a change.” That fits the attitude of many around Tech. Yet . . . that coincides with CPJ clearly thinking they are getting better at recruiting now, there is less turnover of Tech coaches the last couple years, and last year’s class certainly seemed strong. So that may counter some of the perception that bag men are a dominant force in the recruiting at Tech.

2) 100% of 5 stars take bribes. 80% of 4-stars are approached by bag men . . . and the reporter did not give an estimate of how many of those recruits take the bribes.

Look at what CPJ said to that Lunch Bunch group about how there has to be a) authentic interest in going to GT and b) they have to actually fit the model for a student that can make it through Tech.

Then couple that with the claim from Godfrey that those kids who accrue the most in bribes do so by generating bidding wars between college suitors. That is, they get the staffs at Schools X, Y, and maybe Z after them so much that the bagmen really try and “help” the recruit and his family make their decision. This works especially well with in-state rivals or contiguous state rivals/conference rivals.

So when a 5 star or 4 star visits Tech on the way to Clemson or UGA? Interest? Are they a potential fit for Tech? Are they trying to get money?

Put it all together. And then seriously try and compare recruiting results at Tech with any other programs recruiting, it can’t really be done very well can it? How much is coaches “recruiting ability”? Be honest with yourself about that point 2 above from the video on 5 and 4 stars.

Also, this is much worse in basketball (as far as amount of cash to individual kids) so when you read that a certain top ten caliber guard everyone thinks is heading to Tech is suddenly interested in UF and UK then again be honest with yourself about what is really going on there. Especially when Izzo has such a strong reputation for integrity and his coaching tree has people like Gregory that seem to demonstrate the same kind of character.

And lastly, to make a ceteris paribus argument let’s assume that the “bag man money” is equal amongst schools, including Tech . . . so how does the recruit who is motivated by bribes going to make their actual decision of where to play? It still comes down to their having to be willing and able to make it work at a school like Tech.
 
Top