College Football Recruiting's Great Moral Dilemma

Go back and review every press conference or sound bite delivered by a college football coach over the last year. Stack them neatly in a giant pile. Watch them consecutively, taking full advantage of the offseason freedom, and count how many times these coaches branched out from football, discussing the role they will play in grooming young men.

Not football players, people.

Keep stacking them on one another. There will be enough mentions to bury a city before arriving at the actual season. Need a break? Sure, you’ve earned it. Fire up social media and explore the headlines that came out of national signing day.

For all the talk about grooming young men, building relationships and walking a fine line between coach and mentor, the messages that came out of college recruiting’s Super Bowl did not mirror the arm-around-the-shoulder sales pitch we are sold all year. One might note that the stories following national signing day are in fact quite the opposite.

Here’s a story about a head coach pulling a scholarship. Here’s one about an assistant coach leaving a program moments after signed letters of intent emerged from the fax machine. And there’s another coach gone. And another.

Recruiting appears to have hit a moral crossroads. Business is good—very, very good—but the collateral damage is significant. Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the negativity still steaming off of national signing day wasn’t actually the negativity itself. It’s the fact that we’ve all been given an industrial-sized serving of Novocain and can no longer feel a thing.

Michael Weber might argue otherwise. The No. 9 ranked running back, according to 247Sports, verbally committed to Ohio State earlier in the process and committed with a letter of intent on national signing day. Although the Michigan native thought long and hard about an offer from Michigan and new head coach Jim Harbaugh, he instead faxed in his LOI to Columbus.

The very next day, Stan Drayton—Weber’s future position coach and the man who helped lure him to Columbus—left for the Chicago Bears.

Signed and at the mercy of the school, Weber took his disappointment to Twitter.

"

I'm hurt as hell I ain't gone lie

— Mike Weber (@mikeweber25) February 5, 2015"

Elsewhere, Du'Vonta Lampkin voiced his displeasure when handed a similar situation. The No. 23 defensive tackle on 247Sports watched defensive line coach Chris Rumph leave for Florida shortly after Lampkin officially committed to Texas.

Before reiterating that his status with the school would not change, Lampkin took his frustrations to social media, per Bryan Fisher of NFL.com:

"

Texas DT signee Du'Vonta Lampkin on the Chris Rumph to Florida news… pic.twitter.com/YMVQNnPNNt

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) February 6, 2015"

There were others, too. To replace Drayton, Ohio State hired Notre Dame running back coach Tony Alford to the same position. LSU, UCLA, Miami and others also announced coaching changes shortly after all their signatures were collected. The timing on these moves was no coincidence. Minus the flurry of bad PR, everything went off as planned.

It’s difficult to cast a giant umbrella over each and every coaching move. Things happen. Contracts take longer than expected. Others get offers out of nowhere. Unexpected hang-ups occur that delay these matters just enough. That’s fine.

But to say deception is completely absent from these decisions would be naive. The reason a position coach doesn’t leave the day before national signing day is because it’s bad for business, and no one wants that. Well, no one outside of a potential rival wants that.

Not long ago, Ricky Town found himself in a similar quandary: 247Sports’ No. 6 pro-style quarterback in 2015 was an Alabama commit long before he enrolled early at USC this past January.

Recruited by head coach Nick Saban and then-offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier, Town was a good fit for the offense Nussmeier wanted to run. Although the California native had eyes on USC given his upbringing, his style wasn’t cohesive with what then-head coach Lane Kiffin wanted him to do.

Once Nussmeier left Alabama for Michigan, Town decommitted. Because he had only verbally committed, he was free to do so—as many other players do during the process. There were no penalties to this, no obligations. It was simply a matter of good timing on Town’s end.

I spoke to Rick Town Sr., Ricky’s father, about this decision and the recruiting process as a whole in April last year. Embedded in the recruiting process, Town Sr. played a significant role in the recruitment of his son. He met with coaches, went on visits and gained perspective only a small percentage will ever acquire.

Eric Gay/Associated Press

And, like everyone else, he saw some of the negative headlines that came out of signing day from a comfortable distance.

“We thoroughly enjoyed the entire recruiting process and were blessed to meet so many great coaches," Town Sr. told Bleacher Report. "Without knowing all the facts, it wouldn’t be prudent to comment on any particular situation. It seems unfair for anyone to enter into a binding agreement without recourse, let alone an 18-year-old student-athlete.”

This is not your average recruiting parent. As the CEO of a land development company in Los Angeles, Town has always taken a business approach to this part of the process. He logged copious notes, asked astute questions and systemically helped his son break down a complex process with strategic planning.

The approach, when it was outlined to me in April 2014, was unique from any parent I had ever spoken with. As a result, other parents have leaned on him for recruiting guidance.

In many ways, the decisions that came from signing day are strictly business-centric. They can be harsh and ruthless, although deception is part of a well thought-out plan. It boils down to money, self-interest and doing more than a competitor through any means necessary. And yet, it is different. This contract is unique from any other.

“If a party to a business transaction feels wronged, they have recourse through the judicial system,” Town Sr. said, when asked to draw a parallel to his industry. “In these matters, there really are no apparent and viable options without setback.

“I can’t imagine the pressure on everyone involved and that doesn’t seem to be letting up in the near future. Aside from the athletes, the coaches are judged on winning and recruiting, and that alone creates a competitive and challenging environment.”

In all likelihood, Ricky Town could end up playing for another offensive coordinator in his tenure at USC. Those aren’t the words of a plugged-in father, who came away immensely satisfied and pleased with his son’s recruiting voyage.

Image via 247Sports

Those are simply the percentages. If a coordinator or assistant coach is deemed successful, he’ll be lured away to another program with more money or a promotion. If that same coordinator or assistant coach is unsuccessful—or the team doesn’t perform up to expectations—he’ll be looking for a new job in short order.

After honestly assessing the current climate—and acknowledging that coaching changes within a student-athlete’s four years of play are almost guaranteed—there has to be a better way to recruit. Sure, a player should commit to a program and a school, but he should also know precisely what he’s getting into.

Sell the program. Sell the school. Sell the people who will be there, at least at first. This really shouldn’t be that hard. It's common sense, and yes, common decency, to paint an accurate picture of what the next four years (or something close) will look like.

When deception of any kind creeps into the equation—or the very notion that deception exists starts to boil over—the system breaks down. It’s not a message that should be relayed to one school or coaching staff. This issue has existed for some time now. And again, the acceptance is part of the problem.

Is it fair that coaches can leave programs as they wish, without penalty in many cases, and a student-athlete cannot? Of course not. But bigger than the injustice of the system are the messages that can be lost.

If we’re all truly about the betterment of these players—not the roster spot they take up but the young men sold far more than football along the way—there have to be better ways of showing it.