Saban thinks HS players will skip senior season

[WFE12 8,882]

Nick Saban thinks high school players could start skipping their senior seasons

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July 23, 2017 4:59pm EDTJuly 23, 2017 4:54pm EDTNick Saban wonders if college recruits will start skipping their senior year of high school football.

Alabama football coach Nick Saban(Getty Images)

Sara Jane Harris   @sarajaneharris

Updated at 4:59 p.m. ET

Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey skipped their bowl games last season to prepare for the 2017 NFL Draft, creating one of the hottest topics of the offseason.

Nick Saban is concerned that the trend will soon trickle down to the high school level.

The Alabama football coach fears that high school seniors may start skipping their senior seasons to focus on college football.

"Same thing will happen in high school if they make the signing day before the season," Saban told CBS Sports. "It will take a few years, then some kid will say, 'Hey, I'm going to Notre Dame. I'm not playing my senior year. Then the high school coach will go nuts."

MORE: Is Lane Kiffin going after Ole Miss head coach opening?

Saban was referring to college football’s new early Signing Day in December, that might be moved to an even earlier date.

This NCAA's early Signing Day in 2017 will take place on Dec. 20.

The belief is that by mid-December, most prospects already have their decision made about where they want to play college football, and are tired of the endless texts and phone calls from schools.

[AU64 10,122]

Interesting observation....and probably true. 

Won't be long before some kid is convinced that he could get hurt playing during his senior year of HS....and since he has the scholarship nailed down, why take the chance?    Just take the year off and work with some personal coach to develop certain skill levels or strength. 

As suggested by NS...not a matter of if....just a matter of when.  .

[CR 2,256]

These coaches think only of themselves and their careers while bouncing around to the best opportunity and leaving players behind they have stressed teamwork and "family' to.
Then they get mad when players put their own career first ahead of the team. Really?

[AU64 10,122]

5 minutes ago, CR said:

These coaches think only of themselves and their careers while bouncing around to the best opportunity and leaving players behind they have stressed teamwork and "family' to.
Then they get mad when players put their own career first ahead of the team. Really?

Interesting to me is that many fans take the coaches' point of view ......rather than the players . Perhaps this is because they consider the success of the coach to be the same as the success of their favorite team .....whereas the players are just the tools to achieve the end result.

I guess it is not too hard to understand why a young player might put his career goals above loyalty to a particular school or coach.

[meh130 976]

Didn't Dee Liner flirt with this idea at one point?

[CleCoTiger 1,957]

Some with scholarship offers that are not in doubt might skip a season or a game or two at least. And if they have a scholarship that they know for certain is theirs but that scholarship goes away with severe injury, I would not fault any that did, just as I don't fault college underclassmen that declare for the draft (basketball, baseball, football) early because they are in line to get paid.  In fact, I have a hard time seeing the difference.

[doc4aday 1,887]

There needs to be some NCAA rules enacted that when a college offers a student a scholarship that gets injured during his or her senior season some type of guarantee of a scholarship if the student meets the academic requirements. If he/she cannot any longer play collegiate sports, they will have a scholarship that will not count against the teams 25 scholarships. 

[penguin149 368]

Scholarship offers should be binding and LOI signed when a kid is offered and accepts....don't care if he/she is in 9th grade or a senior.

[LKEEL75 2,558]

15 hours ago, penguin149 said:

Scholarship offers should be binding and LOI signed when a kid is offered and accepts....don't care if he/she is in 9th grade or a senior.

As long as this worked both ways then I would be all for it.  In that the coach could not change their mind later and say oh wait we don't want you because we have someone higher on our board.

The exception to this in my opinion is if the coach leaves.  I know you are supposed to commit to a school not the coach, but new coaches bring new schemes and new schemes don't necessarily mean new opportunities.  This applies to all positions on the field (well except maybe kickers & long snappers).  New schemes could really hurt your chances for playing time which hurts your chances for any future.  In my opinion a new coach & new scheme should allow kids to get out of their commitment and look around.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

Here's a question.  How many high school juniors are prepared enough for college ball that they can afford to skip a year before enrolling? 

[AU64 10,122]

2 hours ago, lionheartkc said:

Here's a question.  How many high school juniors are prepared enough for college ball that they can afford to skip a year before enrolling? 

To rephrase:    what percentage of HS players would benefit from playing their senior year? 

Probably about the same percentage as the percentage of college players who leave early but would have benefited from another year of football at their university. .....something near 100%......setting the possibility of injury aside.

I'm guessing that for serious prospects, their "sabbatical season" season might be spent with personal coaches.....but for others as we have sometimes noted, they might spend their time at McDonalds  putting on another 30 pounds of fat.

 

[lionheartkc 6,150]

2 hours ago, AU64 said:

To rephrase:    what percentage of HS players would benefit from playing their senior year? 

Probably about the same percentage as the percentage of college players who leave early but would have benefited from another year of football at their university. .....something near 100%......setting the possibility of injury aside.

I'm guessing that for serious prospects, their "sabbatical season" season might be spent with personal coaches.....but for others as we have sometimes noted, they might spend their time at McDonalds  putting on another 30 pounds of fat.

 

I would argue that it's even more important in high school, because their bodies are still growing. Skipping a season could put them way behind. After all, you can get all the coaching in the world,but it's no substitute for experience.

[AU64 10,122]

50 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

I would argue that it's even more important in high school, because their bodies are still growing. Skipping a season could put them way behind. After all, you can get all the coaching in the world,but it's no substitute for experience.

 Basically you are probably correct but as I look at videos of some of these 4 and 5 star kids from their junior years , most are head and shoulders above most of the kids they are competing against . Bigger, faster, stronger already . I'm sure the experience is useful but I don't know how much they improve that last year of high school. Just thinking that those are the type players who might accept the arguments about avoiding injury and skipping their final year.