'12 GA LB Khalid Henderson

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#902
#902
BruinVol said:
You and I share similar opinions on this matter. I will say this there is absolutely no chance that Henderson, Cross, or Redding was told they could be ask to look elsewhere BEFORE they committed IMO. As I stated earlier some on here refuse to believe that so they can continue to feel that the staff is beyond anything remotely "unfair".
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First of all, if we simply "recruited over" these guys, I'm definitely against that sort of thing, even if guys like Saban, Meyer, etc. do it "all the time". I don't think it's really fair to pass judgement on Dooley here, though, because I don't think we know the full story for any of these situations.

There has been some noise that one or more of these guys possibly had some academic/qualifying risks that had the coaches concerned. If we can speculate that these guys were "recruited over", it's not much of a stretch to speculate that maybe there were certain academic goals or milestones that the coaches set as requirements for these guys to maintain their offers, and they simply didn't meet them. Maybe not, but we'll probably never know because we're only going to hear the kid's side of the story, which obviously will paint our coaches in a bad light.

And then there's the character thing. I don't know if anybody here happened to notice the stuff that KR was putting out on twitter, but there was a considerable amount of unsavory stuff there. Compared to the character traits of the majority of Dooley's past and current recruits, there seemed to be a little bit of a mismatch, so maybe there were some issues concerning that angle as well. Maybe not, but the stuff he was posting even early in the fall had me wondering if he would ever make it to Knoxville.

Again, I am 100% against the practice of "recruiting over" commitments, but I'm also against the "guilty until proven innocent" mindset, and I just feel like people are convicting Dooley of all sorts of things without knowing all of the evidence or facts. It's true that whatever the truth is, there is clearly a negative PR angle to these unfortunate situations, and we need to do much better in avoiding these situations in the future.
 
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#907
#907
mlsoft said:
Of course we are going to get negative publicity when we cut a kid loose -- what else would you expect?? We offered the kid, he accepted our offer and we accepted his commitment. We spent the whole time he was being recruited (and afterwards) telling this 17 year old kid how great he is, how much we want him to be a "Vol for Life" and how he is exactly what we want and need at his position.

Despite what some here profess to believe, it is human nature especially for an immature and naive 17 year old, to believe that all of those things that we were telling him was actually true -- after all in his local school he has always been the hero. Then all of a sudden he finds out we have been lying to him the whole time when we tell him that we have found some player(s) that we like better so we are going to cut him loose. And a lot of folks here want to defend this practice.

Recruiting over a committed recruit may just be "business" to a lot of folks here, but to the recruit who was just cut loose (and to almost all the general public), it is a betrayal. He has lost a lot of valuable time when he could have been finding another school that actually wanted him, not just took his commitment until they found someone better. He has to start the process all over again, but this time a lot of schools have already completed their class or are close to it, making it much more difficult.

I will say it again -- unless we told the kid up-front before we accepted his commitment, that we might recruit over him or that he might be gray shirted, it is morally wrong to do either of those things. It is also monumentally hypocritical, especially in light of the values we profess in the Vol for Life program. We may have forewarned all our marginal recruits beforehand, but frankly I doubt it.

A number of big time programs engage in this practice, but most do not, as Cutcliff noted. Also I know that a lot of folks here are ok with this practice but I am not. It does not matter one iota what others do, when I give my word on something that is the end of it. My word as a man is something you can take to the bank regardless of whether or not I find a "better deal" at a later date. There are things in this world that you do just because they are the morally right thing to do. There are also things that you do not do, just because they are morally wrong.

mlsoft
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#908
#908
Named Ole Miss his clear-cut #1 leader. Came close to committing to OM this weekend during his visit. He visits KY next weekend.
 
#920
#920
I have to believe that Khalid Henderson is a better prospect than Bynum. This makes no sense. Dooley needs to swallow his pride and ask Khalid Henderson to sign with the Vols.
 
#921
#921
Which in turn would require a major "swallowing of pride" out of Henderson. Not a chance, and I wouldn't blame him for that.
 
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