The new linebackers coach at Wisconsin is Dave Huxtable, and he left his position as defensive coordinator at the University of Central Florida to accept the open position in Madison. However, Huxtable's name is still making the news down in Orlando because of what recently happened to a UCF recruit. If you are not familiar with oversigning, it is a trend in college football where coaches sign more players to scholarships than there is room for on the roster. Ultimately, some players may be told that there is no spot for them on the team, and they will be forced to sit out a year or transfer to a non-FBS school to play right away. This practice is very common in leagues like the SEC and the C-USA. The Big Ten Conference has strict rules against oversigning, so I'd guess that many Big Ten and Wisconsin fans have no idea of what oversigning is and how prevalent it is.
Anyways, defensive end Dieon Green was prepared to begin his first semester at UCF this month, but at the last minute was told he would have to wait until fall to get started at UCF. Green was very disappointed, and had some less than complimentary quotes about Huxtable in the Orlando Sentinel. These quotes were later taken down (likely because Green is remaining with UCF and doesn't want to jeopardize his spot on the team), but the Oversigning.com blog saved them for posterity. Hit the jump for these quotes.
"I feel like I was lied to. I feel like they weren't 100 percent honest with me the whole time," Green said Wednesday. "They knew how many guys they were bringing in. They knew they were going to be cutting it close. It's not like the numbers changed. Coach Huxtable told me that I would be the first high school guy they would bring in. The first guy after all of the juco players and then they brought in Joey Grant (Altamonte Springs Lake Brantley). They brought in Joey and Coach Huxtable told me I would be first in line. He lied to me."
Green recontacted the Orlando Sentinel and took a less angry tone towards Huxtable, wishing him success at Wisconsin. Regardless, there are multiple ways to look at this issue. It's not as though UCF pulled his scholarship completely, which happens in extreme cases of oversigning, but rather delayed Green's arrival on campus for a semester. That's not the worst thing in the world, but this whole situation smacks of dishonesty on the part of UCF and Huxtable. I would hope that Bielema sat or will sit down with Huxtable and explain to him that this type of circumstance isn't acceptable at Wisconsin. The UW football program has established and maintained a culture where coaches are expected to be as honest as possible with recruits and players. It's not worth screwing high school and college students over for a competitive advantage, and I hope Huxtable realizes this.
More Links:
Only one AP Poll voter thinks that Wisconsin Basketball is not a top 25 team right now, Whitelaw Reid. Some quick research led me to find that Mr. Reid writes for a newspaper in Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the University of Virginia.
Senior Bowl practices have started up, and we already have a positive report about Gabe Carimi's work in practice.
So far, the Badgers are dominating this year's edition of the annual Border Battle against the athletic department of the University of Minnesota, but it's still early and anything can happen. All-time, each school has won this competition three times.
Josh Gasser is an embodiment of the level-headed outlook that Bo Ryan has always tried to instill in his basketball teams.
The Badger hockey squad will have to be cautious with a couple of trap road games against last-place Michigan Tech coming up this weekend.
More Senior Bowl practice player evaluations, but this time the review isn't so positive towards one of the Badgers- Lance Kendricks.
New SB Nation blog Big Ten Powerhouse has a new projected order of finish for the Big Ten standings, and I'm happy to say that the Badgers have moved up in this week's projections.