How/why does Tennessee have 33 signees?

Because they dont have 34

J/K King

Im no expert on this but the NCAA does allow schools to sign more than 25 if certain conditions exist.
Im guessing Butch jones went in there and cleaned house and now is under the 85 limit. If kids Enroll early or if scholarship players leave the program, u can sign more than 25. LSU has signed over 25 before.

Cool, thanks.

They have the room to get that many. You can only have 85 players on scholarship during the year. The rule of thumb is 25 per year. But if you get less than 25 per year, and have less than 85 scholarship players on the team, you can sign as much as necessary to get to 85. You can do it in 1 class, or over a few years, give walk ons scholarships, etc. Doesnt matter as long as you stay below 85 scholarship players.

Players from Tenn transferred, quit, got kicked out, etc. Opening up a lot of scholarships for this years class, and Butch is taking as many as he can.

edit: yeah it does require some negotiating with the NCAA / SEC due to the "25 per year" rule.. But they comply most of the time. And the SEC agreed to the 25 per year deal for it to be more like a guideline. And a lot of teams over sign, then take schollys away from older players keeping the number of scholarships at or below 85.

And also EE go against the year before, not the upcoming class. And Tenn. will have a couple of EE. Therefore making this years class more like 28, with the other 5 going against last years count.

Didn't Tenn get several transfers from USC with the "no sit out cuz they cheated" rule?

That would have likely created at least some of that room. And there were several JUCO too if I remember correctly.

quote:

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Guessing there was some loop-hole left for certain situations?

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The oversigning rule was mostly for appearances. It's been ignored in practice. 85 is all that matters.

There's a slight silver lining to missing on these big guys. Our coaches don't seem to be chunking offers out to any prospect with a pulse. Gage and Ramirez would probably commit on the spot if given the green light. That leads me to believe, at least in my optimistic view point, that the staff likes the underclassmen/commits we have and thinks they are going to be ok. I'd be extremely nervous about our roster if we missed on Brown and GWIII and we immediately rushed to fill up the signing class with guys no one has heard of. It seems like the coaches are still playing the odds with elite talent but aren't going to freak out if we finish under 25.

Doggone KG

I went looking for u on this and u werent online. But here u are with the correct answer again.

KG knows his stuff Tiger fans.

Haha

Might not always be online or posting, but i keep tabs on some threads and what not.

they don't have 33 signees they have 33 commitments. Big difference. You can take as many commitments as you want, but on signing day, you can only sign 25. If you have room in the previous years class, due to undersigning the previous year, then early enrollies can count back to that signing class. There is a 85 on scholly limit and a limit of 25 new schollies for any given academic year (Fall/Spring). Since early enrollies enroll in spring, they count towards the signing class for that academic year (fall/spring) if there is room in that class.

Don't forget a blue shirt....if a player signs financial papers before dec 1 never takes an OV and pays himself for the summer then gets a scholarship in August he doesn't coun against any 25 number just the 85 number