re: Houston Bates Drama

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Right out of the gate there were people claiming that he didn't actually hold an offer.

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So just because someone posts a comment on a message board, it's assumed to be true? Even when the comment is as illogical (or, some would say, moronic) as "he committed to an offer he didn't have"? Do recruits do that very often?

I can remember one case of something like this happening. A kid in NV said he had an offer from a Pac-10 school - Cal or Stanford, I think - and it was all bullshite. It made national news.

Aside from on TD, I haven't seen any reports about Bates fabricating an offer from LSU.

Read the post I was responding to.

Big Fat and others have repeatedly stated that Bates committed bfore he was offered, or had a shaky and/or "non-commitable" offer.

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And yes, there is a difference in types of offers.

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Please educate me on the diffent types of athletic scholarship (grant in aid) offers that LSU makes.

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Please educate me on the diffent types of athletic scholarship (grant in aid) offers that LSU makes.

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A scholarship 'offer' is more of a "feeler" than anything, especially for out of state kids. It lets universities know if an OOS kid is actually interested in then or not.

The university cannot accept all the offers they extend. Most schools send out around 80 or so offers (depending on style) across the country. All 80 of those prospects cannot be accepted as commitments, even though they 'technically' have been "offered."

Make sense?

It is really no different than the way the schools do things on the academic side of things as well.

I will use Rhodes as an example:

They have 4000 people apply, the school accepts 1800 or so.

Of that 1800, roughly 470 students actually enroll.

So the school is "offering" 1800, but they in reality cannot accept all of them. By nature, the pot dwindles itself down to a realistic enrollment number.

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Right out of the gate there were people claiming that he didn't actually hold an offer.




So just because someone posts a comment on a message board, it's assumed to be true? Even when the comment is as illogical (or, some would say, moronic) as "he committed to an offer he didn't have"? Do recruits do that very often?

I can remember one case of something like this happening. A kid in NV said he had an offer from a Pac-10 school - Cal or Stanford, I think - and it was all bull shite. It made national news.

Aside from on TD, I haven't seen any reports about Bates fabricating an offer from LSU.

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Houston Bates, a defensive rush end from St. Paul's who had 12 sacks and 16 tackles for loss last season, committed to LSU on Wednesday, the 15th early commitment for the Tigers(6/17/2009)He has an incredible motor,"St. Paul's coach Kenny Sears said. It's great for one of your players to commit to a program like LSU, especially one like Houston, who has such great character." Bates said LSU coach Les Miles told him he will be listed as an athelete on the commitment list. Coach Miles said he would like to see me at rush end or linebacker or fullback. He said he just wanted me as a football player.
Sears said."LSU is getting a real good football player. If Bates didn't hold an offer from LSU, then why was LSU, Scout, Rivals, Dandy Don, ESPN and others listing him as an LSU commitment? If LSU can't keep their commitment to a kid, then why should a kid keep their commitment to LSU. Any kid from St. Paul's should have second thoughts about committing to LSU in the future.

Godspeed Houston...So young

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If Bates didn't hold an offer from LSU, then why was LSU, Scout, Rivals, Dandy Don, ESPN and others listing him as an LSU commitment? If LSU can't keep their commitment to a kid, then why should a kid keep their commitment to LSU. Any kid from St. Paul's should have second thoughts about committing to LSU in the future.

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LSU did not "pull" Bates' offer. On National Signing Day, there was a Letter of Intent from LSU available for Bates to sign. He had been asked to grayshirt, but did not want to because it would put him behind academically (grayshirts can't be enrolled fulltime) and he wouldn't be able to practice or work out with the team in Fall 2010. Instead of signing his LOI and further complicating LSU numbers problems, he chose to sign a Memorandum of Understanding between he and LSU. The condensed version is that he would pay his own way in the Fall (temporarily easing LSU's numbers crunch, allowing him to take a full academic load and to participate with the team in Fall, 2010) and LSU would have a full athletic scholarship (grant in aid) available for him no later than Spring 2011.

The people on this board who think they "know" more than this are full of shite. LSU, Scout, Rivals, Dandy Don, ESPN and others were all correct. Bates was offered and committed back in June.

As far as your comment, "Any kid from St. Paul's should have second thoughts about committing to LSU in the future" goes, I'll say this - Any kid being recruited who reads TD postings better take the comments with a grain of salt. (This means YOU, Mickey Johnson!) There is some accurate, informative and unbiased information posted on TD. Unfortunately, there are often postings that are nothing more than complete and total bullshite. (I'm SO tempted to type "FACT", so the morons will know this is true.)

In the interest of fairness to Chicken and his Admin staff I've got to say (IMHO) that they were much more aggressive in whacking abusive threads in the weeks and days leading up to NSD, than they were in the Fall. It might have just been my perception of events, but it seemed that way to me.

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what's sad is tha we lost a potential cornerstone for our defense for the next 3 to 4 years.

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He's not gone yet, at least as far as I know. If he does choose to go elsewhere, I just hope he makes an intelligent and well thought out decision based on his short-term and long-term goals.