https://www.dawgnation.com/football/recruiting/georgia-signee-will-take-a-gray-shirt-enroll-in-2019

Waiting for the holier than thou crowd to chime in that used to rip Saban over this practice.....

DevilDawg0259 said:

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Waiting for the holier than thou crowd to chime in that used to rip Saban over this practice.....

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Fwiw, it could simply be a situation where Walthour needs to shore up some academics (perhaps some core classes and/or ACT/SAT score). Recall on 1 February 2017 that 4* DT Devonte Wyatt signed an NLI w/ UGA. However, on 16 August 2017 he enrolled at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas and played 11 games for the Blue Dragons last fall. Then on 5 January 2018 he early enrolled at UGA. Thus he essentially grayshirted for UGA (although he burned a year of eligibility at the JUCO level to do so).

If we step back a bit to 24 January 1964, recall why Georgia Tech's football program left the SEC:

https://www.myajc.com/sports/fifty-years-ago-georgia-tech-left-the-sec/07w1mrefY4QgzlmzzSXr9O/

At the crux of Tech's exit was the so-called 140 Rule. SEC schools (there were 12 including Tulane) were allowed 140 scholarships for football and men's basketball; football programs were allowed to sign as many 45 recruits per season. Tech coach Bobby Dodd believed that other teams were over recruiting, pushing aside underperforming players to clear scholarship space for newer ones.

Said Taz Anderson, the Atlanta entrepreneur who was a captain under Dodd when the Yellow Jackets were based in the SEC: "Coach Dodd would not run you off if you met the part he required. If you went to class and did the work, he'd get you a degree."

Dodd wanted the SEC to allow fewer signees per recruiting class and had an ardent ally in Tech president Edwin Harrison. Tech almost got the 140 Rule changed at the 1963 SEC winter meetings, but Alabama president Frank Rose, breaking with the stated wishes of Crimson Tide coach Bear Bryant, voted to keep it.

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Thus oversigning and running off underperforming players isn't anything new in college football. Head coaches must make tough decisions: for example, should I keep 3* OL Kevin Perez and 4* OLB Keyon Brown on scholarship for 5 years when they have proven to be solely backup or special teams players, or provide an opportunity to a deserving walk-on or talent high school player (note that there are >310K high school football seniors per year to choose from)? For former UGA HC Mark Richt, he kept his recruits on scholarship unless they left of their own volition or did something serious enough to get kicked off the team. Thus far, Kirby Smart has shown patience w/ Keyon Brown whom didn't see the field until his RS Junior year and that was on special teams.

Bottomline: if a program wants to compete for championships, they must consider and employ competitive roster management in order to ensure that they field the most talented team they can.

AirForceDawg said:

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DevilDawg0259 said:

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Waiting for the holier than thou crowd to chime in that used to rip Saban over this practice.....

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Fwiw, it could simply be a situation where Walthour needs to shore up some academics (perhaps some core classes and/or ACT/SAT score). Recall on 1 February 2017 that 4* DT Devonte Wyatt signed an NLI w/ UGA. However, on 16 August 2017 he enrolled at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas and played 11 games for the Blue Dragons last fall. Then on 5 January 2018 he early enrolled at UGA. Thus he essentially grayshirted for UGA (although he burned a year of eligibility at the JUCO level to do so).

If we step back a bit to 24 January 1964, recall why Georgia Tech's football program left the SEC:

https://www.myajc.com/sports/fifty-years-ago-georgia-tech-left-the-sec/07w1mrefY4QgzlmzzSXr9O/

At the crux of Tech's exit was the so-called 140 Rule. SEC schools (there were 12 including Tulane) were allowed 140 scholarships for football and men's basketball; football programs were allowed to sign as many 45 recruits per season. Tech coach Bobby Dodd believed that other teams were over recruiting, pushing aside underperforming players to clear scholarship space for newer ones.

Said Taz Anderson, the Atlanta entrepreneur who was a captain under Dodd when the Yellow Jackets were based in the SEC: "Coach Dodd would not run you off if you met the part he required. If you went to class and did the work, he'd get you a degree."

Dodd wanted the SEC to allow fewer signees per recruiting class and had an ardent ally in Tech president Edwin Harrison. Tech almost got the 140 Rule changed at the 1963 SEC winter meetings, but Alabama president Frank Rose, breaking with the stated wishes of Crimson Tide coach Bear Bryant, voted to keep it.

***

Thus oversigning and running off underperforming players isn't anything new in college football. Head coaches must make tough decisions: for example, should I keep 3* OL Kevin Perez and 4* OLB Keyon Brown on scholarship for 5 years when they have proven to be solely backup or special teams players, or provide an opportunity to a deserving walk-on or talent high school player (note that there are >310K high school football seniors per year to choose from)? For former UGA HC Mark Richt, he kept his recruits on scholarship unless they left of their own volition or did something serious enough to get kicked off the team. Thus far, Kirby Smart has shown patience w/ Keyon Brown whom didn't see the field until his RS Junior year and that was on special teams.

Bottomline: if a program wants to compete for championships, they must consider and employ competitive roster management in order to ensure that they field the most talented team they can.

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That could be the case. And you are right, competing for championships on a regular basis in today's college football has to employ pretty stringent roster management. I like this better than just having 69 scholarship players on the roster.

DevilDawg0259 said:

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That could be the case. And you are right, competing for championships on a regular basis in today's college football has to employ pretty stringent roster management. I like this better than just having 69 scholarship players on the roster.

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Fwiw, in the summer of 2012 I took a lot of flak (e.g., received 15 1-star downvotes) on the 'Dawg Post' message board because I expressed my concern w/ UGA Football's scholarship roster situation. That is, the Dawgs had 69 recruited scholarship players but only 68 of them were eligible (i.e., OL Kolton Houston was ineligible b/c of residual PEDs in his fatty tissue that he unknowingly received in high school during shoulder surgery). On 23 July of that year, UGA had the golden opportunity to fill 17 vacant scholarships from amongst 19 Penn State football players that were free to transfer anywhere, were immediately eligible to play that season, and UGA had expressed interest in (3 of them UGA had offered scholarships to in high school). Well one week later Coach Richt succumbed to the external influences weighing on him that claimed it wasn't right to take advantage of poor Penn State, so he backed off. As it turns out, at least a half dozen of those Nittany Lions players turned out to be good NFL players. Perhaps if Richt would have filled UGA's self-inflicted 20% scholarship shortfall with NFL-ready players vs. walk-ons, then the Dawgs would have beaten Alabama in the SEC Championship Game. Since the game ended with WR Chris Conley catching a deflected pass and falling down just inside the Crimson Tide's 5-yd. line, it's not a stretch to imagine what the Dawgs could have done in that game had they been more robust from a talent infusion courtesy of Penn State. And there's no doubt in my mind that UGA would have whipped Notre Dame in the BCS Championship Game had they of gotten there.

I'm ok with stuff like this, as long as players are told up front of all of the risks and things. I think it's pretty crappy for coaches to do stuff like this and take them totally off guard. As long as they know the risks and what they have to do to on their end, then it's perfectly fine.

Darindawg said:

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I'm ok with stuff like this, as long as players are told up front of all of the risks and things. I think it's pretty crappy for coaches to do stuff like this and take them totally off guard. As long as they know the risks and what they have to do to on their end, then it's perfectly fine.

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If a college/university opts not to renew a student-athlete's scholarship, then that individual must either pay his/her own way to remain at that school (expensive for a non-resident) or transfer. If the student-athlete transfers from an FBS program to another FBS program (often restricted by head coaches), then they must sit out a full academic year at the new school before being eligible to play. Btw, the NCAA doesn't even distinguish between scholarship and non-scholarship student-athlete transfers (e.g., walk-on Texas Tech QB Baker Mayfield had to sit out the 2014 season after transferring to Oklahoma and walking on there). Meanwhile, coaches (e.g., Jimbo Fisher) can leave whenever they want (often with many years remaining on their contracts) and immediately start coaching again.

Here's hoping he makes it in this summer as Kirby said on 31 March 2018: "We're struggling a little bit on the defensive line. We just don't have as much depth and we're not as physical as we need to be. We definitely need some help on the depth of the defensive line."

https://theathletic.com/336515/2018/04/30/tramel-walthour-grayshirt-georgia-football/

By Seth Emerson
5h ago

ATHENS, Ga. Tramel Walthour signed with Georgia in February, and unless something changes he will enroll at UGA this summer. That was the plan back then, and it remains the plan now.