[washingtonismoney]

For one--and I obviously don't know what is going on in Andrew Mike's head-- let's just assume a recruit walks away from his Stanford visit or camp with the indication that an offer is on its way, which he wants to accept.  One week goes by, a month, two months, three months and nothing.  Let's say he visits another program and it blows him away and they tell him that he has a real shot at getting PT as a frosh.  Now he sees that Stanford gets spurned by some other OL recruits and then an offer finally comes in.  If I were him, I wouldn't be jumping at it. 

One the other hand, what's the downside of getting a solid verbal commitment from a four-star recruit?  Just seems like a bad game to play to me.  If the kid has earned an offer, give him it.

OK, I thought you were making an ethical or moral argument. Look, "earning" the offer is the wrong way to look at this. There are only 20 or so spots to give out in a given year. Even with Stanford's constricted recruiting pool, there are probably more guys that could "earn" -- as in is a good player with good academics -- an offer than actually get one. And that's fine. In this case, Mike may be a perfectly good player, but if the coaches preferred Spain and Tucker at tackles, they need to proceed in a way that can achieve their Plan A while preserving their Plan B.

The judgment the coaches may or may not have made is that they could slow play Mike and get him later. While you might have looked askance on that play, if Mike's interviews/actions (coming up to camp again in June) are to be believed, he doesn't see it that way. We'll see if they end up offering him.

[washingtonismoney]

For one--and I obviously don't know what is going on in Andrew Mike's head-- let's just assume a recruit walks away from his Stanford visit or camp with the indication that an offer is on its way, which he wants to accept.  One week goes by, a month, two months, three months and nothing.  Let's say he visits another program and it blows him away and they tell him that he has a real shot at getting PT as a frosh.  Now he sees that Stanford gets spurned by some other OL recruits and then an offer finally comes in.  If I were him, I wouldn't be jumping at it. 

One the other hand, what's the downside of getting a solid verbal commitment from a four-star recruit?  Just seems like a bad game to play to me.  If the kid has earned an offer, give him it.

OK, I thought you were making an ethical or moral argument. Look, "earning" the offer is the wrong way to look at this. There are only 20 or so spots to give out in a given year. Even with Stanford's constricted recruiting pool, there are probably more guys that could "earn" -- as in is a good player with good academics -- an offer than actually get one. And that's fine. In this case, Mike may be a perfectly good player, but if the coaches preferred Spain and Tucker at tackles, they need to proceed in a way that can achieve their Plan A while preserving their Plan B.

The judgment the coaches may or may not have made is that they could slow play Mike and get him later. While you might have looked askance on that play, if Mike's interviews/actions (coming up to camp again in June) are to be believed, he doesn't see it that way. We'll see if they end up offering him.