Props to Oshea Dugas! BTW, he wasn't talented enough to play here...remember that.

[duggie85]

When you combine issues and degrade a young person I can in fact cherry pick your comments.

If a kid wants to walk on for the betterment of the team that's fine. If the next doesn't see it that way I'm not impunning his motives or imply he'll be a locker room problem which is exactly what you did to the hypothetical player.

First off, I'm not sure why you resurrected my post when I admitted 20 hours before that I was wrong about TOPS in regards to football. But being this is hypothetical b/c TOPS does not = Full-Ride offer (in football), I'll keep playing along.

A football player has 2 options:

Option 1: Offered full-ride to play at UL (but has good enough grades to have another avenue pay for tuition), will have signing day party at his HS to celebrate the achievement. Chooses to be 1 of 25 players to receive Full-Ride

Option 2: Offered full-ride to play at UL (but has good enough grades to have another avenue pay for tuition), will have signing day party at his HS to celebrate the achievement of being good enough to sign LOI. Chooses to be 1 of 26 players worthy of receiving Full-Ride offer, opts for secondary avenue to allow team to sign 1 extra quality player

You can slice it however many ways you want, by the amount of players on the team, by your age, whatever. If that kid picks Option 1, he is selfish. And more than likely will continue to be selfish. In this hypothetical, he would get the exact same thing out of Option 1 (opportunity to play D1 ball, a "special" day, free education) yet he would open the door for an extra potential game changer player to join OUR team.

*Again, I understand TOPS does not cover all expenses, hence I was wrong in my original post.

[CajunEXPRESS]

So it's not a close call. Only your BS. Are all the other non tops exempt from being selfish because they are not smart enough to give away thousands of dollars.

Most players understand you're always viewed as being less if you're not on a LOI. Additionally the minute you get on the field all other scholarships are nullified in football and basketball. You can however pay the full load or accept an athletic scholarship.

[alum81]

You also have to keep a certain GPA to keep your TOPS coming and TOPS only last four years but with the redshirt year a full ride scholarship lasts five right?

[Geaux]

Hud came to Louisiana with little to no recruiting connections. Most of his players are from east of the Mississippi river. That being said, for those guys to want to come to a SBC school out of state, the offer better be nothing less than a full ride. With TOPS in his back pocket for Louisiana recruits, can one assume HUD may be subsidizing his scholarships with TOPS for Louisiana kids? You know...the ole "Your a great Student-athlete, how about we give you a partial scholarship and let TOPS take care of the rest, while we give out of state recruits a full ride."

I hope this is not the case.

We have not hit on many S. Louisiana kids much less kids kids from the Acadiana area. We should not miss on local kids like Oshea. We need a coach on staff that local coaches trust like we had with Rebow.

[duggie85]

So it's not a close call. Only your BS. Are all the other non tops exempt from being selfish because they are not smart enough to give away thousands of dollars.

Most players understand you're always viewed as being less if you're not on a LOI. Additionally the minute you get on the field all other scholarships are nullified in football and basketball. You can however pay the full load or accept an athletic scholarship.

Well that settles it; it's not equal offers. Thanks for enlightening me, Express.

[oldalum]

First off, I'm not sure why you resurrected my post when I admitted 20 hours before that I was wrong about TOPS in regards to football. But being this is hypothetical b/c TOPS does not = Full-Ride offer (in football), I'll keep playing along.

A football player has 2 options:

Option 1: Offered full-ride to play at UL (but has good enough grades to have another avenue pay for tuition), will have signing day party at his HS to celebrate the achievement. Chooses to be 1 of 25 players to receive Full-Ride

Option 2: Offered full-ride to play at UL (but has good enough grades to have another avenue pay for tuition), will have signing day party at his HS to celebrate the achievement of being good enough to sign LOI. Chooses to be 1 of 26 players worthy of receiving Full-Ride offer, opts for secondary avenue to allow team to sign 1 extra quality player

You can slice it however many ways you want, by the amount of players on the team, by your age, whatever. If that kid picks Option 1, he is selfish. And more than likely will continue to be selfish. In this hypothetical, he would get the exact same thing out of Option 1 (opportunity to play D1 ball, a "special" day, free education) yet he would open the door for an extra potential game changer player to join OUR team.

*Again, I understand TOPS does not cover all expenses, hence I was wrong in my original post.

I have a child on full TOPS at UL and it does not come near paying a full ride. Add to that $450 in new FEES (not tuition) starting in spring 2016 and there is a huge difference between TOPS and a full ride athletic scholarship.

Then add to that the fact that you have a higher GPA to keep your TOPS than an athletic ride.

My opinion, for what it is worth (nothing), is that athletes should get no "scholarship" but given a "tuition waiver" with a minimum load in an academic plan and a minimum GPA to keep that tuition waiver.

I know how hard kids work for Scholarships with the key word being scholar. The athlete that earns BOTH should have money left over to go in his/her pocket.

I'm sure that what I'm suggesting is against NCAA rules, but it would bring back true meaning to the term Scholar-Athlete.