Ole Miss football stays in the media blitzkrieg surrounding Shea Patterson and the NCAA waiver and it can be difficult to keep up with.
I’m new to this journalism thing. I’m also sort of retired and go at my pace. I used to be in the rat race but I’ve slowed down. I learned this week that to be in this game sometimes you have to act quickly. You see, I started to write an article about the Patterson soap opera over a week ago.
I did some research and wrote parts of the article. Then, everything changed when the waiver was granted allowing Patterson to play this year. I was way too slow but I had researched and tried to put together at least somewhat coherent arguments. I was late. Still, there are some things that I think need to be said.
First Things First
Ole Miss Rebels Football
First, good for Shea Patterson. The right decision was reached even if it was the result of a flawed process. In the end Ross Bjork showed a high level of integrity in working with Michigan to come to the right conclusion. This after mostly losing a very one-sided public relations battle. However, there is no reason to believe Bjork wanted anything other than this decision from the beginning.
And I hope the same decision applies to the others requesting transfers. In fact, I don’t believe players should have to sit out when transferring to schools at least one time and at least if the school they are transferring to is in another conference and not a scheduled opponent for the player. So, all is good in the end. Good luck to Shea Patterson.
Time To Fix The Process
Now, we can take a look back at the entire process. We had attorneys, and sports writers, college football coaches and finally Patterson himself behaving in a manner that was more worthy of a reality show than the process of educating young men. Let’s not forget that an education is the goal. Patterson is the only one involved that should get a pas. At least for the most part. He is young and still impressionable. And too many people were impressing on him to make statements and do things that can end up being hurtful to other people.(in this case Matt Luke. More on that later)
The attorney and sports writer’s involvement is well documented. The only comment on that is that this process happens way too often and not just in sports and sports writing. Someone offers information to a reporter who dutifully writes or otherwise repeats the information. The information is picked up by other writers and the public. Finally, the original person providing the information, cites the “reports” of the journalists as proof of the original thing they leaked. In this case the something is that players were misled.
A Waiver For Jacob Eason
So, now, let’s get a waiver for Jacob Eason who is transferring from Georgia to Washington. What does one have to do with the other you might ask? The comparison of Patterson and Eason is interesting and parallel in many ways. Both were 5 star recruits and at the top of their group in the 2016 class. Both played as freshman (although the circumstances were different) and both were injured during their sophomore 2017 season. In both cases the players who replaced them performed at a high level.
Georgia and Ole Miss both seemed to have performed as well or better with their replacement quarterbacks. So, both quarterback would have been in a battle for the starting job this year. Admittedly, Patterson would have been a slight favorite but not a shoe-in. Eason would have definitely not been the favorite to win the job after his replacement took Georgia to the national championship game.
There Are Differences
Of course there are other differences. The replacement at Ole Miss is a rising senior so even if Jordan Ta’amu were able to win a starting quarterback battle with Patterson it would have only been for one year. For Georgia it was a freshman who replaced Eason and it is very possible that Eason would not have had a chance to win back the starting job at Georgia even later. Still, both players were in for a battle to win a starting job this year. Both also chose to transfer.
There is also the difference of the sanctions placed on Ole Miss. However, it was generally accepted that Patterson was going to transfer prior to the NCAA hammer. So, it would seem that other things were the primary motivation for Patterson’s departure. The young man wanted to do what he thought was best for himself. No one can fault him for that. In fact, we should all celebrate his freedom to do just that. Good luck!! In the end I would make the argument that Eason was leaving one of the NCAA golden programs and Patterson is going to one of those programs.
Recruiting Isn’t Always A Pretty Process
Just a note here. There is nothing pretty about the recruiting process even in the best cases. It is a sales process. Sometimes sales can be a little ugly. Players are always given the most positive light by the schools recruiting them and there is often some attempt to cast the competitive program in at least a less than positive light. There is nothing new about this. It is a sales process. As such, there could quite often be a case made that a player is being “misled.”
So, given that, it could be easy for Jacob Eason to take up the argument that he should be released based on being misled. After all, the coach that recruited him parted ways with his employer prior to Eason coming on board. And then the new coach had to have seen Eason as the best option at least for the first year in his program. I don’t know this, but maybe Kirby Smart didn’t see Eason as the type of quarterback he would envision quarterbacking his program down the line. If he didn’t see that but he still tried to make the case to Eason that he should sign with Georgia because he needed a quarterback wasn’t Eason somewhat misled?
Richt, Smart And Mullens Can Transfer At Will
Now, to be clear, I’m not casting aspersions on Kirby Smart or Mark Richt. However, just maybe, in the “sales process” of recruiting it is possible Eason was somewhat misled? Couldn’t Eason now make the same argument Shea Patterson made? Remember Dan Mullen made an effort to maintain the commitment of Matt Corral to Florida after Mullen moved to Florida from Mississippi State even though Corral himself understood he wasn’t the right fit for a Dan Mullin team.
In fact, couldn’t all of Dan Mullen’s and Kirby Smart’s players left behind at Mississippi State and Alabama make the case that they had been misled by someone who had recruited them even though they didn’t have the same commitment to stay with the program that is now expected of them? Even the players at Georgia and Florida could make this argument. There wouldn’t be many players left that couldn’t transfer if one started looking closely at the movement of coaches in college football in this light.
Catching Up
However, all the sports writers and commentators that were blasting Ole Miss football throughout the process never seemed to catch on to this simple fact. It was easier to kick a program when it is down. Especially a program that is not one of the “élite” programs.
Clearly, neither Eason nor Patterson should have ever had to make the argument that they were misled. Both should have been able to make the move on their own. Just like Mark Richt could leave Georgia (or be let go depending on your point of view) and Kirby Smart could leave Alabama and the players he had recruited there. Players should have similar ability to move between programs. But this is the kind of thing the NCAA promotes with it’s outdated transfer policies.
Patterson’s Troubling Comments
In the heat of all of this drama Shea Patterson made some very troubling comments. He is reported to have said he found “a trustworthy, high-caliber coach” with “values, integrity and leadership qualities” in Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. I can’t help but read this as a back-handed slap at Matt Luke and other current coaches at Ole Miss.
However, all reports indicated that Patterson was very much behind Matt Luke being made the regular full-time head coach at Ole Miss. Hopefully, some day Patterson will be able to make this right with the current Ole Miss coach. For now, we can write it off as comments made by a young man in the heat of a difficult situation.
Harbaugh’s Values?
Let’s take a closer look though at the values and integrity of Harbaugh. Harbaugh has made it a habit of finding a way to bypass NCAA rules on compensation to players with the annual team trips. These trips receive a lot of positive press. How can so clearly thumbing your nose at the established rules be so widely accepted? The only explanation is that this is one of the “élite” programs with an “élite” coach. Is that what Patterson means when he speaks of values and integrity?
And that isn’t the only questionable act by this “trustworthy” coach. He made a trip to Oxford to meet with Patterson shortly after the sanctions were announced and Patterson had already, according to reports, made his decision to transfer to Michigan. Patterson reportedly brought two players to this meeting.
It is very obvious that Harbaugh was hoping to waltz into Oxford and kick a “lesser program” when it was down and then walk away from that meeting with some other blue chips that would help him with his run at a title of some sort. An interesting thing happened though. There was no A J Brown with Patterson. There was no Greg Little with Patterson? Is it just possible that those players are the ones with values?
Harbaugh Only Values a Title
It should be clear that Harbaugh will do whatever it takes to win a championship and time may be running out even for the vaunted Harbaugh. He has shown no ability to compete with proven college coaches like Urban Meyer and James Franklin. Expect that to continue and the frustration to continue for the Michigan fans.
I do sincerely wish Shea Patterson the best. If he is lucky he will get a chance to beat another Dan Mullen coached team in the Capital One Bowl. However, I suggest he doesn’t get his hopes up for much more for now.