The Blue Board

I thought Hawaii will only pay for an OV if you're committed there to prevent everyone from taking one (kind of evidenced ITT).

I have heard that many times before.

I would guess not after reading all of this...

Check it:

To understand the Ivy League recruiting standards, read the book A is for Admission. It was written by a former Dartmouth admissions officer. Basically, the Ivies have an "academic index" for athletes. Your academic index is determined by your class rank or GPA if your school does not give out class rank and SAT scores. SAT II’s are only considered if they are higher than the average of your SAT I scores. (The book is out of date regarding SAT II's.) My son’s high school did not give out class rank. His GPA was 3.4, which gives him an academic index score of 67 (You look it up in a table in the A for Admission book). Dan’s SAT I was 1430, which gives him a 1430/10 = 143 score. The total academic index in Dan’s case is the sum of the GPA and SAT scores. In Dan’s case, that's 67 + 143 = 210. Because class rank is so important, sending your kid to a high school that reports class rank and has a lot of smart kids could keep him out of the Ivy League if he was marginal.

Ivy football has four academic index bands. Roughly, they are:

top 205+ upper middle 190-204 lower middle 180-189 bottom 170-179

Logically, you would think that the higher your band, the less athletic you need to be to get in. But the Columbia head coach said no. He may just have been being diplomatic. The purpose of the bands is to equalize competition within the Ivy League. The most popular teams, like Harvard and Princeton, must get most of their players in the top two bands and are only allowed two bottom-band players. The least popular teams, like Penn, are allowed something like 16 bottom-band players. Ivy League football teams recruit 35 players each per year, which, surprisingly, is about twice as many as football factories like Notre Dame and Nebraska are allowed to recruit. If they did not allocate different band quotas to different Ivy League schools, Harvard or Princeton would win the championship every year. Harvard won in 1997; Penn in 1998, Yale and Brown in 1999.

Support. Being recruited by an Ivy League football team is the equivalent of being a permanent invited walk-on at a I-A school. The coaching staff "supports" your application. That is, they turn in a ranked list of desired recruits to admissions. Admissions rejects some and accepts others. When they get to 35, the process stops for that year. You get admitted because of football, but you get no athletic scholarship. Most Ivy athletes are on full or partial scholarships, but those scholarships are based strictly on financial need.

Position and band quotas. Ivy football teams have two types of quotas to meet. They must get the right number in each academic index band (actually, they only have to average the right number over four years) and they need the right mix of running backs, linebackers, etc. As an Ivy football recruit, you are essentially competing for admission only against others at your same general position and others in your same band. There are about five positions in the Ivy coaches’ minds: line, skill, power, kicker, and quarterback. Line means huge offensive and defensive down linemen. Skill generally means speed, agility, and good hands and includes running backs, wide receivers, and defensive backs. Power refers to a player who combines both size and athletic ability, that is, fullbacks and linebackers. In the Miramonte Class of '99, Kenny Dorsey was a quarterback, Derek Goeriz, Brett Nicol, and Bo Mattioda were power players, Mike MacDonald was a lineman, and Dan Reed was a skill player.

At the time Dan committed, Columbia said their top-band quota for 1999 was four players and only two slots were left

Ahhh Blue Mountain State reference. My favorite show no question.

hawaii - no brainer
Arizona St - go to tempe12.com
USC - simlar to above
Oregon - Nike stuff
UNLV - extended weekend

yes, i chose all west coast places. why the hell take visits near home?

then i'd commit to MSU

Ha, wasn't that good either, but took a visit to GT, Samford (Terry B wanted me to walk on for 14K a year - not) - so chose Baseball instead.

1. Bama - just because
2. ASU - chicks
3. USC - chicks and it's USC
4. Hawaii - you have to ask why
5. I'd flip a coin to see on this one - Heads Texas - Tails Oregon - both should be a great time and have lots of women.

Oregon
Texas
Stanford
North Carolina
Oklahoma State

I was a swimmer, but my officials were to:

Bama
Florida State (I may be a seminole if the entire team wasn't on spring break when I did my official)
South Carolina (hated it. honestly. wanted to leave as soon as I got there)
SMU (favorite visit, but the scholly wasn't high enough - swimmers can get fractional schollys)
Air Force Academy (loved the program, but wanted to go to college, not boarding school where you have to march down the hall if you want to pee in the middle of the night)