Gray and over-signing

This blog is dedicated to some information on MarQuies Gray a QB from Ben Davis HS in Indianapolis and what over-signing is and why IU is looking to do that this season.

First, a question, how does a 6'3" 210 QB with 4.7 speed that made the Elite 11 camp over the summer (didn't participate because of dumb IHSAA rule) go from a highly coveted prospect to someone that is only being lightly recruited? This is the million dollar question that many are asking. Well, I'm going to attempt to answer that a little bit. Over the course of the last several weeks, many people have asked me and many offers have asked on Peegs and Scout, what is up with Marquies Gray. Here's a kid that started the year as Rivals #2 ranked dual threat QB in the country. During the summer camp circuit, he put on shows with his passing ability. Even though he's listed as a dual threat QB, he's really a polished passer, who is a pass first QB and seemed pretty comfortable in the pocket from the games I've witnessed. He has also been surrounded by talented receivers and backs at Ben Davis, so his decline was not because he lacked weapons. During his junior year, he put up 600 rushing yards and 1113 yards passing with 12 TDs in only 150 pass attempts.

Once his senior season started, everything just kind of fell apart really. First was a pretty lackluster effort and poor stat performance to start the season against Perry Meridian that also saw him benched for the opening series of the game. Nothing has really come out as to why Gray was benched but in the Indy Star, coach was quoted as saying this "Either you do what we tell you, or you don't play," said Kirschner, who said the matter was closed." Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Mr. Gray wasn't doing what he was suppose to be doing. What that ended up being was a last minute official visit to Indiana State, a Division 2 school. To further aggrevate matters, he never really scheduled it with ISU, just showed up and hung out with former teammates. He missed class and the beginning of practice that day. Not a real bright move really. Next came the disaster at Penn with more lackluster stats and Gray breaking his wrist, which meant he was pretty much done for the next couple of months. Gray did return for the 9th game of the season against Carmel and led the Giants to victory on Carmel's Senior Night. He looked like his old self in this game and even played WR and made a couple of big gains that way. He followed that performance up with another good game against Brownsburg before the showdown with Pike in the sectional semi-final. I've talked to several who went to that game, and they believe Gray was the best player on the field that night. His stats proved over the last 3 games that he was back in form.

So a player gets hurt? That happens all the time to many kids and they still get the big school scholarship. What is so different about Gray? Well that answer to that lies with Gray himself. MarQuies is handling his recruiting. MarQuies doesn't live with either of his parents. His dad lives out of state, and I only know he doesn't have the greatest relationship with mom, so he's kind of on his own. His HS coach has offered to help, but to no avail, so MarQuies is doing this on his own. At this point and time, MarQuies has made 2 official visits: Minnesota on September 27th and Indiana State in early August. He was quoted recently on the Oregan site as saying that he would chose between Oregan, because of their cool uniforms and Minnesota, because they have a cool mall. He also mentioned his desire to leave the state of Indiana and start over.

That is about the only comments that we have head directly from him. The rest is merely hearsay or rumors. MarQuies came to one of IU's camps over the summer and put on a show and earned an offer. Iu was sitting pretty good, along with purdue, some other Big Ten programs until statements were made to the IU staff that he was not interested in playing instate so don't both to recruit him. Similiar statements were made to the Purdue staff as well as other nearby Big Ten schools. At one point, Notre Dame set pretty well with him as well due to his cousin, Jonas Gray from Michigan considering them. Again, MarQuies made statements to several programs to not both recruiting him. Why he did this, no one knows and all this occurred around Labor Day. So that's what programs did, they backed off and pursuied other prospects and began to invest their interest elsewhere.

Now, at Oregan and/or Minny, he would be getting himself into situations and offenses that would fit his syle, and at Minny at least, he would have the chance to come in a possibly play next seaon. But he's one of the most lightly recruited 4-star QBs that I've ever seen, and the reason appears to be that he's driven pretty much everyone else away, or saying it another way, he's painted himself into a corner so to speak. Oregan and Minny have both gotten QB commits recently. The boards on the Oregan Scout site have posters saying that MarQuies is still an option. No word yet on Minny, but it appears they lead for him, at least in Gray's mind.

From all the information that I have received including some things I won't post here due to privacy issues, I'm going to state my opinion for IU and what I hope the staff does. Even if MarQuies would come calling, I hope we look in another direction. It's obvious that the staff feel Johnson is the better prospect, and will likely go him or bust. Also, Follet is really a good, but raw QB as well. He reminds the staff of Blake Powers, though he's not the scrambler that Johnson(also he's the #12 dual threat QB in the US) is, but he has a better arm at this point.

I don't know where Gray will end up, but I don't think it's going to be IU and I really don't think it's going to be anywhere close to the state of Indiana. He blew up over the summer and was actually considered a back up plan for some schools if they didn't get Myron Pryor, but Gray's stock has fallen, and fallen fast. At this point, I expect him to land at Minnesota and sit a couple years behind their JUCO stud they just signed and then go from there.

Now, for the over-signing issue: At this point, I have IU full with their verbals and a roster of 85 full scholarships to be used, so anything else would be "over-signing" the class. IU will take at least one more CB prospect, and could conceivable take Johnson, a CB prospect, Mossbrucker, and Wiggins, so that would be 4 oversigns. However, I think it's safe to say that at the max there will be 3 at the very most.

Over-signing means you simply sign more kids that you have scholarships available for. The NCAA rules states that a school can have no more than 85 scholarships per team and no more than 25 kids can sign per class. However, schools go over that 25 all the time. Kentucky had a class a couple of years ago with 30 kids in it, but 6 of them didn't qualify and thus the end result was a 24 man class, which is within the rules.

There are many reasons why it is done, but mostly it is due to someone in the class being either an academic risk/casualty or a greyshirt canidate. At this point, I don't know of any of the verbals be academic risks, but I've heard that at least one recruit is a greyshirt canidate due to surgery that is needed to repair an injury. This kid would basically not start classes until the 2nd semester next season and his 5 year clock would start ticking then, not unlike a true frosh enrolling early. Terrance Turner did this at IU, and recently Tyler Haston from Avon did it at Purdue, so it's not uncommon. However, since IU is full, something has to happen if anymore kids are signed. Hardy going pro would free up one opening. Also, some kids that are 5th year seniors and have graduated, transfer to a D1 AA school so they can play their senior year. If you noticed, Kyle Kozak is starting in January and will count towards this year's ship total. Where did that extra grant come from? Chauncey Incarnato that transferred to UMASS. So you can play with your roster a little bit. It's been rumored before that start of the season that some of the older OL guys that are buried on the depth chart will be asked to move on. Moses was one of those rumored, but I doubt he moves on now. However, kids like Edmundson and Love are prime canidates. Again, something will have to happen, either academically, a greyshirt, transferring, or early graduating to open up those spots.

Althon Sports.com did a piece last year asking if oversigning was "ethical". It's a great piece to read to try and understand how some schools really use this to pick and choose kids and "beat the system" so to speak. If you remember Steve Spurrier almost quit South Carolina early this season because some of the verbals did not get in. What didn't come out though was SC oversigned and most point to that being the real reason the kids didn't get into SC. The University chose the best 25 academically, and the others were out. It just so happened that the ones that didn't get in were very good players.

Personally, I don't care if IU oversigns every once in awhile and knowing the type of coach Lynch is, I don't expect this to be an every year thing. One ship is bound to open up with Hardy almost assuredly going pro. He filed his papers today for them to research his potential draft position, which most believe will be early 2nd/low 1st round at this point, with the combine and pro days potentially moving him to the middle of the first round. Also, I'm expecting at least 1 5th year transfer to a lower level, so that's why I expect the staff to finish with 2 more verbals.

And in a final note: John Decker reported today that JT Owens has made a permenant switch from Safety to Running Back. He will be at that position for the spring as well.