'15 JUCO LB Demetrius Cain (Mississippi)

UNTLifer · February 5, 2015

They count towards the 85 player roster limit.

untcampbell · February 6, 2015

Hmmm....posted end of day yesterday. I edited the story to the pertinent information. GMG

27 EMCC Players Ink Scholarships

Posted: Wed 4:11 PM, Feb 04, 2015

By: EMCC Media Relations

An additional five players from East Mississippi Community College’s 2014 NJCAA National Championship team officially put their signatures on National Letters of Intent during Wednesday’s national signing day activities on the Scooba campus. Joining EMCC’s prior signees who inked during the mid-year signing period for junior college transfers, a total of 27 players from the Lions’ third undefeated national title team in four years are set to continue their football careers at the four-year level.

As a two-year starter at linebacker for the Lions, Cain (6-1, 215) capped his EMCC career by being tabbed NJCAA All-American First Team after ranking as the team’s third-leading tackler with 55 total stops and tying for second on the club with five pass interceptions, including two picks for touchdowns. Heading to the University of North Texas, the 2012 Mississippi Association of Coaches (MAC) Class 3A Defensive Player of the Year for Hazlehurst High School totaled 118 tackles and eight pass interceptions during his two seasons at East Mississippi.

2014 EAST MISSISSIPPI COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYERS MOVING ONTO FOUR-YEAR UNIVERSITIES

DEMETRIUS CAIN (6-1, 215, LB, Hazlehurst [MS] HS) – University of North Texas

Edited February 6, 2015 by untcampbell

UNTLifer · March 3, 2015

Having 2 kickers and 2 punters on scholarships counts towards our 85 player limit. I understand the 25 per class, but how do other schools sign more than 25?

GMG24 · March 3, 2015

Their previous classes may have been a bigger class, or they undersigned the year prior.

UNTLifer · March 4, 2015

Thanks.

eulessismore · March 4, 2015

Their previous classes may have been a bigger class, or they undersigned the year prior.

Ok, I don't understand the bolded part; not to say that NCAA rules are a place to look for logic, but I can understand the "undersigned the year prior" (the logic that is; I'm not saying I know or understand any rule to that effect).

My question, if anyone can answer it, is: what circumstances would enable us to sign more than 25 (and thus, at least theoretically, if it has not already happened) sign Demetrius Cain? Have one of those who did sign not enroll by some certain date?

Edited March 4, 2015 by eulessismore

BillySee58 · March 4, 2015

If you don't use all of your spots in a class, then you can use those unused spots in your next class, provided that you have at least as many mid-term (spring) enrollees as the number of excess signings.

For example, if you sign 21 one year then you can sign up to 29 the next. You were 4 spots short of 25, so you can go 4 over with the next class. However, the second class must have at least 4 mid-term enrollees. This can include high school players who graduate early, mid-term JUCO transfers, grayshirts, FBS transfers, etc. anyone who counts towards the class who is there by January.

We did not have any open spots from last class, so we could only sign 25 this year. We couldn't backcount any mid-term transfers back to last class. I have no answer for why we had to count 4 walkons who had played 1 season or less for us before being put on scholarship, towards our 2014 class and we didn't have to count any guys like that towards our 2015 class (there were guys like that like Andy Flusche).

eulessismore · March 4, 2015

If you don't use all of your spots in a class, then you can use those unused spots in your next class, provided that you have at least as many mid-term (spring) enrollees as the number of excess signings.
For example, if you sign 21 one year then you can sign up to 29 the next. You were 4 spots short of 25, so you can go 4 over with the next class. However, the second class must have at least 4 mid-term enrollees. This can include high school players who graduate early, mid-term JUCO transfers, grayshirts, FBS transfers, etc. anyone who counts towards the class who is there by January.
We did not have any open spots from last class, so we could only sign 25 this year. We couldn't backcount any mid-term transfers back to last class. I have no answer for why we had to count 4 walkons who had played 1 season or less for us before being put on scholarship, towards our 2014 class and we didn't have to count any guys like that towards our 2015 class (there were guys like that like Andy Flusche).

Thanks, although I still don't quite understand how oversigning (and spots becoming available after signing day) works, unless there's some way that a player can "uncommit" early enough not to count towards the 25. The whole thing reminds me of photography, how one must know the rules well so as to break them properly.

UNTLifer · March 4, 2015

Thanks, although I still don't quite understand how oversigning (and spots becoming available after signing day) works, unless there's some way that a player can "uncommit" early enough not to count towards the 25. The whole thing reminds me of photography, how one must know the rules well so as to break them properly.

Exactly. Some schools are notorious for over-signing every year. I think they always counted on some not becoming eligible. Then again, the APR rules probably put an end to that.

BillySee58 · March 4, 2015

Thanks, although I still don't quite understand how oversigning (and spots becoming available after signing day) works, unless there's some way that a player can "uncommit" early enough not to count towards the 25. The whole thing reminds me of photography, how one must know the rules well so as to break them properly.

Spots don't just magically become available after signing day. Sometimes you have some open if you didn't use them all. Like last year, we signed 23 so we had 2 open spots after signing day. With those spots we signed Matthew Dash and Darren Denucci before fall camp. Those spots didn't open up after signing day. They were just left over.

And committing/uncommitting doesn't actually have anything to do with it, because a commitment is verbal and nonbinding. Signing an LOI is what counts.

But that's a good example you gave. You have to be able to do some creative accounting to get the guys you want.

GMG24 · March 15, 2015

Billy, I can't help but wonder if this guy still doesn't end up on campus and playing for us.

Harry · March 15, 2015

Hope so

GMG24 · March 15, 2015

Me too Harry. Kid reminded me of ORR, with a little more hitting ability.

eulessismore · March 16, 2015

So, to get back to the important question. Now that we're down to 85 scholly players, does it require that one more leave before summer camp to get one open spot (where he could play for us in the fall), or would we still be at 25 total allowed for the year, in any imaginable scenario?

jtm0097 · March 21, 2015

Signs with Troy...

BillySee58 · March 21, 2015

Yup.

GrandGreen · March 21, 2015

True irony, people worried about NCAA ship limits and he ends up signing with the one team that never bothers.

My guess is he is not eligible and unlike Troy, NT didn't want to roll the dice on him qualifying.

BillySee58 · March 21, 2015

True irony, people worried about NCAA ship limits and he ends up signing with the one team that never bothers.
My guess is he is not eligible and unlike Troy, NT didn't want to roll the dice on him qualifying.

Plain and simple, they had only signed 21 and we had signed 25. You only get 25 signings a year. He was just too late, unfortunately.

Maybe he doesn't end up getting eligible, but us not getting him is because he committed too late and we were full. We wouldn't have brought him in on a visit the weekend before national signing day if we weren't willing to roll the dice on him. We also wouldn't have signed 4 other May-grad JUCOs if you count Damarcus Smith (also Thad Thompson, Xavier Grindle, and Jareid Combs). This class is basically built on our staff rolling the dice.

GrandGreen · March 23, 2015

Plain and simple, they had only signed 21 and we had signed 25. You only get 25 signings a year. He was just too late, unfortunately.
Maybe he doesn't end up getting eligible, but us not getting him is because he committed too late and we were full. We wouldn't have brought him in on a visit the weekend before national signing day if we weren't willing to roll the dice on him. We also wouldn't have signed 4 other May-grad JUCOs if you count Damarcus Smith (also Thad Thompson, Xavier Grindle, and Jareid Combs). This class is basically built on our staff rolling the dice.

I will bet you that there will be enough ships open to award several walk-ons. If he was a player that wanted to come here and NT really wanted him, he would have signed here. By the way, why would NT have brought him in late if they had no spot for him.

MeanGreenTexan · March 23, 2015

I will bet you that there will be enough ships open to award several walk-ons. If he was a player that wanted to come here and NT really wanted him, he would have signed here. By the way, why would NT have brought him in late if they had no spot for him.

25 scholarships per class.

We could have 50 guys on scholarship and then sign 25 players in a class... that's all we can sign (unless we undersign the previous year, but we didn't). Even though that would put us at 75 players, and we would have 10 more spots open to fill... we cannot sign those players to scholarships right now.

That is why walk-ons do well here. We typically have some nasty attrition (See 2012's class for example), that opens up spots for them to work their way to a scholarship.

You bring him in and show interest in him in case someone decommits at the last second (like what happened to us with Paul Banks bolting for Tech with 1 week to go before signing day). Fortunately for us, everyone else we wanted signed on the dotted line... all 25 of them... leaving Mr. Cain without a seat.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong Billy or other recruiting gurus, but if someone does not show up to campus, that spot can be back-filled, right? And I'm sure Mr. Cain would be the first in line.

BillySee58 · March 23, 2015

I will bet you that there will be enough ships open to award several walk-ons. If he was a player that wanted to come here and NT really wanted him, he would have signed here. By the way, why would NT have brought him in late if they had no spot for him.

Awarding walkons scholarships from here on our will not count towards our 2015 scholarship cap of 25 signees. It looks like they may not have to count towards our 2016 class either. So awarding any scholarships to walkons will not prove that we had room for Cain.

You are allowed 85 scholarship players on your team, but you're only allowed to sign 25 players per year. The 85 total scholarships was not the reason we couldn't sign Cain. Players will inevitably transfer, be asked to transfer, quit football, signees won't make it to campus, etc. We could've taken Cain and let the numbers work themselves out later. But, we already had 25 players in this class.

The reason we brought Cain on a visit is because we wanted him and we had room, at the time. Cain visited the weekend before national signing day. When he arrived in Denton we had 21 commitments, so we had 4 open spots. Cain chose not to commit while on his visit, and decided to wait until national signing day to make a decision. While he was waiting to make a decision, two players committed that Sunday night that Cain's visit had ended (Xavier Grindle and Demikal Harrison) bringing our total to 23, and two more players committed that next day, on Monday night (Jordan Murray and Roderick Young) bringing our total to 25. So then when Cain tried to commit and sign that Wednesday, on national signing day, we were then out of spots. So we had room when he came on the visit, but not when he tried to commit.

Edited March 23, 2015 by BillySee58

GrandGreen · March 23, 2015

Awarding walkons scholarships from here on our will not count towards our 2015 scholarship cap of 25 signees. It looks like they may not have to count towards our 2016 class either. So awarding any scholarships to walkons will not prove that we had room for Cain.
You are allowed 85 scholarship players on your team, but you're only allowed to sign 25 players per year. The 85 total scholarships was not the reason we couldn't sign Cain. Players will inevitably transfer, be asked to transfer, quit football, signees won't make it to campus, etc. We could've taken Cain and let the numbers work themselves out later. But, we already had 25 players in this class.
The reason we brought Cain on a visit is because we wanted him and we had room, at the time. Cain visited the weekend before national signing day. When he arrived in Denton we had 21 commitments, so we had 4 open spots. Cain chose not to commit while on his visit, and decided to wait until national signing day to make a decision. While he was waiting to make a decision, two players committed that Sunday night that Cain's visit had ended (Xavier Grindle and Demikal Harrison) bringing our total to 23, and two more players committed that next day, on Monday night (Jordan Murray and Roderick Young) bringing our total to 25. So then when Cain tried to commit and sign that Wednesday, on national signing day, we were then out of spots. So we had room when he came on the visit, but not when he tried to commit.

Teams can over sign, the NCAA allows up to 28 despite a 25 limit of actual ships awarded. So again I think NT could have found a way to sign Cain, much as they have in the past by gaining a ship as someone doesn't quality, they talk someone into gray shirted or they convince someone to go elsewhere. All of these are done all the time, that is why I think there is more involved here then apparent.

Edited March 23, 2015 by GrandGreen

Danish43 · March 24, 2015

This new to me, encourage them to transfer somewhere else. Is this because they are not a Div I player?

BillySee58 · March 24, 2015

Teams can over sign, the NCAA allows up to 28 despite a 25 limit of actual ships awarded. So again I think NT could have found a way to sign Cain, much as they have in the past by gaining a ship as someone doesn't quality, they talk someone into gray shirted or they convince someone to go elsewhere. All of these are done all the time, that is why I think there is more involved here then apparent.

You can only sign 28 if you signed 22 or fewer the class before, and you have to have at least 3 mid-term signees (January enrollees) backcounting into the previous class.

We signed 25 last year in the class of 2014, counting the 16 high school signees, 1 FBS transfer (Anthony Wallace), 4 JUCO signees, and 4 walkons that we had to count (as announced by Mccarney). We did announce 25 signings in 2014, so we could only sign 25 this class in 2015.

GrayEagle · March 24, 2015

I just hope that we tried to talk a commitment into taking a grayshirt as we did last year. There are several that truly will not be ready this year and possibly not the next. Cain would have been a good addition who could have played this fall.

It doesn't appear that he had an offer until late in the game so it's not like he turned us down and then wanted in when other offers failed. You hate to say no to any worthy candidates but I hope that we are always able to get the 25 best available based on need. I do believe that Cain was the #2 prospect behind Finney and would have been a great addition.