Welcome to the ugly side of recruiting. One of the problems with signing classes 30+ recruits large is that it becomes difficult to find spots on the roster for all of the signees. As Matt at DTD has so meticulously tracked, the Bearcats have been in danger of creeping to the point of ‘oversigning’ their class for quite a while now. Oversigning happens far too often in the SEC (less so in the future, maybe) where players are sent to prep schools or JUCO’s or simply asked to wait a few months before joining their teams. Well now it is happening at UC and it seems Coach Jones’ attempt to upgrade the talent on Cincinnati’s roster has claimed its first victim:
According to Alex he will be grayshirted, which means he will sit out next season not on scholarship until the first semester of 2013. Typically grayshirting isn’t immoral like in the cases of Zach Edwards and E.J. Junior who were advised upfront but it seems like CBJ and co. really screwed Alex Dale over here. Cincinnati added a handful of players to the 2012 class after National Signing Day which may have pushed out the Memphis cornerback. Now, there are two sides to every story but his academics appear to be in order. UC’s staff just didn’t think about the limited roster spots or simply had little regard for oversigning the class.
Best of luck to Alex. Let’s all hope everything works out for him.