Mailbag question: Been hearing a lot about Grey shirting

Posted at 12:00pm -- 12/22/2009



Mailbag question: Been hearing a lot about Grey shirting

GBMW,

There is talk about some kids grey shirting for Michigan.

How does that work and does it make any sense for a kid/parents to spend 40,000 for a year so they can "hopefully" get a scholarship the following year?

Who in this class would be able to afford that kind of money in this economic climate we face today.

I just do not see this happening.

Jim R.

-----------------------------------

Thanks for the question.

Well, first off look at the parents of these players and see which one of them can afford the extra 40,000 plus to spend on attending Michigan when said recruits could probably get a full four-year scholarship somewhere else. As far as we know, any player agreeing to such a provisional scenario is still not guaranteed anything after the one year of attending school on his own dime.

To the best of our knowledge, grey shirt is a "media term" that is not used in any of the NCAA pamphlets or books we are familiar with. It is a way of trying to get around the recruiting numbers without actually using a scholarship for the upcoming year and promises a recruit that he will be included as a member of the next recruiting class.

Basically, what happens with grey shirts is they do not enter school with their recruiting class. Instead they delay entering school until January to delay starting the five-year clock.

All student-athletes have five years to play. The clock starts on the enrollment date regardless if they play sports or if they later drop out.

If a student-athlete begins school in August 2010, he has until May 2015 to play four years.

We have seen some recruits in the past do this at Ohio State, but again these were in-state kids with parents having plenty of money to enroll a child at an in-state school where tuition is not nearly as expensive. Also, the players who opted to take this route were diehard Buckeye fans and the coaches knew this and used this part of the recruiting dynamic to their advantage.

Written by GBMW Staff

Go Blue -- Wear Maize!