Sports

Herm Edwards’ Arizona State Regime Is Already On The Brink Of Disaster

(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

David Hookstead Sports And Entertainment Editor
Font Size:

Herm Edwards’ tenure as the head football coach at Arizona State continues to be wildly entertaining.

Edwards used to be a coach in the NFL, where you can cut players pretty much on a whim. There aren’t a ton of standards. Well, good ole’ Herm never got the memo that it doesn’t work like that in college, because now he’s threatening to cut players on scholarship.

Edwards told the media the following, according to Yahoo Sports:

There was a message sent, and the message was very clear, that we’re in the process of evaluating the players. Between now and next week you’re going to find out the situation here whether you’re going to continue to be a part of it or not. I told them that when I first took the job and that’s the way to be honest with them. It’s always evaluation. It’s always participation.

I told some guys if you continue to stay hurt, continue to stay in the training room, you have no tape. I can’t grade you if you’re not on tape. I can’t grade you in the training room. And all of a sudden some guys got well. It’s amazing. I think college football is one of those unique sports with the fact that you give out 85 scholarships and sometimes I think these players think, ‘well it’s 85 scholarships. I’m good.’ No you’re not good. You’ve earned a scholarship because of your ability to be a student-athlete.

Yeah, somebody should pull Herm aside and let him know that’s not really how it works in college. You just can’t cut guys on scholarship because they’re hurt or not playing well. I mean, sure, you could boot them from the team, but you can’t just stop paying what’s covered under their scholarship. Those are contracts that are enforced. Players generally need to do something really bad, like get charged with a felony, in order to get shown the door. I know this because I’ve worked in college sports and grew up in the sports world.

Also, this is going to kill him in recruiting. He’s essentially telling recruits that they’re never safe. That works well in the NFL, and it should work in the NFL. That is a terrible idea for college. Recruits will be running towards any other program. I just can’t wrap my head around how stupid this was for Edwards to say. What was he thinking?

The school and NCAA almost certainly won’t allow this anyways, and he’s killing his recruiting ability. I knew there was a high possibility that Edwards would fail at ASU. I just didn’t expect it would be in such a spectacular fashion before we even wrapped up spring ball.

Follow David on Twitter