[ColoradoTree]

Looking for the silver lining of Demetris signing a financial aid agreement with C.al: 

* Folks in Berkeley finally have to come to grips with the fact that C.al admissions standards for football players are far looser than Stanford's.  We now have a high-profile example of why their arguments to the contrary are, and have always been, rubbish.

* Given the relative dearth of talent around him at C.al, he'll be less likely to beat us over the next 3-4 years than he would be if he went to N.otre Dame. 

* C.al has to swallow the fact that they very clearly are a backup option to Stanford here.  I'm sure they'll come to grips with it, but for some folks, that has to stick in their craw.  (Give the Berkeley spin machine a few years to work, however, and they'll have convinced themselves that Demetris favored C.al all along and it--not Stanford--was always his dream school.)

Setting that aside for a moment, though, he'll have the opportunity to get a better education at C.al than he would at any of his other non-Stanford options (though if he's an engineering-minded kid, and I have no idea about his academic interests, Georgia Tech would certainly quibble with that).  Whether he ultimately gets that education is up to him, given that program's academic history in the Tedford and Dykes eras.  While it's never a happy day when C.al lands a great football recruit, the fact that Demetris is eschewing the SEC for C.al shows that he clearly values academics first.  If this ends up sticking--and it need not, since it's not binding on him until he enrolls--then congratulations to him for making a decision that not many of his fellow 5-star recruits would have made.  Whether he ultimately gets into Stanford or not, our collective admiration for his effort and academic focus was apparently warranted. 

[ColoradoTree]

Looking for the silver lining of Demetris signing a financial aid agreement with C.al: 

* Folks in Berkeley finally have to come to grips with the fact that C.al admissions standards for football players are far looser than Stanford's.  We now have a high-profile example of why their arguments to the contrary are, and have always been, rubbish.

* Given the relative dearth of talent around him at C.al, he'll be less likely to beat us over the next 3-4 years than he would be if he went to N.otre Dame. 

* C.al has to swallow the fact that they very clearly are a backup option to Stanford here.  I'm sure they'll come to grips with it, but for some folks, that has to stick in their craw.  (Give the Berkeley spin machine a few years to work, however, and they'll have convinced themselves that Demetris favored C.al all along and it--not Stanford--was always his dream school.)

Setting that aside for a moment, though, he'll have the opportunity to get a better education at C.al than he would at any of his other non-Stanford options (though if he's an engineering-minded kid, and I have no idea about his academic interests, Georgia Tech would certainly quibble with that).  Whether he ultimately gets that education is up to him, given that program's academic history in the Tedford and Dykes eras.  While it's never a happy day when C.al lands a great football recruit, the fact that Demetris is eschewing the SEC for C.al shows that he clearly values academics first.  If this ends up sticking--and it need not, since it's not binding on him until he enrolls--then congratulations to him for making a decision that not many of his fellow 5-star recruits would have made.  Whether he ultimately gets into Stanford or not, our collective admiration for his effort and academic focus was apparently warranted.