2014 College Football Thread

[Texasmade]

My issues with the NCAA.

1. Scholarships are renewed on a year to year basis so if the kids don't perform on the field, coaches can cut them. This provides a disincentive for the kids to get a degree in a real major and forces them to get a degree in something worthless (see UNC and the whole AFAM fiasco). This makes the education aspect worthless for a decent portion of D1A football and male basketball players.
2. If a kid get's seriously injured while playing, the school doesn't have to pay the medical bills. I don't have stats to back up my claim but I'm guessing this happens mainly to football players who get paralyzed. The school covers a portion but then the family is forced to cover the rest out of pocket for the rest of the kid's life. I want to say there was a court case covering this back in the 1980's or early 1990's with TCU but not 100% sure in which the courts said because the student wasn't an employee of the school, the school was not responsible to pay for the kid's medical bills after he got paralyzed while playing.
3. The NCAA prevents the kids from making money off their own name and likeness. If Johnny Football wants to sign autographs for money or Terrelle Pryor wants to trade championship rings for tattoos, who cares. Jay Bilas already pointed out the stupidity of this when JFF was caught signing autographs for money allegedly but then the NCAA was selling jerseys, pictures, etc of JFF.

 

[SixOhNine]

The issue I have with this argument is that a vast majority of players are not going to end up in the NFL or NBA. I would think that a lot of kids who have no hope of getting drafted would much rather get a degree which is of some value than languish in some minor league and wash out with nothing. Another problem is that profitable football programs often subsidize other athletic activities on campus, nearly all of which are money losers. Make football less profitable and you may kill a lot of other college athletic programs which give kids a chance to obtain an education they might not otherwise be able to afford (yes, I know there are loans, blah, blah, blah...).

In college football's defense, they also make kids wait 3 years before being able to go into the NFL and give them an opportunity to get some semblance of an education. The whole one and done thing in college basketball is a much bigger farce.

First of all, plus ******* one to all the excellent points that Texasmade gave in his post.

1) True, most players won't go professional. That actually makes things worse. The NCAA screws kids equally, whether they're future Hall of Famers or the slowest dude on the cross country team. The idea that they should take the opportunity to get a degree and be happy for it overlooks the myriad ways in which players are treated unethically. If you get a scholarship for dance, (another athletic, rather than academic, pursuit) you can get a part time job for spending money. You can transfer schools without being penalized a full year of participation in your chosen activity. Both of those are ways in which the NCAA ties down its free labor pool to keep the profits steady.

2) Yes, profitable programs subsidize other sports. However, aside from the top 5-10 biggest earners, football and, to a lesser extent, basketball are not profitable. The funds dumped into the program for state of the art facilities, travel budgets, ancillary costs and massive salaries for coaches outstrip the money that the programs bring in. It could easily be argued that killing the current system of big time college sports would actually be financially better for most schools.

3) And making kids wait 3 years before declaring for the NFL draft is exactly the type of hypocrisy that makes the NCAA so horrible. If three years of "education" were so important, it should be required for all players, not just football players. But they aren't getting an education in those 3 years. They're only being held back to improve the university's ROI. The NCAA loves to talk a big game about its so called student-athletes, but the fact is that the organization creates and enforces rules based on whatever it can do to maintain its free labor pool. The NFL doesn't want to build a minor league system when the NCAA serves that function so well, so it agreed not to draft anyone in their first 3 years of college. The NBA doesn't need their labor pool to go through as much formal training, so they didn't agree to that ludicrous demand. Thus, the double standard.

Finally, so what if the big time, big money college football and basketball entertainment empire disappears? For hundreds of colleges across the country, it doesn't exist anyway, and yet they still continue to function just fine. They even have intercollegiate sports. Hell, because the players know they won't be going pro, they actually go to class and try to graduate. Isn't that why kids are supposed to go to college?

 

[edinatlanta]

Let's also not forget that in addition to being only applicable to private universities, there's still actually nothing concrete that players can do and there's potentially a decade or more of appeals and litigation ahead. So it's a potential major step but its still only a first step on a long road.

 

[archibaldleach]



Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

My issues with the NCAA.

1. Scholarships are renewed on a year to year basis so if the kids don't perform on the field, coaches can cut them. This provides a disincentive for the kids to get a degree in a real major and forces them to get a degree in something worthless (see UNC and the whole AFAM fiasco). This makes the education aspect worthless for a decent portion of D1A football and male basketball players.
2. If a kid get's seriously injured while playing, the school doesn't have to pay the medical bills. I don't have stats to back up my claim but I'm guessing this happens mainly to football players who get paralyzed. The school covers a portion but then the family is forced to cover the rest out of pocket for the rest of the kid's life. I want to say there was a court case covering this back in the 1980's or early 1990's with TCU but not 100% sure in which the courts said because the student wasn't an employee of the school, the school was not responsible to pay for the kid's medical bills after he got paralyzed while playing.
3. The NCAA prevents the kids from making money off their own name and likeness. If Johnny Football wants to sign autographs for money or Terrelle Pryor wants to trade championship rings for tattoos, who cares. Jay Bilas already pointed out the stupidity of this when JFF was caught signing autographs for money allegedly but then the NCAA was selling jerseys, pictures, etc of JFF.

I think 2 and 3 are fair points. I am not so sure about 1. If I get an academic scholarship to a school that requires me to obtain a certain GPA and fail to do so, the school would be entirely within its right to cut my scholarship for subsequent years. If you are getting a scholarship to perform on the football field and fail to do so, the school is equally in its right to cut the scholarship. I do think there are some ethical issues with how this is done, especially with some schools oversigning recruits and the like, but on the surface this seems perfectly fair. Of course, if you do get cut I think you should be able to transfer to another school immediately without having to wait a year (assuming this is not the case now).

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

First of all, plus ******* one to all the excellent points that Texasmade gave in his post.

1) True, most players won't go professional.  That actually makes things worse.  The NCAA screws kids equally, whether they're future Hall of Famers or the slowest dude on the cross country team.  The idea that they should take the opportunity to get a degree and be happy for it overlooks the myriad ways in which players are treated unethically.  If you get a scholarship for dance, (another athletic, rather than academic, pursuit) you can get a part time job for spending money.  You can transfer schools without being penalized a full year of participation in your chosen activity.  Both of those are ways in which the NCAA ties down its free labor pool to keep the profits steady.

2) Yes, profitable programs subsidize other sports.  However, aside from the top 5-10 biggest earners, football and, to a lesser extent, basketball are not profitable.  The funds dumped into the program for state of the art facilities, travel budgets, ancillary costs and massive salaries for coaches outstrip the money that the programs bring in.  It could easily be argued that killing the current system of big time college sports would actually be financially better for most schools.

3) And making kids wait 3 years before declaring for the NFL draft is exactly the type of hypocrisy that makes the NCAA so horrible.  If three years of "education" were so important, it should be required for all players, not just football players.  But they aren't getting an education in those 3 years.  They're only being held back to improve the university's ROI.  The NCAA loves to talk a big game about its so called student-athletes, but the fact is that the organization creates and enforces rules based on whatever it can do to maintain its free labor pool.  The NFL doesn't want to build a minor league system when the NCAA serves that function so well, so it agreed not to draft anyone in their first 3 years of college.  The NBA doesn't need their labor pool to go through as much formal training, so they didn't agree to that ludicrous demand.  Thus, the double standard.

Finally, so what if the big time, big money college football and basketball entertainment empire disappears?  For hundreds of colleges across the country, it doesn't exist anyway, and yet they still continue to function just fine.  They even have intercollegiate sports.  Hell, because the players know they won't be going pro, they actually go to class and try to graduate.  Isn't that why kids are supposed to go to college?

1. I think it is one thing to criticize the NCAA, something that can quite fairly be done, and quite another thing to claim that minor leagues are a better solution. If most people do not get drafted, I do not see how they are better of languishing in some minor league before washing out rather than getting a degree. I did not say that there are no issues with how the NCAA does things; I simply took issue with the idea that minor leagues are a better solution.

2. I don't think that profitable football programs are that rare, especially when one factors in all of the donations that are motivated by college sports and television revenues and royalties that schools share in.

3. Making kids wait 3 years before declaring for the NFL is IMO a very good thing. Average NFL careers are short, so spending a bit of extra time in school is wise. I agree that some kids don't get a real education, though some of them probably have no business being at their respective colleges, but plenty of kids do. I am pretty sure there are a lot of kids who receive athletic scholarships that are pretty darn happy they have them. There are also plenty of college athletes who do go to class and graduate, even from major football and basketball programs. I think the insinuation to the contrary (I read your statement in the end about people knowing they won't go pro "actually" going to class and graduating as implying others who may have potential to go pro or play for schools where there is this potential do not) is unfair to college athletes.

4. A significant number of alumni from schools with meaningful athletic traditions would disagree with your "so what" attitude towards the disappearance of college football and basketball. Athletics are embedded in a lot of school cultures and cutting this out would be very painful and controversial. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done, but I don't think it's right to be so blasé about the whole thing.

 

[Texasmade]



I think 2 and 3 are fair points. I am not so sure about 1. If I get an academic scholarship to a school that requires me to obtain a certain GPA and fail to do so, the school would be entirely within its right to cut my scholarship for subsequent years. If you are getting a scholarship to perform on the football field and fail to do so, the school is equally in its right to cut the scholarship. I do think there are some ethical issues with how this is done, especially with some schools oversigning recruits and the like, but on the surface this seems perfectly fair. Of course, if you do get cut I think you should be able to transfer to another school immediately without having to wait a year (assuming this is not the case now).

But the players are there to be students first (supposedly according to the NCAA) and the the main argument everyone has against paying the athletes is that they get a top notch education. Over the years this has become a complete farce as the pressure to win on coaches has become greater with the increased revenue and salaries. Coaches pressure the kids to first workout, watch film, practice and then second go to class, study, do homework. When their scholarship is on the line do you think the players are going to listen to the coaches are go study?

Go look at the rosters of D1A football players and look at the majors the players selected. Probably at least half of them have majors that won't be useful at all once they graduate.

 

[archibaldleach]



But the players are there to be students first (supposedly according to the NCAA) and the the main argument everyone has against paying the athletes is that they get a top notch education. Over the years this has become a complete farce as the pressure to win on coaches has become greater with the increased revenue and salaries. Coaches pressure the kids to first workout, watch film, practice and then second go to class, study, do homework. When their scholarship is on the line do you think the players are going to listen to the coaches are go study?

Go look at the rosters of D1A football players and look at the majors the players selected. Probably at least half of them have majors that won't be useful at all once they graduate.

I agree that the whole student first thing is pretty tough with the competitive nature of college football and basketball and hours spent practicing, working out, watching film, etc., though some schools are pretty good about making sure their athletes go to class. With respect to paying athletes, I'm actually okay with this within reason (it needs to be an amount that is not going to cause a lot of lower ranked FBS schools to cancel their football programs) because there is no way for a college football or basketball player to work part-time in addition to athletics and academics. The scholarship is definitely something of value. So is the housing and food given to athletes. I don't see an issue with adding a small stipend for football and basketball, but would limit it to these two sports.

Your second point is fair, but I'd argue that at least half of college students generally speaking graduate with useless majors and no meaningful education. It may be a bit more pronounced for football players due to time constraints, but it's hardly unique to them.

 

[edinatlanta]

 

[Kid Nickels]

Jon Stewart's take on the recent NCAA developments. Amusing and worth a watch.


[VIDEO]http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/bwjj0i/sports-disparity[/VIDEO]



[VIDEO]http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/dmqmzy/sports-disparity---a-hero-s-salute[/VIDEO]

 

[nerdykarim]

Apparently 117 people attended Georgia Tech's spring game this year.

http://bloguin.com/crystalballrun/2014-articles/117-fans-attended-georgia-techs-spring-game.html

 

[MrG]

Hey, cut them some slack. Getting every single female on campus to show up at a cold, rainy athletic event is no small feat!

 

[edinatlanta]

One of the GSU football players has a Gators sticker on the back of his car

 

[edinatlanta]

Uhoh FL redneck. Let's see your boy mussel his way out of crab gate

 

[edinatlanta]



Don't have a great feeling. In two years we'll be greatm not so sure about this year.

 

[Bhowie]

@edinatlanta

@FLMountainMan

 

[Ambulance Chaser]

So dumb. Is there no all-you-can-eat Red Lobster buffet in Tallahassee?