college football under quarantine

interesting implications of a possible new normal:

https://www.theringer.com/2020/8/3/21349611/season-schedule-power-five-conferences-college-football-playoff

But college football is a lot of things, and a season exclusively for the Power Five is few of them. It’s clear that the Power Five teams have needs and goals that differ from everybody else’s. By playing games solely against each other, they will maximize both fan interest and profit. Maybe the Power Five schools will realize this arrangement is financially beneficial even in non-pandemic circumstances. But a few dozen teams with similar needs and goals making decisions that benefit each other isn’t college football. It’s a professional sports league. And professional sports leagues have to pay and provide fair treatment to their players. This feels like a lasting split, and the more bonds the College Football programs sever with the college football programs, the harder it will be for them to pretend they still have anything in common with the distant relatives they’re leaving behind.

None of this is a secret. The fact that NCAA Division I football is essentially a semi-pro league feeding the NFL and that everyone is profiting from it but the players has been evident for decades. It is rarely acknowledged by the sports media because it is so ugly and they profit from it as much as anyone else. The players seldom complain because they are so vulnerable to reprisals. Most of them are seen as easily replaceable parts and 'troublemakers' swiftly get the boot.

The players do profit if they are on scholarship (and manage to stay on scholarship) and D1 football and basketball "student athletes" also enjoy elite status and other fringe benefits compared to other students.

But the system is absolutely semi-pro at best and at worst, big school college athletics operates (via the NCAA and the major conferences) as a monopoly with ruthless corporate vision. Everyone in the system gets a career out of it except the players, where something like less than 1% get drafted to the NFL and an even smaller number will play more than three years in the pros.

That said, I suspect that the vast majority of athletes at all levels love their experience in college sports even though they realize they are but actors in a circus. They know that they aren't getting their fair share but they are kept just happy enough by the experience that they still participate.

The idea that a scholarship athlete necessarily benefits from their time in a university is spotty at best. Scholarship athletes are chosen for their athletic prowess, not their academic ability, which may be minimal or even wholly inadequate. Graduation rates have been notoriously very poor among scholarship athletes in the two big money-making sports at "power five" universities, where scholarship athletes are routinely expected to prioritize their sport over all other activities and those who struggle academically are tutored just enough to maintain the lowest standard of required achievement to keep them playing. The NCAA pretends to address this, but their first priority remains keeping athletes playing; learning still takes a back seat, despite gestures designed to quiet criticism.

I will say that scholarship athletes are generally well fed at the training table free of charge, so there's one real benefit they can count on, even if they never earn their degree.

What is a notoriously poor rate to you, Aimless? Just curious.

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/graduation-rates
or this
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1731218-college-football-schools-with-the-best-and-worst-graduation-rates

Mens' college basketball also makes a lot of money but the number of scholarship athletes is way lower. But the grad rates are very good at the elite programs.

Also, as you probably know, it's hard to use graduation rates as a measuring stick given the percentage of students at, say, LSU who graduate. Hint: at LSU (and most schools), the official graduation rate for students overall is lower than the football teams. But that's partially because the non-students have a higher attrition rate.

I would also add that an enormous benefit for scholarship "student athletes" and "student athletes" in general is that their entrance requirements are, as you note, at much lower academic standards. So, a person can go to, say, the University of North Carolina on a football scholarship and have much lower admissions standards. Assuming that they graduate, which 75%+ of UNC football players due, that's pretty awesome. And as you note, they get really nice living facilities, their own dining hall, have amazing tutoring options, and get to travel the country.

There is a large number of student athletes who honestly cannot afford to go to college even if they have a "full ride". These kids don't have time for jobs during the off season, and there really is no off season. These kids often live far from home and literally have no way to get to and from college. They don't have idle spending money. There are many issues that are worthy of withering criticism and you and I agree (!) that the NCAA doesn't address this with much honesty.

Supporting college athletics even as a fan seems morally dubious I guess.

no return of the mac(k)

big 10 cancels season

holy shit

trump's fucked

the ACC is saying they'll go ahead no matter what

pac 12 is canceling, big 12 is on the fence

at least we still have idaho high school football

I told my wife as fall prepares to start “if I die of COVID (and I doubt I will) at least my sons will know I stood up for doing what is right and going to work & educating and molding young people rather than hiding” she responded “agreed “ ❗️❗️💪💪💪

— Coach Hargitt (@coachhargitt) August 10, 2020

sad about my problematic fave getting canceled :(

BREAKING: The Big Ten presidents have voted to postpone the 2020 college football season with hopes of playing in the spring, per sources.

— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) August 11, 2020

more like the small zero

smoll

sm0ll

if this swings Michigan and Wisconsin for Biden then it'll be the best thing the Big Ten has produced since Charles Woodson.

what a win for the democrats(?)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EfJo3OrXgAIICG2?format=jpg&name=small

college football coaches are the worst people in america (#34985859340293849494 in a series)

Lou Holtz tells Fox News that college football needs to play amid coronavirus pandemic this fall: "Let's move on with our life! When they stormed Normandy, they knew there were going to be casualties -- there were going to be risks." pic.twitter.com/zZZ5qrFRFb

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) August 11, 2020

tbf this is the kind of shit that got him fired.

There's going to be a lot of unmolded young men out there!

lou is freaking deranged lol

Georgia State QB announces he has a heart condition from COVID 19 and won’t play this year https://t.co/aH4CawZdsi

— trey wingo (@wingoz) August 20, 2020

BREAKING: #PennState's director of athletic medicine, Wayne Sebastianelli, says that cardiac MRI scans revealed that roughly 30-35 percent of Big Ten athletes who tested positive for COVID-19 appeared to have myocarditis. https://t.co/md4p1IoaLh

— Parth Upadhyaya (@pupadhyaya_) September 3, 2020

oh

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EiDe5zeXkAQPJ01?format=jpg&name=small

cool they can also check for CTE posthumously, this sounds super humane

Guys. GUYS. I found the Michael Scott of college football. pic.twitter.com/NdEvpYFlkg

— Laura Albanese (@AlbaneseLaura) September 16, 2020

i don't *really* care about college football, but i definitely appreciate Oklahoma and LSU being beaten at home

hate this guy

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney: 'On board' with Black Lives Matter messages, but not politics

^ A man torn between his need to recruit Black players and his need to soothe the multi-millionaire alumni who bankroll his program.

"i mean i'm okay with black people scoring touchdowns, that's gotta count for something"

xp apparently this all started because a 'law enforcement officer' called into dabo's radio show and asked him if he supported 'these people'

anyway he's old school, grew up in alabama, can't be expected to let the coloreds mess up the uniforms or make money or be 'political'

totally understandable racist behavior, who could blame him except everyone

SABAN HAS THE RONA

:-0

hope he's ok, but the SEC's covid attitude has been sickening, and the league deserves a dose of reality

LSU/Florida has been postponed until Dec. 12

hopefully Alabama's AD recruited another, younger 5-star coach that is ready to take saban's place, and saban will never get another opportunity as he watches his dream slip away, hobbled on the sideline.

cold but fair

UK won at Tennessee for the first time since like 1986 and biggest win by points since like 1932 today.

Kentucky has some more O-linemen that will be playing in the NFL soon.

Alabama will definitely not let Saban transfer without setting out a year.

Saban's test was apparently a false positive. He's had three negative tests since and we be on the sideline tonight. Cool.

He released a statement, "Don't be afraid of covid."

everyone who goes into remission should blab to the world “don’t be afraid of cancer!”

aaaaand trevor lawrence has covid

btw wtf nebraska

'we're not allowed to catch covid from wisconsin, so please let us catch it from chattanooga'

Indiana whupped the Wolverines today. Michigan looked slow. Harbaugh might be joining you know who in looking for a new job in January.

Good day all around.

Indiana's Michael Penix Jr. should start getting some talk as a big QB to watch and like many lefty QBs he's kind of fun to watch. Big thing with him is just not getting hurt again.

https://wgntv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/11/GettyImages-1284436894.jpg?w=1280&h=720&crop=1

they shouldn't be playing, but at least it's resulted in michigan and penn state getting fucking smoked

They got Michigan State now too...knock wood they can complete the set by beating the Buckeyes next week.

It would figure that IU would have their season of the century in the middle of a plague.

Taking a shot for Larry Munson

was wild to see Bama with that all too familiar exposed secondary look

Alabama's 5th corner is a 5* recruit

well, he was a 3 star junior college transfer. in any event, it’s still guys who don’t normally play. they got him on the PI where he tackled UGA’s receiver and then got the other guy (also a back up) on a PI on the final TD drive. georgia made plays down the stretch so hats off to them but bama was also grievously injured at CB and WR

Ah, I thought you were referring to McKinstry. Agree bama had very bad luck with injuries in this go, even in the game.

not a bad off year for the crimson tide, all said

HBTFD, y'all

UGA/Bama drama will continue long after I'm gone, but at least I won't have to listen to any more can-Kirby-beat-Bama stories

the best part is that now people in Athens can stop talking about 1980, Vince Dooley, and Herschel fucking Walker

congrats, man. nothing better than your college team winning the football championship...i bet

yes, congrats! I'm happy that a new southern school won this year.

thank you

my sentiments about my alma mater and NCAA football in general are much more ambivalent than they used to be, but today I'm enjoying the shared buzz with a lot of family, friends, and former co-workers

Likewise Brad. I used to be a pretty diehard Dawg fan but I barely followed them this season. I did enjoy the game though

Winning a championship is an amazingly difficult accomplishment and you hafta recognize it as such. But it all happens in a haze of big money, frenzied fans, crafty exploitation of young people's dreams, and a brutal cost in lifelong physical injuries, so your ambivalence is plenty justified, too.

hey, Texas A&M haven't even won their championship yet

love to see dudes named jimbo and dabo hold forth on amateur sports

lol @ UCLA and USC joining the *big ten*

sad that neither was good enough to join the SEC; maybe they can beat up on nebraska in the meantime

at this point we might as well skip ahead to almost all of the SEC (not you, vandy) + some of the larger B1G teams (OSU, PSU, UMich, WIS, do we even care about MSU or Iowa or ILL?) + Clemson and maybe UNC and conceivably Miami and FSU for old time's sake + Nike/Oregon = superleague

let's throw in colorado with the caveat that once a season someone gets five downs in their game

So how long until the Big Ten and the SEC put themselves as "D1" football and take over and do their own championship?

Rutgers and UCLA in the big 10, that's so weird.

Got to wonder how long until North Carolina jumps in one of these super conferences. They are a big Nike school, not really a football power but a college sports power in basketball. Maybe them and Oregon both and I almost think so because of the corporate ties.

The basketball schools are a bit screwed, although I think what works in bball will keep on working with the tournament etc., but the NCAA will own that and the rest of the stuff. It sure looks like the football schools are going to take their ball and turn it into their own business.

seems like the plan is to eventually have two super conferences, one “big ten” and one “sec” (might as well just say north vs south lol)

it’s a professional model, so please pay the players

There has already been some speculation that the right player (say like a Reggie Bush type) that was so popular, 'might' find it more profitable with the NFL rookie cap to go ahead and play another season as the imaging and likeness money could be worth that much.

i don't think a top 5 or 10 pick a la reggie bush would forego the guaranteed ~$30 million they would get over multiple years from the NFL for one year of NIL money. i think you're more likely to see it happen more w/ guys who are great college players -- particularly QBs -- who aren't projected to be first or second round picks bcuz then the money would be more likely to be even, but they'd still need to be at a school that could funnel multiple millions for one year. it's probably a really small group when you think about it... it's not like UGA's NIL donors or whatever were lining up to keep stetson bennett out of the draft. even if a guy like reggie bush could get $10 million for one year of college ball i'm not sure the reward would offset the risk of a severe injury that impacts future income

tim tebow: NIL pioneer

yeah exactly, tho he did get picked in the first round anyway lol. but it might have been enough of a question that he would've taken a crazy bag to play at florida one more year

I wonder if in a collegiate super league players would still only have 4/5 years of eligibility. I could see a middling corner or tight end going on the slow plan just to hang around for 8 years.

But who am I kidding? In a super league, very few middling players will ever see the field.

Rumors are SEC goes to 20 teams adding Florida State, North Carolina, Clemson & the U.

Virginia will go to the big 10. I bet they go after Oregon.

Louisville is a curious one...I kinda think there is $$$ in both leagues to say no way to those guys that and they had all the scandals, but you got to think that old oil money is trying to buy Baylor into the SEC.

UF has been blocking FSU for decades any time the subject comes up. Wonder if they'll relent when all that new money starts floating around.

i don't really care about college football reinventing/wrecking itself -- as ever, the biggest fishes will rule

seeing basketball programs dragged into it -- which they totally deserve, as they're no better, if much less lucrative -- is intriguing tho

big east otm

It seems like this will totally fxck up the rest of collegiate sports, although in some sports teams playing in different conferences. While I am sure it would be a season highlight for say the Maryland volleyball team to do a trip to LA to play USC or UCLA, I got to think for most sports - this would be crazy expensive.

UK plays men's soccer in Conference USA as the rest of the SEC, only South Carolina has a D1 squad. The rest just play it at a club level.

appalachian state scored seven touchdowns in the fourth quarter today but lost, 63-61, when their two-point conversion failed with nine seconds left

yikes oregon

lol The Brians lost their ACC opener. The SEC is tough.

THUNDERING HERD

they herd me good

A&M and Wiscy in here

good news is no more quality win for ohio st

i guess jimbo was right, his recruiting practices aren't unfair

he proved it in the lab!

Nebraska: Frost’s hot seat is hotter than ever. His contract buyout drops from $15 million to $7.5 million on Oct. 1.

he's 16-31 and they're gonna give him $7.5m to go away

ffs they couldn't even wait three weeks! so now they're giving him $15m to go away

frosty out there

So much for Texas A&M challenging Bama - A State got another skull for the trophy case.

ND's loss was pretty sad too.

Got to give UK some credit after the long snapper threw the ball into the endzone for a safety, they pulled it together and Florida could not do a single thing on offense for the rest of the game.

Did not make much news outside here, but Eastern KY and Morehead State played a 7 OT game yesterday. EKU's coach had a heart attack a few weeks ago, I hope he is ok after yesterday.

As for the Cornhuskers - GET OVER IT...IT IS DONE - it's been 20 years at least since anyone thought of Nebraska as a football power.

It's like Indiana in college basketball, it's OVER.

IU basketball has not had the same sharp decline imo. They still get some cruits.

i was shocked to see how far Nebraska had fallen (being only casually familiar with college football). still remember how deadly they were in the 90s.

mega lols that former UCF coach flamed out

gutsy performance by the irishes

Don’t think I’ve ever seen a Hail Mary like this

AS CALLED BY @AdamBWitten AND HEARD ON THE @varsity APP: pic.twitter.com/QztnYi7T8k

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) September 17, 2022

Amazing. Everyone called the app state letdown game but they pulled it out.

Marshall going through its own rn

xp to mookie, I hope we got over the hump with that first Freeman win. We were gifted a strange offsides call on a FG we missed. Felt like we were cursed when that INT got waived by the (correct) targeting call.