Let all the Bulldog faithful rally behind the men who now wear the red and black with two words, two simple words which express the sentiments of the entire Bulldog Nation: Auburn Sucks.
Let’s be clear…Cignetti has won one game against a Top 10 opponent and just became the third highest paid coach in college football, just below Ryan Day and a step above Lincoln Riley.
First, I don’t see how Indiana has the money to post this salary for him. Second, it feels like “we know you’re not going to be here forever and will likely leave for greener pa$ture$, so let’s thank you for making Indiana relevant by getting you paid wherever you go next”.
We have a lot of problems to solve as a country, but the President has decided to wade into the NIL mess created by the NCAA, its membership, the jackass-in-chief Mark Emmert, and the antitrust plaintiff’s bar with an executive order called “Saving College Sports.” I’m not going to get into the constitutional law of this order or the politics of this, and this is not the space to debate either of those topics … Derek can take that up on Wednesday if he so desires.
After reading the order, here are a couple of items I thought were interesting:
Overall, did the NCAA’s attorneys write Section 1 of the order?
The rationale for the order is all wrapped up in the NCAA’s past arguments for maintaining the façade of amateurism and current arguments for some kind of antitrust exemption. Olympic sports, academics, state laws, system where schools can buy the best players, and women’s sports are all arguments of the NCAA for intervention.
“It is common sense that college sports are not, and should not be, professional sports …”
We all need to face that college football and men’s basketball especially in the Power 4 conferences are now professional sports. The college sports industry made all of the decisions since NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma and the University of Georgia in the interest of generating more money over time.
The bag men plus the facilities arms race show that college athletes have a market value. Church steeples, Trans Ams, McDonald’s bags, and $100 post-game handshakes were the underground labor market while $10,000 massage chairs, miniature golf courses and other perks in athletic buildings showed how player compensation was hung up on the balance sheets of these associations. Eventually, that market value led to the O’Bannon decision on the EA Sports NCAA game franchise where the NCAA hid behind the fig leaf of jersey numbers while the demographics just happened to match the individual players represented leading to the total cost of attendance (TCOAS) scholarship. Of course, additional litigation has essentially blown up the guardrails of the TCOAS into pay-for-play thinly veiled as NIL.
The bottom line is that as the money in these 2 sports exploded, those participating were being left behind.
“… [I]t is the policy of the executive branch that third-party, pay-for-play payments to collegiate athletes are improper … This policy does not apply to compensation provided to an athlete for the fair market value that the athlete provides to a third party.”
The executive branch appears to be lining up behind the House settlement on this topic. Payments made by NIL collectives? Bad. Payments made similar to the Olympic model? Good. I admit I’m on the side of the Olympic model, but that doesn’t mean I agree with this mechanism.
I’m sure Jeffrey Kessler and his firm are already lining up to go after the order for injunctive relief. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt on their motivation … therefore, I lean that Kessler wants the best for the members of his class. I also am cynical about actions like this based on my day job. If there wasn’t a pot of money at the end of the rainbow for his firm, his firm probably wouldn’t be interested.
Is Section 4 an attempt at an antitrust exemption by fiat?
What does “unreasonably challenged” mean? I don’t think any of the NIL litigation to this point has been unreasonable. I also don’t think anyone wants the “rights and interests of student-athletes” harmed and the “long-term availability of collegiate athletic scholarships and opportunties” reduced.
I’m not sure the Attorney General and the Chair of the FTC can do a damn thing if NIL makes a school decide to shed sports.
“Protecting Development of the United States Olympic Team”
What sports at this point purely depend on amateurs generally and college athletes specifically for participation in the Olympics?
Tackle football isn’t an Olympic sport yet. Basketball? That ship sailed a long time ago with the 1992 Dream Team on the men’s side and soon thereafter with women. Swimming? Katie Ledecky famously left the Stanford swim team while remaining in school to pursue endorsements while also swimming professionally, and Michael Phelps never put on the maize and blue while attending Michigan to train with his long-time coach. Gymnastics? Many of the women are past their prime at college age, and the GOAT never wore a college leotard. Hockey? The Miracle on Ice was a long time ago, and the Olympics are now the NHL all stars playing for country. Track and field? Most of the US athletes are professionals now across the board even though they were collegiate athletes at one time.
Summary
Is this order like Texas football … all hat, no cattle?
It would seem so because there is no real policy, and any policy is likely to go down in flames under judicial oversight.
Is this order telling Congress what framework the President is willing to sign in a bill like the SCORE Act?
In my opinion, winner, winner, chicken dinner. He is telling the 535 members of Congress he is willing to sign a bill that reforms some of the problems of college sports while maintaining that student-athletes are not employees with collective bargaining rights.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments. Keep it civil and out of the political realm. If you want to do that, take it to the Playpen.
All of us around these parts know one thing, and one thing only, rings true among the GTPR faithful: Auburn Sucks.
While it was with a devious delight to watch Auburn struggle last year, and the year before, and the year before that…well, you know what I mean, it’s even more of a delight to see that their blue blood donors have gotten them exactly the man they wanted at the helm of the football program on the Plains. Seems as though he can’t recall that Kirby Smart was competing for a National Championship in his second year at Georgia, and now, Freeze can’t seem to recall that Auburn hasn’t exactly been lacking in talent, either.
“Look I inherited a program that didn’t have a top 25 recruiting class for 4 years”
“We’ve got to go to a bowl game?” To the west, Ole Miss is using the portal to create instant relevancy, to the South, Florida State did it (once), and your main rival is beating themselves in the head because they want to get back to winning National Championships, and your criteria for success is “getting to a bowl game”. It’s not like Auburn lacked talent everywhere…they had all the tools to be moderately good but couldn’t quit turning the ball over in 2024 to get out of their own way.
My guess is the powers that be will give Freeze another year on the Plains, then they’ll be looking for the next successor that will lead the Tigers back to glory. Some are rumoring that it’ll be DJ Durkin, but this is Auburn we’re talking about, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they went with another candidate.
Anywhere that Bruce Pearl can find work, you have to believe it’s always a possibility.
There’s a lathered sorrel stallion running through the Joshua trees and a young man in the saddle with his coat tails in the breeze. He’s got a six gun on his right hip and a rifle at his knees and he’s dealing in a game that he can’t win.
And some folks were aware that everyone was doing it, but they were either too stupid or too arrogant to think they needed to change things up to avoid it.
Connor Stalions says that Ohio State used the same signaler all season in 2022 and only changed it at halftime of The Game 🤯
Don’t think it worked as Michigan outscored Ohio State 28-3 in the second half pic.twitter.com/09nh5tOxEF
And don’t think it was confined to just the most upright and righteous of the B1G, apparently it was happening in the south somewhere, too:
Connor Stalions doubles down on comments he made that there’s a school that has had bluetooth connection to the QB’s helmet for years before it was legal.
I thought he might’ve been talking about FSU, but they would’ve been better off pumping self-help audio books into their quarterback’s helmet.
Kind of sort of confirms that Stalions might’ve had a hand in Beamer’s biggest signature win with the upset against Tennessee and Clemson in 2022, huh? Lest we forget that Carolina lost to a 6-4 Florida by 30 points, then turned around and beat Tennessee by 25 a week later.
Well, well, well … Ross Dellenger at Yahoo Sports is reporting the Power 2 are flexing their muscle in the changes coming to the CFP in 2026 when the new media contract goes live. I don’t think there’s any doubt that the field is going to expand to 14 or 16. Where this becomes a more significant issue relates to the concept of automatic bids where the SEC and B1G will likely get 4 automatic bids annually. I would assume that means the ACC and Big 12 will likely get 2 automatic bids, and the Group of 5 gets 1 bid with 1 at-large (likely Notre Dame’s spot) in a 14-team bracket. Add 2 at-large selections or a 5th bid for the Power 2 conferences for a 16 team bracket. A couple of thoughts:
Making the regular season and championship weekend matter – I assume Greg Sankey did not like some of the remarks his coaches especially Lane Kiffin made later in the season about participation in the SECCG. The flip side of this is that some are considering whether the SEC and B1G may decide to give their top 2 regular season bids and name the team with the best regular season record as conference champion. The 3rd and 6th and 4th and 5th teams would play on that first weekend in December for the other 2 bids. ESPN and Fox paid a lot of money for the media rights to those games and don’t want to lose those games.
Playoff expansion may save the SEC rivalries and high-profile OOC games – With this move away from the committee selection of the field to automatic bids, the only reason not to add the 9th SEC game is whether the schools can’t get additional money from ESPN. There is no reason not to have all of the mainstay rivalries that make the SEC mean more as annual events. I’ll happily support the addition of 2 or 4 teams to the playoff in exchange for the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, the 3rd Saturday in October, the Magnolia Bowl, and Texas-Texas A&M among others as annual games.
As a result of this, it looks like the SEC and Big 10 are discussing a scheduling agreement that will be sold outside their existing media packages. That package would be a financial windfall for both leagues, and Georgia can keep the some of the current OOC games scheduled over the remainder of the decade in addition playing more Big 10 teams.
How are the bowls going to react to this – Will the NY6 continue to have a role in the CFP as the sites for the quarterfinals and semifinals, or will the appeal of playing college football on campus win out? I’m ambivalent to this. The $230 price tag for my seats in Sanford made me want to puke. That needs to be fixed.
Keep an eye out as SEC and B1G brass get together in New Orleans this week. A finalized playoff format for 2026 is likely necessary before these other things to sweeten the regular season, so the clock is ticking.
When I read this, I started thinking about this in the context of this past season and especially NIL strategy going forward.
We can safely say that the reason that the 2024 season didn’t finish the way we all hoped was our play in the trenches. With multiple starters along with more who played meaningful snaps in 2023 returning, I don’t think I was alone in believing that the offensive line was going to be a strength of the team. Injuries struck leading to some players playing more than expected. Inconsistency especially at tackle resulted in more pressure on QBs than we were used to seeing. Yet, 3 of our 5 starters are leaving with eligibility remaining (I believe Ratledge had a COVID year remaining for a 5th year). The guys who were expected to be the next NFL offensive tackle prospect really never emerged this season. On defense, we know the issue … we saw on full display in the Eagles/Commanders game yesterday. Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis are game plan wreckers at DT, and Nolan Smith creates havoc on the edge. No defensive lineman wearing red & black this year has come close to that level of play in the last 2 seasons. When Mykel Williams was healthy and interested, he was the only one really to come close. Jalon Walker did Nolan Smith kind of things on the edge in pass rush situations.
Bottom line – The Dawgs underachieved on both sides of the line of scrimmage this year. Inconsistency running the ball and defending the run are where those deficiencies showed up. As we showed this weekend, the first time in the Smart era:
You’re probably thinking, “Enough crying over spilled milk, ee. Let’s talk about going forward.” This part of the conversation isn’t about returning talent or expectations … that’s for another time. I’m coming around to the strategy for NIL should be focused on the lines of scrimmage. We certainly showed this year that pouring money into a returning starter at QB may not be the optimal strategy. The portal is not going to be filled with 5 star line of scrimmage players, so this is a recruiting and retention thing. Especially with defensive linemen, NIL is going to be front and center in their recruitment as shown by a DL forecasted to come to UGA and recruited for years made a “business decision” to go elsewhere to a program that barely recruited him until throwing a massive bag of NIL at the last moment. Offensive linemen isn’t so easy. I believe OL is the most difficult position to recruit because in most cases, the blue chip OL has only had to use his size and athleticism to dominate in high school. That player didn’t need to develop technique to go along with physical traits. You really can only throw massive NIL at an OL evaluated as a “can’t miss.” The portal is no way to go through life in the offensive line unless there is a player you recruited who originally decided to go elsewhere. In many cases, there’s a good reason that player is in the portal.
Bottom line – DL recruiting that we’ve been used to is expensive (I’m guessing we learned that lesson in 2024). OL recruiting is a crap shoot at best, and potential probably should outweigh performance. You have to dedicate your NIL budget to offensive linemen you want to retain.
I don’t think the solution to Georgia’s problems lies in making wholesale changes to the men wearing the headsets (your mileage may certainly vary – once again, this post isn’t about that). The solution is finding and developing the next Jordan Davis, Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, Travon Walker, Devonte Wyatt, Andrew Thomas, Sedrick Van Pran, Broderick Jones, Warren McClendon and Amarius Mims (just to name a few).
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
Good grief. I’m glad I don’t pay to read and comment on drivel like this.
I want to take this in so many directions. These people live among us. If you lurk here, feel free to defend your position.
The real question for the Refugees is where do you fall on this. I’ll tell you where I am.
Every player who stays 4 or 5 years walks out with a degree.
Every player who leaves for the NFL early has a plan to get that degree even if you end up on the Herschel plan.
You don’t need to be Terry Hoage to be a successful student-athlete. For those of you who may not know the full story on Hoage, he graduated with a degree in genetics (maybe as a first honor graduate), was an All-American (not just academic), finished 5th in the Heisman voting as a senior, had a 12 year NFL career and was one of the best safeties the school has ever put out. He now owns a vineyard in the California wine country. Said differently, he was a smarter Kirby.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
The greed of college administrators started this ball rolling down the hill. NIL and the collectives added fuel to accelerate it. The transfer portal and the NCAA’s decision to cave on the revised transfer rules have turned it into a high-speed snowball.
I hate this for college sports below the P4 level.
Marshall, App State, and Georgia Southern were three proud brands of Division 1-AA football back in the day. It was stupid for them to make the jump to FBS.
I would love to ask Erk if he believed the Eagles jumping to the Sun Belt from the SoCon was worth the money.
Diego Pavia has sued the NCAA under antitrust law (similar to all of the NIL lawsuits) to get additional college eligibility to make up for his 2 JUCO years. This has nothing to do with playing the sport or academic opportunity … it’s all about NIL.
Between the Mars lawsuit that removed all NCAA governance of transferring and this lawsuit that pretty much challenges the NCAA’s authority around eligibility, the stage could be set for what could be the ultimate lawsuit allowing anyone to play college football for an unlimited amount of time regardless of academic standing.
We have plenty of attorneys in our merry community of refugees. Please tell me if I’m reading this right or wrong.
