I don’t give a rat’s ass about the terms of the contract. If this goes through, college basketball no longer exists.
All of this can be traced back to the NCAA’s decision not to fight the temporary restraining order Diego Pavia got to maintain eligibility combined with the NCAA’s asinine decision to allow colleges to recruit international basketball players who were either professionals or semi-professionals. IF this happens, every NFL player who washes out with “eligibility” remaining is going to apply for reinstatement to return to college.
Do you want to watch former NFL players who couldn’t cut it back on a college gridiron near you? I can tell you I don’t, and if it happens in Athens, it’s probably the end of my love of college football.
Refugees, discuss.
AMEN, BROTHER
What’s your problem, ee? You know how it goes. If you’re not quite ready for The Show you head back to AAA to get your game fixed for the big leagues.
Finally, the action that firmly establishes that college football is just the NFL’s minor league.
I’m assuming a fine use of the sarcasm font there. 😉
This move potentially destroys the sport overall we love. Why play football at the high school level now if the spots in college are just going to go to grown ass men who couldn’t cut it at the highest level?
The NFL doesn’t give a damn about the future of college football. The owners know minor league football is a money loser. When college football loses the “college” moniker, the whole system likely collapses.
Agree. Its over. tragic. greed.
I remember sitting in class next to Robert Edwards when he returned to finish his degree thinking how cool it would be if he could suit up and beat Florida again, not knowing how bad his injury actually was, but I did have the thought. That said, unless of some strange set of circumstances, I think once they are in the pros, it would be unfair to allow them to play college ball again. I’ve never understood why pros can play in the Olympics for that matter even though I do like seeing them there. My dumb two!
Most countries had their professionals participate in the Olympics far earlier than we did. USA Basketball finally figured that out and sent out the Dream Team to make a point.
Similar to the Baileys, the Edwards family are DGDs.
The NCAA cowards will sit on their hands and do NOTHING! That’s why were in this mess already. For them to be seen as being SO smart, they’ve got to be the dumbest ass wipes in the country. Just sit up there and get that fat paycheck. Would I love to see Holyfield, Daijun and other non NFL starters back, NO. There time is over. Let someone else get the spotlight.
So sick of these types of comments. This guy is coming back because the school (a member of the NCAA) wants him to come back and play. Same reason the G-league guy came back to play for Bama last week, and Pavia came back to play for Vanderbilt – their schools, the NCAA members, wanted them to! The fire is coming from inside the house!!!
The saddest part is that all of these “victories” or advantages are so fleeting – Vanderbilt got Pavia for an extra year, how do you think they are going to fare next year when everyone else has a 6th year QB? Maybe having a G-league player will work out great for Bama for the last third of this season, but what about next year when everyone has a G-leaguer???
The schools have flushed everything they have claimed to represent straight down the toilet!!!!
I agree with this 1000%! The conference commissioners, university presidents, ADs, and coaches are the ones to blame. Morehead or Brooks could easily come out and say that UGA will not participate in such acts, nor will it be permitted on any athletic team at the Univeristy of Georgia. Greg Sankey could step up and say this will not be allowed by any program within SEC university. Heck, Kirby could have said that he would not allow a 24 year old 6th year QB on his team. Not one single individual has stepped up to say no, and we all know the reason why. Everyone wants more wins which equates to more dollars.
If this happens then no player should be able to forego their senior season.
The underlying problem here has always been that there is a swath of college athletes who have no desire to attend college. When LeBron James shut the door behind him to high school players making themselves available to the NBA and the NFL’s 3-year rule (both union closed shops), athletes really have no option. Have the college sports powers that be exploited that? Yep.
The NFL and NBA players’ associations have no desire to depress wages by changing their rules. The owners have no desire to build a money loser minor league system (especially football which requires a ton of capital investment with little TV revenue interest).
The basketball tournament is the NCAA’s show. If AL and UCLA want to play former pros, then don’t invite then to the tournament. I’m sure there is a flaw in this thinking.
Football- The NFL has gotten so arrogant they now have games on every night of the week except TU and WED. It may never happen but they are eating the whole system as ee says. I know TV rating were very strong but if and when they fall, the money falls too. Corporate jersey patches won’t be enough.
The slippery slope is now the edge of the cliff! Been coming for a while. The whole ncaa thing is a farce. Glad l got to see the Glory Days. Think every day l’m glad l am old. FTMF’s!!!
When during your viewing lifetime were the “Glory Days?” Serious question, not snark, because we need to know what to return to.
Holy shit.
Meh, who cares? There are probably thousands of people in the US who are good enough to play college football or basketball but not quite good enough to play in the NFL or NBA. If they can play for a couple more years at a US college instead of a euro team that’s probably good. The college games will just get better. More people will watch, more money will go to players… everybody wins.
Are you kidding?
This is certainly a take.
Once you abandon the collegiate mission and pair it with pay for play, its damn hard to insist on a set of principles that make any damn sense.
Burn it down. Let kids who are enrolled in school try out for sports because they want to represent their university, period.
In that world, you can have rules. The one we are in is already anarchy. How it would be further sullied by Justin Fields return to Columbus is beyond me.
We just watched the 3rd team in the acc come within a whisker of winning a title with a qb who graduated 2 years ago making 4 million dollars for his services.
Is nothing sacred? Not in college sports these days so far as I can see.
Just like this bastardized postseason we ended up with, the fans wanted it. Hell they demanded pay for play. Didn’t think it through. Didn’t apply any thought or wisdom.
Here we are.
Every sport has eligibility rules. The problem is the NCAA and its member institutions decided the best way to get their preferred rule set enacted was to let chaos rule, so the 536 idiots in Washington would bail them out.
Still waiting for someone to tell me the obvious fix that the federal courts would have let the ncaa get away with.
They’re waiting for an antitrust fix because there is no fox unless:
You burn it all down. Then it isn’t a cartel and it isn’t subject to antitrust rules.
As long as its a business that can be regulated by antitrust rules, and the only one in town, they’re fucked.
Not really sure what you mean by “every sport has eligibility rules” – pretty sure the only “eligibility rule” in MLB, NFL, NBA, professional figure skating, professional bike riding is, “are you good enough” (ok and maybe don’t do roids)…. 6-year “college” athletes in Olympic sports aren’t far behind, as the decent ones go pro, and the marginal ones just “stay in school” awhile longer and cash NIL checks (or just enjoy it!)
The major leagues have eligibility criteria to be available for their drafts. They have rules on tampering and free agency.
We don’t have to melodramatically “Burn it down”. You’re describing Division III football. It’s most of college athletics. Go watch it if you like.
Right because what we really need are 29 year old former pros, hold outs, agents, unions, strikes, brand new rosters every fall and ND automatically qualifying for the annual postseason December/January MADNESS!!! who will hopefully play a 3rd place conference team for the trophy!
If it ain’t broke…
NCAA men’s bball = NBA F league
$$$$$$ talks, all the rest is just lawyer speak, restraining orders and Bullshit….
One of the few advantages of being old. I might not be around by the time they totally destroy CFB as I know it.
This a problem of their own making. If President’s and AD’s were serious about fixing this issue, they would try to gain consensus on solution.
Instead, they seek to figure out ways for the individual school to use it as an advantage for their school and then the conference.
A solution will not be simple, easy or quick though and team supporters will not have the patience for a solution to develop. Supporters just want their school to win.
Start with making the student athletes employees and allowing them to form either a single student athlete union or multiple ones by sport. Engage in collective bargaining with the athletes so parameters can be set on eligibility. Collective bargaining would allow schools to set rules around transfers, contracts, bonuses etc.
Athletes at the college level have made it clear. They don’t want to be employees. The schools don’t want to designate them as employees.
Actually, I have not seen a source that says the athletes do not want to be employees. I have seen a lot of second hand claims made by college administrators.
I would think right now there are probably a handful that will claim they want to keep the system the way it is now. However, I think is rooted in agents and advisors of prominent who realize that classifying them as employees would end the current inflated market.
I do agree that the majority of collegiate administrators worry about classifying student-athletes as employees. It would create quite a bit of change for non-FBS schools across NCAA membership.
I have been trumpeting the problem with college athletics for year’s in this space. The foundational issue has always been amateurism. They created a system where the “labor” was unpaid. It was never realistic and completely unsustainable because schools want to win, they want the status that winning provides, and, eventually, the money that comes with winning.
Schools have been paying ringers, giving money under the table and the like all the way back to the “revolving-player” system Michigan employed in the 1900’s.
Everything as been a “tweak” to the system. The changes over the last few years have been more radical but radical change is still needed if they are serious about a system without tampering, players using the portal 5-6-7 times in a collegiate career, and players getting some time in professional leagues and then coming to college.
This is the end….
Graham Coffey posting on X Jere Morehead’s comments at UGA winter sports meeting. Says its time for SEC to create and enforce its own rules to set an example. This probably the only way out if the box they’ve put themselves in.
Ill hold my breath…. Any fixes would hinder competition against the other conferences and thus will not happen.
SEC abiding by any rules that are more restrictive than those of the B10, might as well surrender, its unilateral disarmament, which is why no individual school (or conference even) will do it. Anyone remember when the conferences used to set minimum SAT scores, and the ACC used to beat off about how theirs was higher – ended up on the ashheap, along with all the other rules…..
I say burn it down.
As someone said earlier.
It’s anarchy now and the NCAA lost control, respect, etc. a long time ago.
Return college football to real student athletes.
I
Yep. We had a choice:
We could all be Harvard OR we could all be Auburn.
I know which way I lean.
That choice is still out there.
The only thing standing in the way is real leadership and real enforcement mechanisms. No more compromises.
Death penalty for SMU was the right path and was IMHO, an under used mechanism. It should have taken out Auburn, Florida, Clemson and perhaps even Alabama.
Instead the people in charge sacrificed principles for cash, which never turns out well for anyone.
Glory Days! Coaches coached cause they loved it(likeCKS) players played cause they loved it (few left). Dollar rules all. Had same tickets 50 yrs. But like Leonard Post Toasties used to say” Get me out’a here Percy”!!
College Basketball Tournament eligibility is the last stand the NCAA has with regard to control. They still determine the teams in March Madness. College Football will soon put together the idea that “who cares if the NCAA declares our wins forfeits because we have returning professional athletes in their 10 year of eligibility, as long as the playoff committee ranks them in the top 12 teams.”
I like the idea of the NCAA leaving a team out of the tournament for playing a former pro in the NBA/G League/European League. On the other hand, a “judge” in Tuscaloosa would issue and injunction stopping March Madness.
That judge’s TRO already says the NCAA can’t take action against Alabama as a result of this.
The TRO only applies while its in effect – once the TRO is dissolved (as it should be), the NCAA can take whatever action it deems appropriate against Alabama for breaking the rules. But the fact of the matter is that they won’t, because next year every other NCAA team is going to be signing former NBA players.
Its the same reason the SEC making its own rules is never gonna fly – Auburn has been breaking the rules basically my entire life, but you expect me to believe that now they’re going to start following the SEC rules Jere wants? And Jere and his buddies (the other University Presidents) are going to nut up and penalize Auburn for it? Bwahahahahahaha!!!!!
I know. If Alabama plays in the tournament, you know it’s going to open the floodgates. Then throw in Bailey trying to return to school after being in the NBA.
Football players will follow soon after.
Once the genie is out of the bottle, no one is going to be able to stuff it back in.
That’s why I thought the NCAA should have fought Diego Pavia all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
@ee “Once the genie is out of the bottle, no one is going to be able to stuff it back in.” I think the genie’s been out of the bottle since O’Bannon. The NCAA finally gave up on fighting the impossible… something, something about doing the same thing over and over again.
NIL is not the problem here. The NCAA’s eligibility rules are what are clearly under attack at this point. It started with the transfers (courts throwing out the transfer eligibility rules as a restraint of trade). It then moved to Pavia’s suit claiming his JUCO year should not count against his eligibility. It has now moved to athletes who became professionals and now want to return to college.
The problem is the schools and lawyers like Tom Mars are supporting this. I believe it was an FSU transfer that originally challenged the one free transfer rule. FSU could have said you aren’t eligible, and we are willing to sign you but you will sit in accordance with the NCAA rules. Vandy could have told Pavia that you have exhausted your eligibility. Under the association we are part of, you are not eligible to participate in football. Alabama could have told this G-League player … we are not going to bring you back.
The rules are only as strong as the weakest link.
JMHO.
I think you have hit the nail — although slightly askew. The rules are only as strong as the law allows. You have supported the position that the schools were running an illegal cartel (something supported by the courts). If NIL was an illegal cartel, I don’t think it is a particular long walk to the conclusion that preventing transfer eligibility is also an illegal cartel — especially after the fact that NIL was legally settled.
I believe the SCOTUS ruling was only limited to NIL compensation. The courts have not said anything about the NCAA’s ability to regulate the ability to participate in intercollegiate athletics. Everything that has happened to this point has been the result of TROs the NCAA has decided not to litigate.
Now, the NCAA has ceded that authority.