It’s been a busy summer for NCAA Football.
We’ve had the Northwestern scandal, lots of realignment in the wake of the Pac-12 collapse, and some kids who hopefully had the best burgers of their lives.
Genuinely, what the hell has the NCAA been doing all summer? In case you’ve forgotten, their mission statement is readily available for the world to see right here. Does anyone actually believe this garbage given how they’ve reacted to everything we’ve seen recently?
Sure, Jim Harbaugh did something technically wrong. He knows that and probably knew it was a recruiting violation when he was buying the burgers. It’s a rule, he broke it, he was punished, such is life with the NCAA. But is spending $20 on some kids who just want lunch really what the NCAA needs to be focusing on right now?
How is THIS the rule the NCAA decides they finally are going to take a stand on? Every single program in the country is doing this. Yes, that includes yours. No, I am not exaggerating. Every single program does this because they know the rules are stupid and outdated. You’d be shocked at the number of kids coming home from visits with the hosting university’s logo plastered all over their new gear they swear was a gift. Everyone does it and enforcing it (over food, a requirement for human survival, of all things) isn’t helping to keep the game competitive and fair or whatever their justification is this time.
In classic NCAA fashion, they’re now also denying playing time to people transferring to be close to their sick family. It doesn’t matter if the players followed the guidelines set forth to them, including guidance for the COVID epidemic. The NCAA decided to change the rules AFTER Walker transferred and then retroactively applied it to him. Jackson didn’t even get an explanation handed to him. The NCAA just denied the fact that his grandmother being severely ill wasn’t a reason to transfer. Congratulations everyone, the integrity of NCAA competition has been saved! Just don’t ask about the kids that got caught betting on their team’s games.
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Want to help the students that you swear aren’t professionals and are just enhancing their education? Maybe take a look at everything else going on with the sport.
The reports coming out from former Northwestern players are troubling. Nothing screams “fostering lifelong well-being” based on what we’re seeing. I’d be willing to bet a significant chunk of money this isn’t the only Power 5 program running like this, let alone the only NCAA program. Part of the fiasco at Maryland that lead to DJ Durkin being let go was an investigation into the toxic culture of the team and those results weren’t exactly an easy read either. Urban Meyer put winning over allegations of domestic violence brought to him by his own then-wife. That’s three Big 10 teams in the last 8 years with culture problems- are we going to pretend they’re just isolated events?
If the NCAA truly cares about their student-athletes’ well-being how are they just going to let this continually happen? Durkin is currently an SEC Defensive Coordinator. Urban Meyer got rewarded with the opportunity to head an NFL team plus is constantly linked to head coach openings in the NCAA. Fitzgerald likely will take a year off and then find himself back in an NCAA program if he wants. The NCAA just doesn’t care about how these people treat those in their programs, makes a small deal of their sins for the media while the schools give out actual punishment, then hopes everyone just moves on.
Probably the biggest fallout we’ve seen recently is the conference realignment. How does the NCAA do anything here but protect the pockets of media conglomerates that refuse to even pay their employees?
If you like to travel to different time zones you know how painful the adjustment can be both arriving and returning. So how the hell does anyone expect the students in the new Big 10 to ever function correctly over the course of a semester? This isn’t even a uniquely football issue, we now have to justify why the Oregon track team is taking a three-day trip out to New Brunswick because Fox, CBS, and NBC decided $7 billion wasn’t enough and they need to add USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon to really pump that number up.
Give me a break.
Excite fans through compelling entertainment products? Genuinely, what fan cares that Ohio State now gets to play Washington once every three years? Is that really worth the thousands of non-revenue generating sports having to scrounge every last dollar to make sure their teams can get 3 square meals while they travel across multiple time zones and miss multiple days of classes?
Call it like it is- the NCAA has no power and is letting its members do whatever they want in the name of lining everyone’s pockets. Long-standing rivalries are dead, academic standards mean nothing to conference admission, and student-athletes are all going to be worse off because of it. At some point, it’s time to face reality- these aren’t semi-professional leagues to anyone. Let the non-revenue generating sports schedule local teams and keep it separate from the media CEOs foaming at the mouth over the idea that West Virginia now gets to play Arizona on a 3-year cycle.
But hey, maybe they’ll figure it out in 2024.
