… But this party is a widespread problem that will likely affect a number of schools before it’s all over. Chris Mortenson reported on ESPN radio Tuesday night that the initial speculation is that up to 25 NFL prospects were at the party, and from as many as 10 SEC schools.
Yikes.
Just not sure that any of this should come as a surprise to anyone. It’s funny that the SEC wants to sign billion dollar TV deals, pays its coaches $5 million a year and spends hundreds of millions of dollars on facilities’ upgrades, yet expects its “student”-athletes to be “amateurs.”
The entire thing has been repeatedly exposed as a total fraud throughout the off-season, and anyone still rooting for “Old State U” because they think that the football team has anything to do with the school is sorely out-of-touch with reality.
At this point, they should simply call a spade a spade and field true minor-league teams, letting the Universities simply serve as majority team owners lending their stadiums on Saturdays and allowing the minor-leaguers to wear the school’s name across the front of the jersey. There should be no regulations on the kids to go to classes or maintain the facade of “amateur” status anymore.
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+1 It makes about as much sense as anything else at this point.
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Reasonable, some variation of this would be far better than continuing the charade of admittimg athletes who cannot meet the school’s standards being expected to measure up academically without some form of compromise. Perhaps have a set % (partial qualifiers?) that are exempt from the regular curriculum and instead be given “life classes” that better prepare them more for what they will likely face in life than Algebra and Art History do.
When you start with an invalid premise, there is no way you reach the correct conclusion. Not that all athletes have to pass on the classic education route, but everyone knows the games that are played. And expecting the NFL to pony up some share of the expenses is valid as well.
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Would they have to pay to go to school, then, if some (perhaps many) actually did want to go?
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This party business isn’t nearly as big of a deal as six-figure payouts. I bet the NCAA makes the kids pay back the money for the trip/party and all will be well.
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I think if 25 players were really at this thing, we’d have more names out there by now.
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25 NFL prospects, 10 SEC schools
That’s probably a huge chunk of the preseason All-SEC teams.
Imagine what this will do to chances that individual awards go to a SEC players.
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Well look at the bright side, if stuff like this continues we may have a whole new version of the Fulmer Cup to award to someone. At least a school will win something out of this.
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25 Kids at the party? These kids would all be diming each other out at a quicker pace than 4 (Little, Austin, Saunders, Dareus) in a week.
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I don’t know if they’d be doing that… but you figure if there were that many, we’d have heard about it on somebody’s Twitter feed by now.
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“up to 25 NFL prospects were at the party, and from as many as 10 SEC schools.”
Upon hearing this, chagrined at having another arithmetic problem to solve after yesterday’s calculating the correct number of practices, CMR calls his staff together for a symposium of best guesses on who the two were.
CMR, now pretty fired up having been pelted with two arithmetic problems on consecutive days, tries to get Belin’s attention…
Belin answers…
Belin then adds that he’s pretty positive that Vanderbilt is one of the two.
Getting no disagreement, before getting to any discussion of who the second is, CMR tables it until tomorrow’s problem-solving meeting, happy at least that he’s got the answer half-right for now.
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