In a way, I hate to keep picking on Clay Travis, but… this is a dumb analogy.
11. Do you blame the Newton family if allegations of soliciting cash prove true?
Here’s the rub: no, I really don’t. As I’ve written and said a thousand times, my position is simple. If you’re 18 years old, you should be able to make a living pursuing your chosen talent. The only people who can’t in the entire United States are college football and basketball players. For some reason, we require that they serve an apprenticeship at college that makes universities a ton of money.
Again, we don’t demand that Taylor Swift sing in the Vanderbilt chorus. Nope, we let her go pro.
Okay, fine. Except “let her go pro” isn’t the same thing as saying that Vanderbilt pays her.
The NCAA doesn’t take the position that an eighteen-year old football player can’t get paid for his skills/services. It’s only that if he does, he can’t play college football.
So this whole “we require” straw man is a load of crapola. Unless by “we” you mean “NFL team owners”. And by “for some reason”, you mean “we’d rather not spend a bunch of money developing a minor league system, thanks.”
Other than that, it’s spot on.
Get The Picture 
Preach, bruddah, PREACH!
Meanwhile, am I the only one bothered by a certain safety making the comment “I never thought the University of Georgia could be 5-6”???
Dude, guess what; you know that whole UGA/history/tradition thing? Your a** didn’t earn it, a bunch of other guys did! It’s time you leave YOUR mark (and I don’t mean the one receivers leave on you as the blow past you)
/exits soapbox
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I know it will never happen because the money is just too much, but this entire Newton escapade has me wishing that the college football system, as it exists, was abolished completely. Let’s just put up a sign for the students who decide to come to whatever school that simply says “Football tryouts are Monday August 1st at 4 PM.” If the kids who want to be students at UGA are better than the students who want to go to Alabama, then great, if not, I can live with that too. The only eligibility requirement is that you qualified like every other student at your school. If an exception/deviation was made to get you in then you are ineligible. If you make the team, you get a scholarship. And no recruiting. I realize that this may mean that Arizona State becomes the kings of college football but so what? Let’s go back to having college football be played by college students rather than using our universities as training grounds for the NFL. I just think I’d be happier watching 85 guys who dreamed of going to UGA their whole lives play their SEC counterparts.
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The Mississippi schools and Auburn would be lights out. I think the standards for regular student admission are the NCAA clearinghouse guidelines for athletes.
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I agree. Set up a farm system for the NFL Let real college students, ones that qualify academically like everyone else, be the ones that represent the University for all Varsity Athletics. The ones we have now do deserve to be paid but not as part of the University Athletic department.
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“Let’s go back to having college football be played by college students…”
It has never been this way, though. And the system isn’t going to change any time soon. Too much $$$ for all parties involved.
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Wrong Dude. It is being played that way right now–at the NCAA D-III level. No real reason why it couldn’t be that way at the D-I level, too.
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Truthfully, -1. I, for one, love the recruiting, bitching, complaining, hand-wringing, agonizing, scandals, name-calling, wins, losses, and what not. I love looking at the lines each week on Monday wondering what the Vegas boys are smoking…or what they know that I don’t. And I love thinking back more often than not late on Saturday night and wondering why I didn’t think the same way the boys in Vegas thought (I don’t gamble by the way, but I do enjoy thoroughly looking at the numbers, trends, etc.). I love the preseason reports of what this or that stud recruit is or isn’t doing. I love the big names that flop and the no-names that exceed all expectations by sheer determination. The analytical me likes the idea of a playoff, but the fan me loves the BCS for the controversy and the fact that every single Saturday matters. I love the upsets. I love the blowouts (other than when Georgia is on the receiving end). I love the inexplicable losses that make you scratch your head and come back to only the fact that there are 18-22 year old kids playing the game that have lots of other stuff on their mind Sunday through Friday. I love that there are kids who love football so much that they’ll try to walk onto the team for the chance to play very little but with the dream that they may become a star (which wouldn’t be nearly the same case if you had the situation Derek advocates). Of course, I want my team to win without either (a) cheating, or (b) getting caught. But I sure do love watching another program that I despise twist in the wind over some booster’s improper benefits. Yes, I could probably think of things that I would change and there are some nasty, disgusting things that go on that I have a hard time explaining to my young children. But I love college football and the things that make it great far exceed, in my opinion, the things that you don’t want to talk about.
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I think you’re nostalgic for something that never was. Players have been getting special treatment/money since the beginning of intercollegiate competition.
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C’mon, Senator. Don’t you know that it’s all the NCAA’s fault. I mean, we could have a playoff, and with the extra cadrillion dollars pay every player what they are worth. It’s the NCAA’s responsibility to pay the poor players who have no other option but to receive a free education instead of working for balls in the CFL. It just isn’t fair what the NCAA is doing to these kids. MDWM re: pay for play, etc.
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THANK YOU.
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I’m with Derek. Lets just go to zero scholarships like Div III. Let the guys that want to play walk-on. The coaches would be paid like real college professors not rock stars and the real fans would show up. Sure it would be lonesome on Saturday’s and weird to see 10,000 peoples in the stands that seat 93,000 but at least we would get back to the ideal. The schools will quit football all together before that happens.
There will come a time when a great football player does not want to wait and he will sue the NFL on an antitrust basis and win. Then we will see the great ones going straight into the NFL from HS. All the great skill players will be gone and colleges will be left to fatten up the Olineman and Dlineman for the NFL.
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I think you are wrong 69. The stands would still be full. The games would all mean the same as they do now, conference championships, rivalries, etc. People would still tailgate. The only thing different would be who was on the field–and a lot of the guys out there now would still be out there. Ask yourself this: If you were a really good football player in HS and you wanted to go to college for the sake of an education, would you go? Yes. Suppose the college ran its football team just like HS, people just tried out for the team and you were assured that you would get a fair shot based on merit, would you try out for the team. Hell yes, for all the same reasons that you played in HS. The only thing different would be that the knuckleheads that shouldn’t be in college (that are there now) wouldn’t be there.
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I’m guessing this clown is Senior NCAA writer because he’s a senior in HS?
What a poorly formed conclusion.
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Should we blame the Newton family?
For shopping their son without his, ehem, knowledge?
Well, gee, I guess not.
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I haven’t researched this, but it seems like the SEC is in the longest period of time I can remember without one school on serious TV or scholarship limitations.
Since the big SEC TV contract has enriched everyone, it seemed all the SEC schools have been happy to keep quiet about rules violations at the other schools.
That all changed two weeks ago.
While the SEC wants to bury it and keep the BCS dollars rolling in, I anticipate there are other schools and conferences wanting to get their piece of the pie.
There will be greater pressure on the NCAA to clean up the SEC’s recruiting practices and its dealings with agents.
To be honest, with all the oversigning going on, scholarship reductions don’t mean as much as they used to.
It will be interesting to see what other recourse the NCAA has to enforce its rules.
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“The only people who can’t in the entire United States are college football and basketball players. For some reason, we require that they serve an apprenticeship at college that makes universities a ton of money.”
I think it’s funny that they think an incoming Freshman could make it in the NFL. I’m not sure I can name an incoming Freshman that was ready for that level. They should actually be thankful that they have a training ground that has a pretty large net.
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I could see an exceptionally talented, one out of a million RB or WR making the transition to the NFL from high school, but no one else. A QB won’t be smart enough, a lineman won’t be big enough, and a defensive back won’t be skilled enough. The gap between NFL and college is huge – the gap between high school and the NFL is a chasm.
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I agree. I think AJ Green could have been a 40-50 catch guy in the NFL straight out of high school.
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A lot of this “let’s go back to the real amateur ideal” talk coming from some you sounds like sour grapes because we’ve been down as a program.
I don’t recall hearing any talk like that when we were on top of the world kicking ass and taking names. If you all are so wedded to that ideal (that has never existed in the history of the sport), it’s probably time to stop with the donations and all that.
I, for one, don’t want UGA to become a DIII school.
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College students do unpaid internships ALL THE TIME.
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dude is on target.
The fantastic facilities and venues UGA has? The state of the art weight rooms, training rooms, and trophy rooms? D III schools don’t have any of that shit. Lowndes County HS probably has better facilities than a D III school.
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The article was dead-on, except for that one point (though I think there’s a little validity to it – just a little). Other than that, he nails the whole situation, including the reasons why the NCAA won’t be pushing for a quick resolution. But it’s a foregone conclusion.
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Really? You think this is spot on?
“Now, and here is where Mr. Dorsett and I might actually have an agreement, if Dorsett had said that the reason college basketball and college football players have no power relative to other athletes is because those sports are played predominantly by minorities, well, I think he’d have a strong case there.
“Is it coincidental that majority white college sports like hockey, baseball, swimming, golf and tennis allow their 18-year-olds — or younger — to immediately go pro?”
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