There is something highly amusing about UCF defensive coordinator Randy Shannon’s argument that college players who are deciding to skip bowl games to prepare for the NFL draft will one day decide to not suit up for certain games in the professional ranks.
“If a team is 6-9, no chance of them making the playoffs, are they going to play or are they going to tank it?” Shannon said. “Especially if you’re on the last year of your contract, option year.”
Tanking? Seriously? Has this guy not paid attention to the number of pro franchises that use tanking as a deliberate strategy to improve their drafting positions? Has he missed the NFL teams that, having clinched a playoff spot with nothing more to play for in the regular season, sit their starters?
“The fact that [Shannon] thinks that [spit] matters to people at this level shows just how out of touch he really is,” a longtime NFL scout told CFT in an email that alerted us to the coordinator’s quotes, adding, “It’s embarrassing.”
This is a league that hired Bobby Petrino, after all. Skipping out isn’t considered a character flaw. Making an irrelevantly big deal about it, though…
By making his private thoughts public, about the only thing that the old-school Shannon has accomplished is to make his — and his football program’s — job on the recruiting trail that much harder. There’s little doubt his words will be used against him by those competing for the very same recruits who could be in a position to make that very same business decision X number of years from now — and know they won’t have Shannon’s support if he maintains his archaic stance.
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