Kids, Brian Kelly’s got some words of advice for you. Pay attention.
Be careful what you wish for was LSU football coach Brian Kelly’s message when discussing the way college football is progressing in player compensation.
Speaking after the first day of SEC Spring Meetings at the Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa, Kelly stressed how amateurism has become so distorted that it is moving toward professionalism.
“This has turned into a runaway train that has moved well past a student-athlete and is moving too fast toward a professional contract,” Kelly said. “I don’t think that’s what the intention was. So we’re going to need some guidelines here before this gets thrown into Congress.”
While that might seem like it could be a good thing for players, Kelly sees a shadow side to that option. If college football becomes a professional sport, that would mean other elements of professional sports that players might not like.
“I don’t think they want contracts,” Kelly said. “I don’t think they want to be traded. I’m sure they don’t want to be cut. I’m sure they’re not going to like getting a call at 3 p.m. in the afternoon saying, ‘Hey, I don’t know but we traded you today to St. Bonaventure. Oh they don’t have a football team.’”
Skip past the obvious retort that players are already being cut by college programs. Brian Kelly thinks that anyone with a contract can be traded? When’s the last time that happened to him?
The really great thing about this is that it’s out of the mouth of someone who’s not fully grasped he’s now operating in the den of vipers called the SEC. How long do you think it’s gonna take one of his fellow coaches to weaponize this for the recruiting trail? “Hey, did you hear that Brian Kelly wants to be able to trade his players?”
Idiotic.
Even Billy Napier’s figured out what to say in public.
Get The Picture 
Kelly is going to fail spectacularly in short order. You don’t have to be Southern born & breed to succeed as a coach in the SEC, but you sure as hell better not be an aloof Yank. He has to win big fast, he’s too easy to hate, otherwise.
He’ll be laughing all the way to the bank when he does see the door, though…
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Unless he gets traded first. 🙂
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Urban Meyer would like a word about not being an aloof Yank to be a successful SEC coach.
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He sure fits the bill, but he also did take the Gators to the top in his second season.
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Urban wasn’t just an aloof Yank. He was an asshole, he and the ol’ ball sack proved that you could be an asshole and win in the SEC. There are probable others (past and present) that fit the asshole criteria.
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Did he not read the Phil Fulmer guide to SEC recruiting? Ya gotta go negative son, and don’t give the competition any ammunition in that regard.
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I hate all of this. I wish someone would have seen this crap coming when NIL was fist mentioned. But I guess NO one thought there would be any problem with putting money front and center in college athletics. If only there had been a few commenters on this great blog, that would have spoken out about problems that might arise, things could have gone smother. I know, we have no say in what happens to our great sport.
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I have the solution to the paying the players without them being employees. The Aston ruling about the education perks, along with the Supremes’ 9-0 kick in the NCAA nuts has left a loop hold that is wide open. Lets say a school allocates 10% of it’s net AD income to the student athletes as educational enhancement money. Divided equally among all Varsity athletes as a stipend. The percentage could vary but the IRS is not going to be able to call them employees because they are being paid as student stipends. 10% of say 80 million = 8 million/no. of Varsity athletes = a shit pot of money. The first school to figure this out will win the Arms Race. Say there are 300 varsity athletes this would be $27,000 per. Need more money to compete just raise the percentage. I was with the IRS for 11 years and in Tax law practice for 30 years, no way the IRS touches this with a ten foot pole. The trick is to pay them all the same.(Title IX you know)
I know Aston set the amount at $5,000 but the Supremes seemed to think this was not fixed in stone. The schools that can’t afford this are just out of luck. Maybe the coach will take a cut to increase the bottom line, or maybe the schools will quit using Chinese Accounting to lower the bottom line.
Comments are welcome.
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I mean I suppose “Did you hear Brian Kelly wants players to be able to be traded?” sounds a little better overall than “Did you hear Brian Kelly wants players to be able to be executed?”
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