The Year College Football Ate Itself
After months of maneuvering and spending—farewell, Pac 12; hello $75 million for Jimbo Fisher—it’s impossible to pretend it’s anything but another ruthless business.
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"The Year College Football Ate Itself"
- Thread starter Obliviax
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The Transfer Portal and NIL put the last nails in the coffin of CFB. It basically took all the bad parts that were hidden and brought them to light. CFB was always the minor leagues to the NFL but now it has nothing to do with college except for where it's played.
If it is a minor league system, it’s not doing a very good job since less than 2% of the players actually make it. Unfortunately the very small percentage of players that are at that level ruin it for the 98% that aren’t and are just playing for the education and the experience.
It will be interesting to see how much the removal of the college and student athlete veneer affects viewer interest over the next few decades. People like minor league sports, but they don't love them, don't pay top dollar to see them in person, and don't consider televised games appointment viewing. Will completely professionalized "college" football be the exception? We shall see.
Agreed. My head has been spinning with the number of bowl game opt outs.
By my math, there are 224 draft spots in the nfl. Obviously some of the opt outs are transfers, but with about 4000 scholarship players per year, I’m having a hard time seeing what some of these kids think lies waiting for them.
Agree. I think we will see this settle out. I am taking note of how many old miss and psu players are declaring yet still playing in the bowl. That is kinda new. In the past, if you declared you didn't play in general. But this is very common this year. My guess it is kids that expect to go after the first or second round but want to get on payroll.
A lot of the problems with the post season stem from the rigidity with the bowl system "honoring tradition" and keeping the bowls late December/early January which is incompatible with the timeframe they've established (and is necessary based on the semester system) for the transfer portal.
Let's face it tradition is dead and they need to overhaul the schedule to align with the new reality. Start the season a week earlier. Play the CCG games the weekend after Thanksgiving and all the bowl games outside the playoffs over the 2 weeks following the regular season so that only playoff teams are playing after the first weekend in December.
Let's face it tradition is dead and they need to overhaul the schedule to align with the new reality. Start the season a week earlier. Play the CCG games the weekend after Thanksgiving and all the bowl games outside the playoffs over the 2 weeks following the regular season so that only playoff teams are playing after the first weekend in December.
What percent of minor league baseball players make the mlb?
As football fans we hope it doesn’t completely go the way of minor league baseball. Because there ain’t hardly no more minor league baseball teams anywhere's.
The Year College Football Ate Itself
After months of maneuvering and spending—farewell, Pac 12; hello $75 million for Jimbo Fisher—it’s impossible to pretend it’s anything but another ruthless business.
As Slim Charles from the Wire said:
“The thing about the old days…they the old days”.
From a player’s and coach’s perspective, these are the best of times! The money, compensation, and freedom of movement are huge benefits.
I bet most players and coaches prefer the current state of College Football to the old serfdom system where greedy college administrators took all the profits at the expense of under-compensated labor. Also, a coach like Tom Allen must be thrilled with receiving $15 million after being fired from lowly Indiana and then immediately landing another million dollar job as Penn State DC. These are the best of times for players and coaches.
Shed no tears for jealous journalists and I certainly don’t miss the old days.
Although there’s some truth in what you’re saying, I really do miss the prices for goods and services in the old days.
Couldn’t agree more. Don’t understand why this isn’t talked about more. Guess it isn’t an appealing discussion point. The vast majority of D1 football players will never play in the NFL. Their college education is the best thing they have going for them.
Did you ever try and talk sense to an 18 to 21 kid whose mind is convinced that the path he’s on is correct?
A lot. Example A NW education + room and board on Chicago is worth about $400,000. The degree probably adds $millions over a career. A PSU education is not cheap and worth a lot.
Over all divisions probably < 1% play to get to the NFL
I suspect only a couple percent of players who play minor league baseball (AAA, AA, High A, Low A, Short Season A, Rookie Leagues) make it to the majors. But I agree, it ruins things for real student athletes.
10%….but you have guys that make a career out of AAA as well. So it’s a lot more than college football players going to the NFL.
I have a feeling some are going to eventually make a career staying in college if they officially become employees. Are there any other examples of industries where you’re capped in the number of years you’re allowed to be employed? Sounds like a lawsuit.
Well, it used to be there were 50 rounds in the draft (could draft HS players, not everyone signed) plus undrafted and international players. Out of that pool of players MLB teams considered it a success if they found 1 or 2 MLB players. Now they have 20 rounds (can still draft HS players, almost everyone signs) plus the other groups and they are still happy to find 1 or 2. I guess technically the percent to make the majors went up, but only because a lot more player development has been shifted to college, which is good for college baseball. That doesn't really change overall success rate, unless you factor in the previous marginal college players who no longer get a chance and made the success rate even lower. I'm just rambling.
It will not matter.
Just look at the resume of Pennsylvania native Alex Anzalone who is an NFL linebacker for the Detroit Lions.
Anzalone initially considered Penn State.
Then committed to Ohio State.
Then de-committed from Ohio State.
Then committed to Notre Dame.
Then de-committed from Notre Dame.
Then committed to Florida.
This type of indecisiveness did not impact his NFL prospects.
Agreed--there's no impact to reach the NFL
The NFL couldn't care less how many programs they attend
I am not sure about that. I have no argument that it is hard to fill a stadium with 7-6 teams but for many of these kids this is once in a lifetime experience. Also i remember when PSU played in New York City. I didn't cheer any less hard.
Did Northwestern players coaches and fans have a great time rooting in this year bowl.
It really comes down to expectations. I you are exceeding expectations it is a great event, if you are a disappointment not so much.
Players who are transferring to another school need to announce they’re entering the portal before the bowl games simply because of how things are currently scheduled. just the way the calendar works. Has nothing to do with once in a lifetime or not. Are you arguing kids on bowl eligible teams should never transfer? Should Kyle McCord still have been eligible to play right now?
What’s your solution to handling transfers? It has to be let kids in the transfer portal still play, bump bowl games up, or move the portal to after the bowls and force kids to basically throw away their spring semester.
College… it’s the NFL’s minor leagues. The only way to change it is for there to be a real minor league for kids who are only looking to the league and have no intentions of going to school which is really the scam because most of these kids study some really wonky majors just to stay eligible. Ever notice some of the PSU majors? How will that get you ahead after school.
The other thing that has yet to be determined if CFB is completely "professionalized" is "eligibility". Artificially limiting the number of years someone can play would be tested in the courts (i.e., essentially putting an age limit on professional college players) - and likely determined to be nonsense. There is no need to limit eligibility if they're pure professional athletes. This will eliminate opportunities for 1,000s of high school athletes as professional athletes who are good college players but just not quite good enough for NFL will simply return to college (or stay playing at college level if undrafted).
This also brings up the ludicrous notion of someone becoming ineligible to return to a college team if they don't make it in the NFL - if they're simply professional athletes, and not amateur student-athletes, these notions of "eligibility" and "non-eligibility" are artificial constructs and beyond silly.
