May have to start new divisions

Ironically, for a long time, there was talk that the P5 conferences would break away from the NCAA and create their own organization, in order to be free of all of the NCAA's onerous regulations.........

In one sense, that might be "better" for the entire college sports structure. Let the P5 teams do their own thing and put on their own "championships."

Let everyone else operate under the NCAA structure and rules.

the issue is the difference between football and basketball. D1 FB basically is the P5 teams with a few teams like Cincy sneaking in once in a blue moon. But with hoops, it is a much more wide-open game.

So, maybe the best outcome is for the P5 football schools to have their own division.
You could have a playoff structure for G5, FCS, D2 and D3.

Of course, the elephant in the room is the TV money.
 

I am suggesting that you will in all likelihood get more highly-rated players across the board, including PWOs, if you arrange for a third party to pay all of the players a significant annual royalty (and your competition isn’t arranging anything or just a pittance). Can’t prove it, of course, but my life experience leads me to believe it.

I get that. I am referring specifically to the walk ons having their tuition paid. I don't see this coaxing scholarship level players away from power five programs. I could see it giving them a super strong walk on program.....and as mentioned already....maybe stealing some G5 players.
 

LSU is not a helmet school and hadn’t won a national title from the early 60s until nick Sagan’s arrival

from 1975-1999 LSU had 15 6+ win seasons and 11 6+ loss seasons


I don’t consider LSU a helmet school
I guess the definition of a helmet school can be up for debate. But for the past 20 years or so LSU has been among the small group of schools with a legit shot of contending for the National Title most years.
 

I guess the definition of a helmet school can be up for debate. But for the past 20 years or so LSU has been among the small group of schools with a legit shot of contending for the National Title most years.
I agree with you.
but Clemson isn’t a helmet school either


the post I was responding to was saying only helmet schools win titles.


are you a helmet school because you win titles or is it independent. Because before Saban LSU wasn’t a helmet school.
Before D Watson Clemson wasn’t a helmet school.
 

So, maybe the best outcome is for the P5 football schools to have their own division.
You could have a playoff structure for G5, FCS, D2 and D3.

Of course, the elephant in the room is the TV money.
Yeah, the revenue sharing amongst the conferences probably helps the Minnesotas of the college football world far more than the Ohio States. I don’t know how it would break down but the advertising revenue for the blue blood programs probably dwarfs everybody else to some degree.

If we’re arguing for libertarian capitalism in college football Ohio State should feel a little slighted, I think. That money, currently doled out to sad sack Northwestern, Purdue, and others could subsidize their general fund, scholarships, so on. Paying off Day‘s salary when he’s inevitably fired, paying the next head man is not cheap. Perhaps PSU, Michigan, Ohio State should form Big 3 and negotiate TV rights. Throwing crap against the wall.
 


Yeah, the revenue sharing amongst the conferences probably helps the Minnesotas of the college football world far more than the Ohio States. I don’t know how it would break down but the advertising revenue for the blue blood programs probably dwarfs everybody else to some degree.

If we’re arguing for libertarian capitalism in college football Ohio State should feel a little slighted, I think. That money, currently doled out to sad sack Northwestern, Purdue, and others could subsidize their general fund, scholarships, so on. Paying off Day‘s salary when he’s inevitably fired, paying the next head man is not cheap. Perhaps PSU, Michigan, Ohio State should form Big 3 and negotiate TV rights. Throwing crap against the wall.
The problem for those three breaking off is the amount of care of the other fanbases.

Say the top 20 schools in college football form a super league.
How many Minnesota fans who currently watch an Ohio state Penn state game no longer do. I no longer do.

I watch SEC football because they’re in the same division as my team, if they’re their own thing…I honestly watch the SEC no more than I currently watch the Ivy League and the nfl. Which is some, but not nearly as much as I currently do.

And I’m just one person. And the Minnesota fan base is small comparatively.

But if all of a sudden 50% of the fan base for 110 of the 130 FBS schools no longer care about the top 20

that hurts ratings.



PLUS
If you break free and have the top 20 only play the top 20….half the top 20 is .500 or below. Whoops.




Ohio state, Penn state, Michigan individually are worth way more than the other 11…but they have to be careful what happens with unintended consequences if they go it alone.
 

NIL and the portal may strip away the final shreds of college football having anything to do with academics but it isn't like there was some level playing field that has now been eliminated. College football has been severely unbalanced for a long time with a small group of haves and a big group of have nots. Heck look at the list of National Champs going back 20 some years.

2021 - Alabama or Georgia
2020 - Alabama
2019 - LSU
2018 - Clemson
2017 - Alabama
2016 - Clemson
2015 - Alabama
2014 - Ohio State
2013 - Florida State
2012 - Alabama
2011 - Alabama
2010 - Auburn
2009 - Alabama
2008 - Florida
2007 - LSU
2006 - Florida
2005 - Texas
2004 - USC
2003 - LSU & USC
2002 - Ohio State
2001 - Miami
2000 - Oklahoma

You know what is missing from that list....non-helmet schools. The reality is that the National Champion in college football is going to come from a relatively small pool of teams that are able to recruit/hire the top level athletes on a yearly basis and that isn't going to change anytime soon.

If anything, NIL and the portal have a chance to expand the group of teams with a legit shot of competing if they are willing to play the game and buy their way to the title. For the rest, nothing has really changed so I really don't get all the worry from fans like suddenly things are different.

College football has been big business for a long time now. The student in student athlete went away at the highest level a long time ago.
Yes, it has been favored for a handful of top schools. But there has been some hope for schools that can find a way to win and attract better players. In the current system we have still been able to support enough schools to have a competitive group of P5 schools. I can easily see many schools like Northwestern, etc to just say fck it and drop football.
 

The last college football season ended in on Monday, January 13, 2020. There will never be another “college” football game ever played.

We didn’t know it at the time, but this was the end. It is now obvious.

Everyone just needs to start just acknowledging that we have completely moved-on to something totally different.
 

Exactly. To a guy like Phil Knight or T Boone Pickens, it's play money. It's a toy to them - paying to see their schools teams win. It's always been the case, and it always will. I've posted many times that I wish the U had a sugar daddy like that, and that I simply would not care if they were paying guys hundreds of thousands under the table if it meant the Gophers were a national power.

It's a business. Plain and simple.
They do T Denny Sanford. Oh that's right the U pissed him off.
 



We have always had divisions dividing tier one, tier two and non-scholarship schools. The way things are starting to look we may have to divide teams by how much NIL money they produce. The 25 mil. that has been attributed to Texas A & M is only the start.

Who knows ... we might have to put them in a category named Semi-pro college level. Conferences may change to other super conferences based on the amount of NIL money produced. I know this will probably not happen but might make it more manageable for some schools.

Some say this has always been happening but I don't think it was anywhere near the levels it is at now or will be in the future.
The courts have opened a Pandora's Box. College Football is on the road to perdition.

For every action, there is an adverse reaction. Where does it end?

While they are at it, why doesn't the NCAA reinstate all the Gophers basketball records as far back as the Musselman Era? The stuff that they were punished for looked so petty today with these open gross flirtations of the interpretation of NIL.

With NC, they had high-powered people twist the violations to make it like it wasn't cheating because they allowed one or two stray non-basketball players to take those classes in question.

So for NC, it isn't cheating. For the Gophers, they are lucky they did not get the death penalty. There are two separate standards of justice.

What is happening with huge NIL LLCs is the war chest that probably was underground with bagmen is now out in the open. Now, they can amass vast resources never seen before.

The whole world as we know it in sports is changing forever.
 
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The point is that everything has limits or rules in order to create order, increase competition, etc…. Nobody has absolute freedom to do what ever they want, whenever or wherever they want.

The court rulings on NIL destroyed the whole premise of college sports with no consideration of the ramifications. It threw out the baby with the bath water. It took a very short time for some team boosters to offer ridiculous amounts of money in the name of NIL’s. The arms race has started and it will not stop until the teams realize that they need each other to exist. Just as in professional sports, every team needs other teams to actually play the games. There are no Washington Generals in college sports that these “Paid to Play” college teams can beat up every week.
 


The point is that everything has limits or rules in order to create order, increase competition, etc…. Nobody has absolute freedom to do what ever they want, whenever or wherever they want.

The court rulings on NIL destroyed the whole premise of college sports with no consideration of the ramifications. It threw out the baby with the bath water. It took a very short time for some team boosters to offer ridiculous amounts of money in the name of NIL’s. The arms race has started and it will not stop until the teams realize that they need each other to exist. Just as in professional sports, every team needs other teams to actually play the games. There are no Washington Generals in college sports that these “Paid to Play” college teams can beat up every week.
Again, I get that for anyone hanging onto the idea that college football isn't big business and that academics still mean something at the highest level this NIL stuff might be scary.

But the reality is that the college football landscape hasn't changed because of this. You mentioned Northwestern in one of your posts, the last time they were ranked higher than #10 was in the mid nineties and then you have to go back to the 60's to find the next time they were up near the top. They haven't been a contender for the National Championship for a long long time, why would they suddenly throw in the towel now?

NIL money isn't suddenly going to make Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State....better, they are already at the top fo their game, and they are already bringing in the best players every year. Now they can just pay them out in the open as opposed to doing it under the table.

If you want to hang onto the purity of the game, where student athletes are students and playing for the love of the game you are going to need to become an FCS or lower level fan. College football at the FBS level has been big business for a long time now and this new wave doesn't really change anything. Just gives us all a chance to see the stupid money that some people are willing to throw around to try and win football games.
 



Again, I get that for anyone hanging onto the idea that college football isn't big business and that academics still mean something at the highest level this NIL stuff might be scary.

But the reality is that the college football landscape hasn't changed because of this. You mentioned Northwestern in one of your posts, the last time they were ranked higher than #10 was in the mid nineties and then you have to go back to the 60's to find the next time they were up near the top. They haven't been a contender for the National Championship for a long long time, why would they suddenly throw in the towel now?

NIL money isn't suddenly going to make Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State....better, they are already at the top fo their game, and they are already bringing in the best players every year. Now they can just pay them out in the open as opposed to doing it under the table.

If you want to hang onto the purity of the game, where student athletes are students and playing for the love of the game you are going to need to become an FCS or lower level fan. College football at the FBS level has been big business for a long time now and this new wave doesn't really change anything. Just gives us all a chance to see the stupid money that some people are willing to throw around to try and win football games.
Saban and Smart disagree with you, they think the NIL’s need increased regulations.
 

Saban and Smart disagree with you, they think the NIL’s need increased regulations.
I'm all for regulation of it if they can figure out a way to do it. Don't have a lot of faith in them figuring out how to do it though.

I just don't think the college football landscape has shifted in any meaningful way because of this.

Makes sense that Saban would want more regulation though. They already get the best players, so if teams can buy some of those players away from them it isn't in their best interests to see that happen.
 

Here is the article about the BYU team-wide NIL deal, which will be rich enough to pay tuition for all walk-ons, apparently. See my earlier long-winded rant above (reply to Murray) about implications. BYU has overnight become a professional team, and it isn’t even close in compensation to what Texas, Texas A&M and some other schools have reportedly arranged for their players from (sham?) booster-funded LLCs.

Maybe the Church is paying it...
 

Saban and Smart disagree with you, they think the NIL’s need increased regulations.

It's because they think it will hurt their programs, if it does that's a good thing.
 

Maybe the Church is paying it..



Well what will the difference between a walk-on and a scholarship player be. Maybe room and board ... not sure if that is included in this deal.
 

The court rulings on NIL destroyed the whole premise of college sports with no consideration of the ramifications.
It's not the court's job to consider the ramifications on college sports. It's to determine whether or not something is legal.
 





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