Over the last week there has been quite a bit of talk about college football, almost all of which is negative. The main story on most people minds would be the University of Miami football team alleged infractions involving convicted felon Nevin Shapiro. Then today the NFL ruled that Terrelle Pryor, despite admitting that he attempted to undermine the integrity of the supplemental draft, would be eligible for Monday's draft with one catch: Pryor would have to serve a 5 game suspension after signing with a team (the same length of suspension he would have had to serve had he stayed at Ohio State). Finally during ESPN's "A Blueprint for Change" discussion Bob Stoops, Oklahoma Sooner head coach, talked about one of the reasons that a College Football playoff wouldn't work. All three of these things made me think about college football from numerous different viewpoints and it has caused me to draw one conclusion: Division I NCAA football is a "farm system" for the NFL and should treat the players as professionals.
First we have to start with the scandal at "The U." With the kind of slanderous allegations made by Shapiro in a Yahoo! Sports article there is no doubt that SOME sort of misconduct was going on. According to Shapiro he supplied everything from car rims to prostitutes, even an abortion for University of Miami players over an almost 10 year period. This incident, combined with other major violations such as the ones at USC, Ohio State, and North Carolina demonstrate a culture of what the NCAA would define as cheating. I, however, do not define it that way. As a college student myself I look at this through a different lens then I feel most adults and people in charge do. Where they see cheating I see a college student trying to do what's best for him and his family. The simple fact of the matter is that in both the case of USC and Ohio State the students were merely trying to help their families (Reggie Bush and Pryor) or get a little bit of money for their own use, something that is not easy to come about when you DON'T have football practice and workouts AND class. In the case of the students at Miami the line blurs slightly. Having someone pay for you to get a blowjob on his private yacht is obviously something that is not helping the players family or him in any monetary way, but if a booster wants to buy someone a ring so they can propose to their girlfriend I don't see the problem there. Yes, I understand that if word gets out that there is a guy in Miami who will do anything for a good player then more good players are likely to go but look at the University or Miami throughout the years that Shapiro allegedly gave out these benefits to players-how many national title did they win? the answer is 0, so obviously they weren't given such an advantage by this guy being there. But this is all besides the point, the point is that college kids, especially college kids who grew up with nothing, are going to take free stuff if it's offered to them, no matter who it is that's offering it (just look at credit cards! they offer a free backpack and people sign up!).
This leads me to point number two. With Terrelle Pryor being admitted into the NFL supplemental draft but still being suspended the five games he would have been suspended had he stayed in college it is clear that the NFL is admitting that it sees the NCAA as the "Triple-A" farm system from which players come into the league. The NFL can say that this isn't about the NCAA's suspension but anyone with some common sense knows that's not true. This is simply the NFL saying to the NCAA don't worry, we got your back, and the reason that they can do it is because there is NO OTHER WAY for a player to get into the pros besides college football. There is no Euro league that's gonna sign an 18 year old to a pro football contract, he'd get killed. It's not like the MLB where there is a literal farm system where 18 and 19 year olds can mature physically or like the NBA where 18 and 19 year olds can compete after playing a year in Europe, nope to get to the NFL you gotta go through college.
This all brings me to coach Stoops. Stoops said on ESPN today that one of the reasons that a 4, 6 or 8 team playoff wouldn't work in college football is because it lacks the specialty of a bowl game. He said something along the lines of you would go and play and afterwards you have to get everyone on a plane at 1am and fly back to campus then do it all again next week. This comment infuriates me because of the pure idiocy of it. It is obvious that most big time college football players, especially those that are on teams competing for a National Title, have dreams and aspirations of becoming pro players, and most of them would be in the pros already if it was allowed by the NFL (like Terrelle Pryor). So to say that this is a legitimate reason to not have a playoff, in which a TRUE champion is crowned, not just the one that some computer picks, is ridiculous. If coach Stoops is under any sort of fantasy in which his players aren't constantly thinking about heir NFL futures I have the wake up call for him-they are. Like every second an ESPN camera is pointed at them for "ESPN All Access: Oklahoma."
If these guys want to be pros at some point let's treat them like pros now, we treat them like pros in every other conceivable way. They are criticized like pros, they are watched like pros, they are worshipped like pros (Tim Tebow has a plaque remembering a post game press conference speech at the University of Florida). Why can't the NCAA look at itself realistically and say I guess we kinda are a pro league. There should be rules on the book that if players can't get paid that they should be able to accept small amounts of money or help from outside sources if they can prove that the uses were not extraneous and were for the benefit of the player or his/her family, including their parents and siblings. Also the NCAA and the BCS should implement a pro style playoff system and show these soon to be pros what it will be like in the NFL, because as a farm program, that is their job.
