The fog is starting to clear and teams are separating themselves. Three undefeated teams fell on Saturday and they were arguably all pretenders. Michigan, Illinois, and Georgia Tech had all put in sub-par performances in previous weeks and they payed for it. So who’s left?
- LSU
- Alabama
- Oklahoma
- Stanford
- Oklahoma St
- Wisconsin
- Boise St
- Clemson
- Houston
- Kansas State
Who will survive? Let’s take a look at the teams above based on who they’ve beat and what tough games they have left.
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This is Part 2 of Dan’s thoughts on pay for play. Read Part 1 here.
In “Fiscal Responsibility - Not Just For AIG”, I used the term “student athletes” instead of football and basketball players. In this post, I’m only talking about those two sport as those are the only two revenue generating sports found at the collegiate level (with a few exceptions here and there) and even then, there’s no guarantee. And my goodness how they generate revenue from crazed fans, media conglomerates, boosters, and sponsors. OSU had a profit exceeding $40 million from their football program alone in 2010. ESPN spent $2.25 billion over the next 15 years to certify their monopoly on SEC college football. Once you get into March Madness and Bowl Sponsorship - it get’s even crazier. It is fair that some programs generate cash money and others do not? Of course not but it is the reality of the situation. Always has, always will.
All those dollars are to watch the athletes on the field or on the court. Every single one of them. There’s quite a few folks out there that think the financial benefits (full scholarship, tutors, food, clothing, etc) and the un-calculable benefits (the opportunity to showcase and refine the athlete’s talent at a very elite level to sports zealots all over the country) isn’t enough. That student athletes in revenue generating programs should get a piece of the pie. Divide $40 million (OSU’s profit last year from the football program) by 85 (max. # scholarships) and I’ll readily agree the benefits in college calculable or otherwise probably don’t balance. Ok, so, they shouldn’t get all of the $40 million but let’s run a thought experiment. Let’s say we give each player $100,000 and leave $31.5 million to OSU. What happens?
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NOTRE DAME. YOU. ARE. NOT. SPECIAL. GET. OVER. IT.
For those of you who did not watch insane finish in the Michigan-Notre Dame game, you missed a doozy. Michigan entered the 4th quarter down 24-7 in a game marked by complete ineptitude from the Michigan defense and 18 penalties (9 each). They also entered the 4th quarter on 3rd and goal from the ND one yard line. Denard Robinson handed it off to his RB who had the ball knocked from his hands charging into the trenches. Mr. Robinson scooped up the loose ball and trotted into the end zone- I’ve never seen that happen. That touchdown sparked a 15 minute performance by Michigan that poured on 28 points (almost 35 had they maintained possession in the fumbled kickoff return in the last 2 seconds).
The Wolverines took their first lead 58 minutes and 58 seconds into the game (that means for 98.3% of the game Michigan was losing). Then the Michigan defense did what they do best and let ND go 61 yards in 42 seconds to retake the lead. Now down by 3 with 30 seconds left, not to be out done by ND’s 61 yard march, Michigan moved 80 yards in 28 seconds to score with 2 seconds remaining taking the lead for good. Wowzers. First game under the lights with an NCAA record of 114,000 people. I wish I was there and don’t even like either team!
You may have noticed that the title of this article has some grumbles in it but I seem to be summarizing the dramatic finish to the ND-Michigan game. No worries, things will now get grumpy.
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As a Buckeye Fan, the last 9 months have been rough and I’ve got plenty to say about that. Interestingly enough however, Ohio State was joined by a dozen other schools around the country for players allegedly receiving improper benefits. These allegations put the “pay-for-play” discussion into the spotlight for most of the off-season.
I look at the “pay for play” discussion and college football and see two schools of thought. School #1 revolves around supplementing athletes income by providing them a modest payment to cover living expenses - in the neighborhood of a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars a semester. School #2 involves giving the athletes a piece of the money-pie served up (mostly) among the BCS conferences. I can summarize both schools using Obama 2012 campaign slogan’s initial acronym ‘WTF’ but I feel they are worth discussing. Each school brings to light another issue that will need to be resolved should college football - hell, college athletics - continue to exist. As a result, I’ve broken up the “pay-for-play” discussion into 3 posts:
“Fiscal Responsibility - Not Just For AIG” 9/11
“I’m Not Telling The Pistol Team Their Sport Is Useless” 9/18
“Life, Liberty And The Pursuit of Happiness May Be Inalienable Rights - A College Scholarship Is Not” 9/25
“Fiscal Responsibility - Not Just For AIG”
Supplemental income of a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars is not a whole lot of money in the grand scheme of things but a college student can stretch that a lonngggggg ways. And for student athletes supplemental income is talking about $2500 spread out over the course of 15-18 weeks. You know how most students gather $2500 over the course of 15-18 weeks?
They get a j-o-b.
Pre-season and in-season responsibilities are a full-time commitment above and beyond classroom duties for student athletes. As many of these students are on a scholarship for their respective sport, I fully support dedication of 100% of their effort to their studies and athletic commitments during this time. Once the season is over their athletic commitments drop to a part-time job, or drop completely or at least should (more on this last point in a minute). This would be a great time to get a job and earn “a modest sum of money to cover living expenses - in the neighborhood of a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars”.
As an added bonus, unlike nearly all of their classmates, most of student athletes’ educational expenses are already covered. Cash from that part-time job need only be used to directly supplement their living expenses. While they’re at it, squirrel a little away for preseason and season commitments. Viola! Living expenses covered! As a matter of fact, I watched my roommate in college (Women’s Soccer @ OSU) and her teammates do exactly that. I call that fiscal responsibility and I doubt I’m the only one.
I’m am also sure I am not the only one whose heard the rumor that athletic commitments at high-profile institutions in revenue-generating sports are a year-round commitment. Sure the NCAA limits the official number of practices but there’s plenty of “volunteer” activities, practices, lifts, etc that make the commitment year-round. I agree that this would make it difficult, but not impossible, to get that job to supplement your income. (Some of us regular folk worked 40 hours a week year-round to pay for their school and didn’t bitch about not having enough money but I digress). However I am willing to find some semblance of sympathy if that commitment is so great that finding part-time work to supplement your living expenses is that restricted.
The NCAA and host institutions should work to limit the amount of off-season commitments instead of finding ways to pay all their athletes. I think a little extra monitoring may have additional benefits (see ESPN for a list of NCAA programs on the “you should have monitored your program more” shit list). And ya know what? I suspect this is the reason, this year-round commitment, the whole pay for play discussion has come about. You don’t hear about the men’s gymnastic team complaining about pay for play. You don’t read about the lacrosse team asking for a supplemental income. Quite frankly, 99.9% of student athletes are doing what is necessary to play the sport they love, go to their classes and live the college lifestyle. It’s the 0.1% of student athletes playing high-profile sports at the highest-profile institutions that are involved in this pay-for-play debacle.
Limiting off-season commitments also represents a sustainable path forward to supplement athletes income. Most athletic departments lose money each year, only a very select few make money. Where in budgets that lose money year in and year out do you expect to find a couple thousand dollars for the hundreds of athletes ? How do you expect to make a case to tax-payers for those state-institutions to supplement income when their poster children are buying tattoos? How do you keep an amateur-level playing field internally between sports and externally between institutions? Most academic institutions are already providing enough benefits to their student athletes above and beyond paying for the entirety of their education (see food, clothing, travel expenses, etc) - paying them more money should not be their burden.
All sports however can determine maximum commitments between pre-season, season and off-season regardless of sport - and can enforce them with a little help from the NCAA. If you ensure student athletes have the opportunity to supplement their income like everyone else, the pay-for-play discussion is over for 90% of that 0.1% of student athletes that give this article its purpose. And while you’re at it, you teach the student athletes a lesson in fiscal responsibility - lord knows we need as much of that among my generation as we can get. The remaining 0.01% of student athletes need an article all of themselves and I’ll talk about them in “Life, Liberty And The Pursuit of Happiness May Be Inalienable Rights - A College Scholarship Is Not”.
In the past 3 seasons Oregon is 2-3 against ranked non-conference opponents beating Utah and Oklahoma State while losing to Boise State, Ohio State, and Auburn.
In the past 3 seasons Boise State is 6-1 against ranked non-conference opponents beating Utah, Virginia Tech, Oregon State, TCU, and Oregon (twice!) while losing to TCU by 1 point.
In that same period Boise State has played in 1 BCS bowl with a victory while Oregon has played in 2 with 2 losses.
2011 Preseason rankings had Oregon @ #3 and Boise State @ #5.
Saturday night both teams played at “neutral sites” against SEC opponents. Boise traveled to Atlanta to play Georgia while Oregon traveled to Dallas to play LSU. The Broncos won big and the Ducks lost big so let’s update:
In the past 3 seasons Oregon is 2-4 against ranked non-conference opponents beating Utah and Oklahoma State while losing to Boise State, Ohio State, Auburn, and LSU.
In the past 3 seasons Boise State is 7-1 against ranked non-conference opponents beating Georgia, Utah, Virginia Tech, Oregon State, TCU, and Oregon (twice!) while losing to TCU by 1 point.
I think it’s time the media start giving “SEC-like” credibility to Boise State and “Ohio State-like” credibility to Oregon. By this I mean that you almost never see the media pick an SEC school to lose a non-conference game (BSU was favored by 3 Saturday night against a Georgia team coming off a losing record) because they are that flippin’ good and almost always win. Likewise you’ll never hear the media call Ohio State a bad team but they’ll never get favored in a large non-conference game because the Buckeyes earned it by losing 3 straight BCS games and shitting the bed twice against USC. Both OSU and the SEC have earned their reputation and unless results prove otherwise, they deserve to hold that reputation.
A 0.875 winning percentage against ranked non-conference opponents needs to be respected more than a 0.333 winning percentage. How many times have you seen Boise’s coach on College Game day or in a Sports Center commercial? Chip Kelly will soon be a co-host at his rate. Oregon may have new uniforms every week to compliment their flashy and unique offensive scheme but they also don’t produce at the top 5 status they are given.
Go Broncos!
P.S.
This “neutral site” shit with Boise State has to go. According to Google Maps: Boise to Atlanta = 2,100 miles. Athens to Atlanta = 70 miles. Boise to DC = 2,300 miles, Blacksburg to DC = 300 miles. By way of analogy, the size of my dick is “neutral” compared to Ron Jeremy. Ladies feel free to email me. [Ladies, Dan can be contacted here. -Z]
