The Rest of College Football

[geo weidl]

WTF is with all these statues of atheletes or coahces being erected and paid for by universities? I think I have seen about 2-3 erected or contemplated in the last few months mostly in the sec region. What a waste of time and money.

[entropy]

The University of Colorado football team will play its season finale on the day after Thanksgiving, continuing a tradition it had with Nebraska for 15 seasons in the Big 12.

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[entropy]

geo..

Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs says he has no reservations about erecting a statue for Cam Newton while an NCAA investigation continues.

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[Jeff Buchanan]

Statues ..... wrong direction. Big mistake.

Advances the person above the team; relegates the value of sports in developing educated citizens at university to a place less than the value of personality.

Jacobs' stupid response shows how misplaced and overvalued college sports has become; it shows how fame and money making are more important than a good education and solid citizenship.

[WM Wolverine]

In SEC country, there is a race to put up statues of its former players.

[hodgkal]

Statues ..... wrong direction. Big mistake.

Advances the person above the team; relegates the value of sports in developing educated citizens at university to a place less than the value of personality.

Jacobs' stupid response shows how misplaced and overvalued college sports has become; it shows how fame and money making are more important than a good education and solid citizenship.

Excellent comment, Jeff. It's easy to lose perspective on issues like this. it seems like the last vestiges of integrity in CFB are slipping away. Part of our national mindset.

[Jamie H]

I'm not sure college football ever HAD any integrity, really. At least not in some places. I mean, when you read about the stuff that went on back in the "old days" of college football it is really crazy. I just think it was 100 times easier to sweep things under the rug back then.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Fielding Yost used ringers. I'm tellin ya

[Dr. Strangelove]

WAC to announce future and expansion on June 14th

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/WAC-will-announce-its-expansion-plan-on-June-14;_ylt=Ak8ztWFwOqsLo1se7o3JZXwcvrYF?urn=ncaaf-wp1371

[SeanB]

I can't believe they would erect a statue of Sham Newton...what a joke. I'm pissed the Panthers selected him.

I'm moving on to become a Lions fan. At least they seem to be on the upswing!

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'm not sure college football ever HAD any integrity, really. At least not in some places. I mean, when you read about the stuff that went on back in the "old days" of college football it is really crazy. I just think it was 100 times easier to sweep things under the rug back then.

This isn't about integrity. Sure, College sports going back to the early 1900s had its sleaze .... human nature. And yes, strange, Yost probably did field ringers.

My beef is with the elevation of sports personalities and the commercialization of CFB above the value of sports to the development of young men.

Frankly, Hoke is a throw back to a bygone era of M football when the team was more important than the player, when a good grade in class was as important as a big TD pass or tackle and getting a Michigan degree was more important than bolting to the pros using a CFB career as a stepping stone to the NFL.

He might make this work, he might not, Michigan almost lost its way but forces who wanted things another way reasserted themselves and Brady Hoke is the end result.

In comparison, osu lost its way when it hired jim tressel and two osu greats, kirk herbstreit and chris speilman have said as much. gee's eloquent statement he wrote while at Vanderbilt, quoted in this forum, about the loss of the real value of CFB, turns out to be mere bullshit to a man that has compromised his core values, if he every really had them, at the alter of winning.

So, yeah, CFB has had some sleaze but fundamentally, it has great value in developing men of character and that is what this game should be all about and I'm all for Brady Hoke making a run at championships with that concept at the heart of what he does at Michigan.

[hodgkal]

What has changed is how both college and pro football now dominate the sports scene in America. It wasn't that long ago that our national sport was baseball, major league and on down to the amateur levels. Pro football and CFB were no where near the money makers they are today. A lot of this is due to the emergence of television in the 1950s. There was once a day when the nation's sports appetite was fed exclusively by radio and the sports pages.

With this change has come a cascade of new revenue as sports crazed fans can now feed their addictions. To get in on this revenue stream you have to be competitive, and of course this means you have to win. So you have to get the players and the coaches. Can you imagine there was once a day when the head FB coach at a college made less than the college president? That's the way it once was.

When I was a student at UM football players actually had to enroll in the same curriculum as everybody else and they actually had to go to class. It was true in all the sports. I'm sure there was monkey business going on back then but nothing like the scale it exists today.

Another factor is the decline in education standards in this country starting at the elementary school level. I'm speaking generally and there are certainly exceptions. This seems particularly true of inner city schools where most of the athletic talent resides. So if you are going to get these athletes you have to compromise academically. Even schools like ND that have traditionally maintained very high scholastic standards now have "special" courses for elite athletes that cannot otherwise hack it. Along the same line I am curious to see what type of curriculum most of the players on last year's Stanford team were enrolled in.

Thinking people like members of this forum are certainly well aware of these problems. But how to remedy the situation is another matter. If we had fair regulations that were actually enforced perhaps things could be changed but I see little incentive to make these changes. There is simply too much money involved. The parallel with our current banking crisis is obvious.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Interesting and am in general agreement, Doc.

Marketing came to Michigan with Don Canham in the 60s and I suspect his approach mirrored the approach taken by all the elite CFB programs of that day. I actually think the college presidents have done a fairly good job - some of them mind you - in keeping the money machine that is the revenue sports of CFB and CBB in their proper place. I don't think anyone would argue that the money generated by the revenue sports allows multiple other lesser sports to be played at a very competitive level is not a good thing.

In that vein, many kids who would not have any opportunity to attend college get to do so because of their athletic skills and are able to use those to facilitate the advancement of their educations. Sure, not all do that but I'm willing to live with that knowing that the opportunity is there if one wants to grab it.

I also think that the biggest problem for CFB and BB are the agents trying to attach themselves early to the income potential of the elite athletes and the monied, egotistical alumni or others associated with a sports program (the so called jock sniffers) who actually live vicariously through these sports programs and who define themselves by the success or failure of their teams each weekend.

Even in the case of what the press is making out to be the dirtiest programs in CFB, including osu, I think the scope of the failings of the employees and administrators inside these programs with regard to NCAA compliance is greatly exaggerated to make a story or to satisfy the hatred of one set of fans and their football programs against another set.

So, the area of concern for the NCAA and its members should be the undeniable truth that unsavory and unscrupulous elements outside of and present around every football program, who have no interest in the positive things we have talked about here regarding participation in college sports, have too much access to and influence on 19 year olds.

Therefore, solutions to the problems in college sports need to focus on limiting the kinds of impact this group can have. That is hard but there are ways. One of them is to lock student athletes and the programs that offer scholarships to them into legally binding contracts. They take inappropriate benefits as defined by the NCAA, after a due process finding of fault conducted by an impartial body, the contract is void.

Further more, the states should license and regulate agents who hope to represent a college athlete and I think this process is already underway in some states. The NFL and the NBA could help here and should be much more heavily involved implementing rules that prevent college players bound by contract to a school from jumping to the pros.

Not much you can do about the monied egotistical jock sniffers other than limit their access like is already being done and make sure student athletes know what is at stake if they take a $500 hand shake for a big tackle on game day.

Basically I think solutions are available. It just takes leadership and balls to do something ..... and that seems to me to be severely lacking.

[WingsFan]

Wherever you go there you are. "personal issues" will prevent Tate Forcier from joining the Miami Hurricanes.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110513/...#ixzz1MGGGNT00

[SeanB]

I don't want to make wild speculation about someone else's family, but what the hell, what are internet forums for?

I think all the Forcier QBs have been spoon fed some tremendous BS by their father about how "special" they are, and they just aren't interested in competing. They expect to be given things, and when it doesn't happen, or looks like it might not, they bail.

Like I said, I have zero basis for this opinion, it's just a feeling I get. Daddy calls the shots on a lot of these issues, I think.