MIRAMAR BEACH, FL – So now we’ve quickly pivoted from unsustainable to ungovernable, while continuing to bring narrative nonsense to a fistfight for survival.
Instead of finding a hammer that works.
Want to gain control of an unruly unraveling of college sports? Say hello to our longtime — and currently ignored — friend, academics.
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Benchmarks for earning. Benchmarks for free player movement. Benchmarks for academic eligibility — remember that?
Benchmarks to step on the field for one school in September, and then enroll at another school in January.
I ask you, what provincial judge worth his weight in pictures with the school mascot is going to rule against academic benchmarks? It is, after all, higher education.
But as one SEC athletic director here at the SEC’s annual spring meetings told USA TODAY Sports, “Good luck getting that past (NCAA) membership.”
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If you think the “limited antitrust” option for the NCAA as part of “comprehensive legislation” currently working its way through Congress and on the verge of being passed — I believe that when I see it — will stop players and judge shopping, you’re the same guy who thinks Lane Kiffin’s social media vacation will last.
The legal fights will never end until the argument falls flat on its merit. A university’s mission is higher education, there’s no argument around that.
Now here’s the key: You’re not preventing players from earning or from free player movement — they are. It’s the classic Nick Saban line when a helicopter parent arrived in his office, and asked why Jimmy wasn’t playing.
Saban’s response: I have no control over Jimmy’s playing time, he does.
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I’m not smart enough to know what benchmarks fit where, because if it were up to me, I’d say any self-respecting student should be able to clear a 2.5 grade point average in four courses per semester if the university is paying him to play football.
And if he doesn’t, that’s OK. You’re not preventing him from leaving for another school, he is — by failing to reach a 2.5 grade point average. Or whatever GPA limit is placed on players.
If a player fails to reach the required academic benchmark, a certain percentage of his revenue sharing from the university (not private NIL) is clawed back. Maybe it’s 25%, maybe it’s 50% — but more than anything, it’s a guardrail and it’s a life lesson.
Instead of the current life lessons being doled out. Make deals, break deals. Give your word, break your word.
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When life gets tough, find an easier road.
Life’s success stories don’t revolve around those who take the easy way out. Yet that’s what we’re teaching, that’s what judge shopping has become.
I’m the last guy to fight for the NCAA, an archaic, bureaucratic mess of an organization well past its prime. I’m actually fighting for players, because less than 5% of them will reach the NFL and continue to earn.
But they can’t see that reality with all the fungible cash in the system. Networks and streaming sites pay the universities, universities pay the players, players pay their representatives, representatives find NIL deals with advertisers, advertisers pay the networks for commercials.
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And local judges do everything they can to extend careers and ignore rules, all for ol’ State U.
The first local judge who says players shouldn’t have academic benchmarks, shouldn’t have expectations of assimilating into higher education that affords players the ability to earn like never before, will be the last judge to do so.
“I’m not sure anyone knows where this ends if you don’t want to be governed,” said Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts.
It surely won’t end early next month in a Lubbock Country courtroom, where a group of attorneys will argue Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby should be eligible to play despite gambling on his Indiana team in 2022.
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Once that local judge sides for Sorsby and forces the NCAA to allow him to play, the wheels will have officially come off.
From unsustainable to ungoverned to a free-for-all money grab with no rules.
Except the one they refuse to use. The one that may just save the sport — and players — from themselves.
Welcome back, academics. We’ve miss you, old friend.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NCAA, college sports chaos has a fix: Academic benchmarks
