With the typical college student now taking closer to 6 years to graduate instead of 4, perhaps the NCAA - as in the 1,000+ members - should revisit eligibility. Just canât see it being eliminated altogether, though. Of course, weâre nearing the end of a 5 year experiment with players getting 5 seasons to play (unless you happen to be certain St. Johnâs hoopsters) and so far no apparent move to make that permanent.
Anyway, a lot to be ironed out with House and possibly the pending Fontenot case. Personally donât think the wrangling over the former is going to be smooth sailing.
If the House settlement is approved, us and other non P5âs will already be on the hook for a pretty large yearly decrease in revenue for a suit that was brought forward by mostly P5 athletes. And there is nothing in it stopping future suits. What happens if we end up being part of similar settlements from other cases like Fontenot? This could keep adding up for years to come, when in reality we have had few athletes who would have been receiving any kind of actual real NIL. I would much prefer us settle with our former athletes and pay out to them instead of a group that never even played for us.
With all the changes you could make an argument like:
Why do universities have an athletic component at all?
The only reason our scholarship system exists was to allow those rich and powerful alumni to have good teams and still have the perception of academics mattering, and in many cases they do.
But removing the academic component is a bridge too far.
The system will break down completely if that happens because student fees will disappear and the small group of universities who can afford it will have to decide if they want to either compete with the NBA and NFL for talent (they canât) or play truly minor league pro sports.
It will look something akin to the âclubâ model in Europe.
Interesting and yet just read about a prominent international recruit who spurned offers from major US college programs to stay in Europe. And there are still US foreign student visa issues to be worked out so that international players can fully realize NIL while in this country. That said, would have been nice to have landed the Latvian recruit who just chose Davidson over the Niners. Would hate to think it came down to NIL - albeit restricted - and we lost out to the Cats!
I want no part of any of this. If I were a graduate of Texas I would be mortified. That represents everything that is wrong with this world. There is no way we compete in that world and I wouldnât want to try.
