🏈 Saban wants equal rules across Power Five

[BAMANEWSBOT]

A blog on the latest from the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Florida.

Decatur Daily—Continue reading...

 

[BAMANEWSBOT]

DESTIN, Fla. — Nick Saban wants to even the playing field of college football’s evolving landscape.

Decatur Daily—Continue reading...

 

[planomateo]

Feels like the SEC needs some cheese with its wine on this one. I don't like that we're trying to level the playing field all of the sudden on a few of these, especially when other conferences have been asking for that for years prior and we rightfully told them to worry about their own conference.

We should worry about the SEC...you don't get people to change rules because you whine, you get them to change the rules because you're doing exactly what they're doing.

 

[planomateo]

Reading that our new Commish said things in a much different way. I like him already. Need to see if I can find the entire interview.

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"We want it to be done nationally, but there was a lot of conversation among our football coaches that we don’t want to be on the sidelines any longer if there’s not going to be a change more rapidly," Sankey said.

"If that’s going to be the competitive landscape, they want to be fully engaged if the rule doesn’t change nationally."

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...recruiting-forever-if-satelite-camps-continue

 

[BamaFan334]

I am a fan of things being the same as far as this goes. This way we really find out which coaches are truly the best, which recruiters can truly recruit, and which teams can compete when everyone else is on the same page as them. I don't think it's giving the SEC any less of an opportunity the way it is currently, because we have succeeded without it.

 

[riz]

Mixed feelings about how far we would actually go, although Saban does tend to be a workaholic, so you never know.

Either way, I'd like to see it happen just because of this: http://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/5/27/8665519/nick-saban-shouldnt-be-secs-satellite-camp-spokesman

 

[Bamabww]

Nick Saban wants fair system for cost of attendance

Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist

DESTIN, Fla. | After a few brief items of the sort of chatter you would expect at poolside, Nick Saban went straight for the big fish at the SEC meetings on Tuesday.

That isn't the 180-pound tarpon he boated on Monday, or his daughter's upcoming wedding. Instead, it is the current hot-button topic in recruiting that clearly rankles him the most: cost of attendance.

"You can't create a system that almost creates fraud," Saban said.
The background on that issue is obvious. The NCAA now allows schools to pay a cost of attendance stipend, money that goes over and above the old "tuition, room, board and books" that players used to get. That isn't what bothers Saban, who notes that "we've always been for players getting all they can get."

The problem is that not all schools calculate "cost of attendance" the same way, and there is thus a dollar disparity in the extra cash that players can get at different schools. It would be disingenuous not to point out that Auburn has a much higher "cost of attendance" calculation than Alabama's. Saban did not refer to that specifically, but it likely does nothing to improve his mood.

"Even the NFL has a salary cap," Saban said. "We don't want to have any system that enhances fraudulent behavior for a competitive advantage. And there has to some sort of cap to create fairness.

"If you look at it from an academic standpoint, which is supposed to be the reason that we have universities and colleges, you would want to keep the cost of attendance low."

Saban said that he had not yet encountered much conversation about COA stipends from recruits, adding that Alabama doesn't use the COA as a selling point "although some people are doing it."

Saban went on to fume about some other issues. Satellite camps, another recent hot topic, didn't fare much better than the COA did.

"We've got a lot of crazy rules," he said. "We have a rule against a head coach going on the road to evaluate, but we are going to let someone have a satellite camp away from their campus and take their entire staff," he said. "How does that make sense?"

Saban also made a reference to the SEC rule about graduate transfers who have had "trouble" at their previous school. That rule came into play with Notre Dame quarterback Everett Golson, who wound up at Florida State rather than an SEC school.

"We (in the Power 5 conferences) need to get our rules in alignment," he said. "Otherwise, we're going to be a farm system for the other leagues."
https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1769520

 

[BAMANEWSBOT]

Understanding Full Cost of Attendance Scholarships

If you don’t understand “full cost of attendance” scholarships, you’re not alone. These scholarships provide the extra monies many student-athletes and media members have been seeking to include in athletic scholarships for years. They bridge the gap between tuition, fees, room and board, and books and the “actual” cost of attending the school. The “Power 5” conferences approved upping athletic scholarships to include “full cost of attendance” this past January and the new measures go into effect this fall.

I thought I understood full cost of attendance scholarships. The more I began to read about them, the more I began to realize I didn’t.

I thought these scholarships funded student-athletes with “walk-around” money – the couple hundred extra bucks a month for laundry, movies and pizza so student-athletes who don’t have the time to hold jobs can have a more regular college experience.

I thought the “full cost of attendance” figure would be largely the same across college athletics. Those schools located in the more expensive parts of our country to live – New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston – would provide more than those schools in the cheaper-to-live places – rural South, Midwest – but on balance, when factoring in cost of living disparities, they’d be equal.

Was I ever wrong.

The Chronicle of Higher Education examined the “full cost of attendance” figure at every “Power 5” member school and the numbers are shocking, and contrary to common sense.

The University of Tennessee will provide its student-athletes with more “full cost of attendance” dollars – $5,666 per year – than any other school in the country. Am I supposed to believe the cost of attending UT in Knoxville is greater than the cost of attending USC in Los Angeles? I’ve been to Knoxville and I’ve been to Los Angeles; that makes no sense.

In fact, along with Tennessee, two of the other Top-4 schools when it comes to “full cost of attendance” dollars boggle the mind: Auburn ($5,586) and Mississippi State ($5,126). Common sense would tell me these schools should be at the bottom.

USC ($1,580) is actually near the bottom with Boston College ($1,400), two of the schools I figured would be at the top considering how expensive it is to live in those cities.

Before we go any further, I want to put aside the idea there may be any funny-business taking place with these numbers, where schools are trying to artificially inflate the figure in order to attract student-athletes. “Full cost of attendance” has been defined by the U.S. Department of Education and calculated by every college and university in the country for decades. This figure is determined by a school’s office of financial aid, not the athletic department.

What appears to me to allow for the great disparities, and conflicts of logic, is that each school is allowed to calculate its own figure and that figure is open to the individual interpretation of each school. When “full cost of attendance” dollar figures are assigned to categories such as “transportation,” “clothing,” “personal,” “miscellaneous,” you can appreciate how much wiggle-room exists. The fact the Federal Government lists a “miscellaneous expenses” category in its definition of “cost of attendance” encourages me to believe these figures are pulled largely out of thin air.

Want more proof of that?

Why is full cost of attendance at UCLA ($2,595) almost $1,000 a year higher than it is at USC? Why is full cost of attendance at Auburn more than $2,000 more than it is at Alabama ($2,892)? How can full cost of attendance at Arkansas ($4,002) be almost $1,500 higher than it is at Stanford ($2,625)? How can full cost of attendance at Cal-Berkley ($3,552) be cheaper than Clemson ($3,608)?

Auburn University has a more detailed breakdown of how it calculates cost of attendance on its website and I’d image most colleges and universities offer a similar explanation if you went looking for it. Auburn’s executive director of student financial services was quoted recently as admitting to the difficulty of finding an accurate number.

One result of the “Power 5’s” adoption of full cost of attendance scholarships and the huge disparities between the numbers I can promise you is that the numbers will change. Many colleges and universities haven’t updated their figures in years and you can bet they’ll be encouraged to do so now by the athletic department. That’s not cheating, by the way, that’s being smart. While the full cost of attendance numbers will change, they may not change dramatically as that figure impacts all students on campus, of which student-athletes are only a tiny fraction.

If you are interested in reading more about full cost of attendance scholarships, these are the two best articles I’ve found:

http://chronicle.com/article/At-Least-15-Athletics-Programs/229229/

http://chronicle.com/article/Fluctuations-in-Aid-Allowances/229487