BAMANEWSBOT
Staff
There's been some discussion among Power Five conferences in recent weeks about freshman eligibility, and whether conferences should go back to a time when freshmen weren't eligible to play during their freshman year.
It's an idea that I'm very much against, and it turns out I have some powerful company in that regard, as SEC commissioner Mike Slive released this statement on Monday.
"A lot of thought and preparation went into the new initial eligibility rules that go into effect in 2016," Slive said. "It is more appropriate to implement these new regulations and understand their impact before applying additional eligibility restrictions that may be more cosmetic than effective.
"Let's step back and consider our goal. If we are trying to impact graduation rates and grade point averages, we have to remember that each college student has his or her own academic challenges. To put a blanket over these student-athletes with a year on the bench doesn't address those individual needs to incentivize academic progress. Many students do come to college prepared both academically and athletically ready to compete in the classroom and in competition, and to penalize those students with a universal policy may create unintended consequences not beneficial to many student-athletes.
"If this proposal is about student-athletes turning professional, we need to be careful not to create rules for a few that penalize the many. The universe of student-athletes who leave early for professional sports is very small compared to the numbers that participate in football and men's basketball. And just because a student-athlete enters professional sports does not mean he or she has totally abandoned their academic pursuits."
And everything Slive says makes sense, but even if it didn't, he'd still be right. Making players ineligible their freshman season wouldn't really accomplish anything.
It might even backfire a bit in football. Unlike in basketball where the one-and-done exists, in football a player must have been out of high school for three years before he could enter the NFL. So if you force all freshman to take a redshirt their freshman year, we could see a whole lot more redshirt sophomores making the jump to the NFL, meaning that college programs would essentially only be getting two seasons out of them instead of three.
So it could actually weaken the product on the field, which is why I don't think this is going to happen. Conferences can talk about education all they want, but we all know that at the end of the day it's the sports themselves that will matter, and the money they bring in, not the degrees they help hand out.
It's an idea that I'm very much against, and it turns out I have some powerful company in that regard, as SEC commissioner Mike Slive released this statement on Monday.
"A lot of thought and preparation went into the new initial eligibility rules that go into effect in 2016," Slive said. "It is more appropriate to implement these new regulations and understand their impact before applying additional eligibility restrictions that may be more cosmetic than effective.
"Let's step back and consider our goal. If we are trying to impact graduation rates and grade point averages, we have to remember that each college student has his or her own academic challenges. To put a blanket over these student-athletes with a year on the bench doesn't address those individual needs to incentivize academic progress. Many students do come to college prepared both academically and athletically ready to compete in the classroom and in competition, and to penalize those students with a universal policy may create unintended consequences not beneficial to many student-athletes.
"If this proposal is about student-athletes turning professional, we need to be careful not to create rules for a few that penalize the many. The universe of student-athletes who leave early for professional sports is very small compared to the numbers that participate in football and men's basketball. And just because a student-athlete enters professional sports does not mean he or she has totally abandoned their academic pursuits."
And everything Slive says makes sense, but even if it didn't, he'd still be right. Making players ineligible their freshman season wouldn't really accomplish anything.
It might even backfire a bit in football. Unlike in basketball where the one-and-done exists, in football a player must have been out of high school for three years before he could enter the NFL. So if you force all freshman to take a redshirt their freshman year, we could see a whole lot more redshirt sophomores making the jump to the NFL, meaning that college programs would essentially only be getting two seasons out of them instead of three.
So it could actually weaken the product on the field, which is why I don't think this is going to happen. Conferences can talk about education all they want, but we all know that at the end of the day it's the sports themselves that will matter, and the money they bring in, not the degrees they help hand out.
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