The solution was staring them in the face, a lost standard of the past, fully loaded tanks eager to return to the fight.
However, the current NCAA agents – the presidents and chancellors of the SEC and Big Ten – have effectively ignored this. In fact, almost everyone stayed away from it.
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If you are looking for a panacea for change, if you are desperate to keep a runaway train barreling down the tracks of the NIL era, then let me reintroduce a friend who has been ignored for the past five years.
scholar.
Straightforward, no frills, class work.
Freedom comes at a price: Players, cash, lack of consequences. What problems might arise in a NIL world?
Next steps: Death of Trinidad Chambliss-led NCAA could lead to birth of SEC-only world
Want to stay on top of player moves and ridiculous calls to extend eligibility? Start focusing again on academics – you know, education in higher education.
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More important: academic qualifications.
Forget about eligibility lawsuits filed by greedy lawyers, or the antitrust threats the NCAA throws out every time it steps into a courtroom. These are our academic standards and you must abide by them. period.
But when was the last time academia not only forced players to sit out a season, but also prevented them from enrolling? Or blocking transfers because credits from one school are not accepted at another?
Look, I’m not going to pretend to know the academic standards of every college and university, but I’m pretty sure a dual transfer (or more transfers) can’t simply get into an AUA school with a clean transcript.
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Even accepted.
It’s not difficult to scan any FBS school’s transfer portal to add content, see where each school is going and realize the absurdity of the practice.
The universities barely talk to each other and have markedly different academic programs. There was a time when universities treated academic standards as a badge of honor and refused to budge for anything or anyone.
Not even a star football player.
Now it looks like they just decided to get along together. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. Who cares about transferable credits?
At the forefront of all this, holding the baton and proudly stepping into a new rhythm, is the NCAA. Don’t believe the righteous indignation they sell.
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In 2017, the organization allowed North Carolina State, one of the top five public institutions in the country, to argue that all students were participating in systemic academic fraud (fake courses) and therefore not subject to NCAA sanctions.
I know this will shock you (sarcasm alert), this argument works.
Six years later, in the early NIL phase of “What the Hell Are We Doing,” the NCAA decided to abandon standardized SAT and ACT scores for incoming freshmen and instead opt for a GPA of at least 2.3 in 16 high school core courses.
The average grade in 16 courses over four years is C-.
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The NCAA has also stipulated that players must complete 6-9 credits per semester and 24 credits throughout the academic year to maintain eligibility. Low expectations from everyone will not lead to high achievement.
Meanwhile, the president and chancellor who were willing to create chaos now realize that’s not what they want, and they’ve tasked several conference commissioners with lobbying Congress — the only organization more dysfunctional than the NCAA — for help cleaning up the carnage.
The two conference commissioners can’t even agree on the format of the multibillion-dollar College Football Playoff at this point.
Therefore, players can earn base wealth without contract restrictions or liquidity constraints. Coaches complain about the system, not the generational wealth they’ve earned.
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Universities are complaining because media rights funding and supporting donations, once available, are quickly wiped out by paradigm legal losses.
And we are now stuck in the transient world of annual player movement, what is the long-term goal? This should be, and always has been, a top priority for universities.
What are we trying to achieve and how can we make it better?
Instead, these universities (see: NCAA) have systematically eliminated any academic administrators who might slow the tsunami of self-destruction—and they don’t need to.
The only limit to opportunities for sports and finance players should be the ability to maintain academic qualifications and transfer into a degree program at the next stop.
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But it will take more than 130 FBS schools to welcome back our old friend academic eligibility standards.
The magic bullet that longs to get back into the fight.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X @MattHayesCFB.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Restoring academic standards key to fixing college football’s instability
