Jim Delany's "reaction" to the NCAA ruling

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on

Mr. comissioner once again showed just how good he is at his job once again.

Take a look at his reaction to the NCAA's decision-

"But the football oversight committee recommended to the council and the council is supporting action now," he said. "It is what it is. We made our case for holistic vs. ad hoc. You have to accept it. That's part of the (system) we signed on for. No reaction beyond that. You always would like to win rather than to lose a vote — I don't care whether it's in a court or legislature or an assembly of people. You go with the system that's in place, and so I support that, respect that and move on. (Coaches will) pick up recruitment; satellite camps are off the table, but presumably everything else is on it. "

In other words, it doesn't/hasn't/won't keep him awake at night that the NCAA is favoring the wishes of one region of the country.

This guy does not care about any of the actual issues going on in this league. This guy does not care about nor does he support any member school outside of his beloved OSU that he gave a loving, helping hand to back in 2010.

It doesn't matter to him that the people that make college sports happen--the athletes--are the ones truly getting screwed here.

Now, if the NCAA made some kind of ruling on not being able to expand the #footprint so you can push your network on people in other regions, I'm sure he'd have a whole task force.

This whole thing is rotten. 

There is no college sports without the athletes, and there is no B1G without the member schools.

So who really has the power again? At some point, maybe the schools should actually put their foot down. What's the point of being in an athletic conference if the guy who represents your interests is as out of touch and incompetent as can be?

Truthbtold

April 8th, 2016 at 11:00 PM ^

To vote FOR satellite camps, all other power 5 voted NO. So you can't hang this on Delany. In fact look at it thi way. For years satellite camps have been going on and it's really not been a problem with anyone. Then some asshole comes along and does all he can to bring attention to himself and everything he does, this asshole also seems to go out of his way to poke his finger in the eye of other coaches and make them, and the programs they represent, feel disrespected and intruded upon by doing camps only a few miles from their university. This caused even more media attention and eventually the NCAA itself to take issue with these satellite camps that previously were not a problem. Now culminating is a vote and banning of these camps. The people that lead that charge was of course the SEC, pac12, and ACC coaches. BUT, the bigger culprit, the asshole that made what was acceptable to become a issue is truely who to blame for this result. That asshole is non other than Crazy Jim Harbaugh. That's who you should blame. If he could have managed to quietly and respectfully held his camps they would still be allowed by everyone. But obviously the power of asshole was just to strong in him, now he has been put in his place by the coaches with actual power.

BursleyBaitsBus

April 8th, 2016 at 9:48 PM ^

Does Emmert have something on Delaney that we don't know about? 

I have a hard time believing that having 2 of the most powerful coaches (Harbaugh/Meyer) in college football on your side doesn't warrant at least an attempt at fighting this NCAA "ruling" 

vbnautilus

April 8th, 2016 at 7:16 PM ^

I'm not a Delany fan but what is he supposed to do in this circumstance? They lost the vote 10-5. ( SEC, ACC, Pac12, Big12, Sun Belt, and Mountain West  all voted against it, Big Ten, MAC, CUSA  and American didn't. Power 5 get two votes each, others get one).

Outnumbered. 

LJ

April 8th, 2016 at 8:48 PM ^

How is that relevant, exactly?

Look, I'm not a Delany fan, but I can't really fault him for saying, "we tried to win the vote, and we lost, and we'll abide by the rules."  What exactly do you want him to do?  Say we're just going to ignore the NCAA and keep doing camps?

It's fine to criticize where it's warranted, but the piling on and hivemind here is ridiculous.

P.S. - I also still fail to see how Durkin leaving for a head coaching gig, something that was obviously always his goal, makes him some sort of traitor.

Wolverine Devotee

April 8th, 2016 at 7:27 PM ^

So just give up and continue to be a beta lap dog?

It's rather alarming when the the guy representing 14 schools throws his arms up with no resistance and at the same time proposes ludicrous rules that draw laughter nationwide.

The freshman ineligiblity rule? 

Banning schools from signing players that are over 18 in hockey?

vbnautilus

April 8th, 2016 at 7:34 PM ^

Again, I'm not endorsing the guy in general -- I just don't think the passage of this particular rule had very much at all to do with the strength of the arguments Delany was going to make against it. You have 2/3 of the members who don't think its in their interest for us to do these camps and they have the power to outlaw it. 

Farnn

April 8th, 2016 at 7:41 PM ^

Campaign against it?  Do research on what the repercussions would be and make sure that all the non power 5 know that they could no longer be at the power 5 schools camps where only a few kids get those offers?  Work his ass off like Harbaugh and his staff does to make sure there is no chance it passes.

crg

April 9th, 2016 at 10:50 AM ^

I would like to hear more explanation regarding the PAC and B-12 opposition to the camps - it seemed as though most of the schools were either supportive or indifferent to them.

buckeyejonross

April 8th, 2016 at 7:27 PM ^

To be fair to Jim Delaney, which sucks I might add, he's in a tough spot here.

The B1G was the only power five conference to vote for these camps. The ACC, Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC all were against the B1G here. No one had his back on this. It's not the NCAA favoring one region, it's all the regions but ours.

I imagine Delaney knew this was an unwinnable fight from the start. It wasn't even close. It was 4-1. I also imagine Delaney knows one day there will be a vote that is close and he will need some support from other leagues, and burning the bridge publicly on an unwinnable issue may be enough to swing that potential future vote against us. Pehaps Delaney is more forceful in the media if this vote was 3/2. But 4-1 is a blow-out. Sometimes that's politics.

The fact that college sports is politics is a whole different, horrible issue.

Bodogblog

April 8th, 2016 at 7:41 PM ^

This is a good point and probably true, but he can use his pulpit to outline why he thought they should be permitted. And the obvious related question, what reason - for the student athlete which the NCAA is supposed to foster and protect - was given for banning the camps? If the rest of college football voted to prohibit Rutgers from continuing in the Big Ten and sending them back to ? (whatever dead conference they came from), you bet your ass he wouldn't be saying "it is what it is".

Farnn

April 8th, 2016 at 7:46 PM ^

Except it's clear that not all of the ACC, BIG12 and PAC12 are against it, they have some members who are for it.  Do some campaigning on this, make sure all the non power 5 leagues realize they can no longer work at the Alabama camp or USC camp to recruit the guys who aren't at the Alabama/USC level.  Not one of the non power 5 should have voted for this.  If you get those on your side, the vote is 8-7 and it doesn't pass because it needs 2/3s.  And it's possible he could have gotten the BIG12 because I'm sure every school not in Texas wants to be able to set up camps in Texas, and the smaller Texas shools would want to go to other areas of Texas to recruit.

buckeyejonross

April 8th, 2016 at 8:25 PM ^

How do you know he hasn't been campaigning this whole time? It's not like this is a new thing, it's been a story since last year.

In regards to group of five schools, who knows what happened to them and why they voted against camps. If the SEC says to the Sun Belt "you're voting against camps or we're not scheduling you anymore," what do you think they're going to pick?

I would imagine Delaney knew support was going to be hard to come by. And him publicly trashing the NCAA or other leagues does more harm than good. Everyone already knows his position on the matter. I doubt he did nothing behind the scenes to try and earn support for his cause. 

And like I said earlier, defending Delaney sucks, but probably was in a tough spot here.

B-Nut-GoBlue

April 8th, 2016 at 8:54 PM ^

How does him coming down on hard on the NCAA with his opinions do him harm?!  Be a man.  The conference down South has not issues with expressing their shitty opinions (literally shitty, they have ZERO merit).  Delaney could speak some truth into a shitty corrupt systyem but plays his hand like a pussy.

LDNfan

April 9th, 2016 at 12:01 PM ^

An OSU fan expressing a rather measured/lukewarm view on this is pretty self-serving. Of all the programs in the B1G, OSU is the one that had the least to gain by these camps (already strong recruiting ties to the south, a coach that won big in the south and the kingpin in a northern state that churns out loads of elite talent -- so def wouldn't want to see Bama set up a local camp), while UM probably has the most to gain. 

buckeyejonross

April 9th, 2016 at 2:32 PM ^

Michigan didn't have anything to gain by this either. None of your camp offers signed. These camps were a way for Harbaugh to make people talk about Michigan. That's brilliant. And it worked. But give me a break if you think Harbaugh materially cares about the plight of Joe 2-Star. And give me a break if you think this changes Michigan's recruting outlook. Michigan bilked all the press and headlines out of these camps, and it worked perfectly for Harbaugh. It's still working because everyone is still talking about these camps. But make no mistake, Michigan will continue to recruit well because of the Michigan name and because of the Harbaugh name, with or without camps.

Ghost of Fritz…

April 9th, 2016 at 7:04 AM ^

1.  His tepid public response indicates with no doubt that Delany really did not care that much.  Therefore, he failed to fight with all possible effort for what is clearly in the best interests of the Big Ten in the way that matters most--calling out the baseless hypocracy of the warm weather conferences that want to fence out competition for talent in 'their' region.

2.  When a leader is firmly convinced that the majority had chosen an indefesible policy, he does not respond by saying 'oh well, we had a process and that is the way the cookie crumbles.'  He loudly reiterates the merits and explains why the majority has chosen incorrectly, and then seeks to rectify the error and get it reversed.  That is not what Delany did.  How much more evidence do you need that he really did not care? 

3.  It is  not only what he said, but what he failed to say publicly in the preceeding months.  As Saban was babbling nonsense and other SEC voices were inventing preposterous reasons why HS kids should not get exposure to coaches located more than a 1 hour drive from campus, Delany put up little or no resistance.  His inaction speaks volumes. 

4.  And Delany's words confirm what his inaction shows.  Delany said that it really is not a big deal because Big Ten coaches can still do other things, therefore the 50 mile leash around their necks is not really such a big deal. 

All the evidence seems to point in the same direction.  So why are you defending the guy by saying he is 'in a tough spot'?  He's not in a tough spot.  He just did not care very much one way or the other.  Call it like it is. 

 

lilpenny1316

April 8th, 2016 at 8:05 PM ^

We had camps in the footprint of all of those conferences.  The last thing these conferences want are their HS kids realising that it's not so bad going to school in the midwest if it means NFL level coaching and lots of playing time.

They have a talent and weather advantage, so that's why stuff like Satellite camps and cold weather bowl games will never happen unless it's in NYC where no one has an advantage.