What is college football anymore (and what should it be)?

what is lyfe

When you allow rules to be broken and universities that do break the rules to become better after breaking them you incentivize pushing the envelope and doing what is wrong morally or just flat out wrong. Here we are! Thanks NCAA for making just about every wrong decision possible over the last two decades. Please people remember that money is something, but it's not the only thing.

It kills me that they are turning it into the NFL.

Tell me again about the rabbits....

Too many parentheses

Too many words

Too many feelings

So brief.

in certain parts of the country and always will be. And its that way for one simple reason. People of a certain geographical area have always wanted the rest of the nation to believe they were superior in virtually every facet of life, be it wealth, standard of living, intelligence, athletic prowess, prowess in the board room and the list goes on an on. 

Football, of course, was/is simply another way of proving this superiority. You must remember these views are largely based on what they perceive as being looked down at by most and its actually their inferirity complex, disguised as supreme confidence, that causes them to act and do things outside the norm and often times so disgustingly inappropriate their gains are exactly the opposite of their desires.

This dates back to reconstruction when many felt they were being punished for their prewar views and experienced a complete reversal to their way of life. People, being stubborn by nature, simply passed this down, generation after generation, and thus hatred and bigotry, not restricted toward color, but based more on geography were and are part of the southern heritage. Hell yes, cheating is tolerated, even encouraged if one gets away with it. You must remember the Bear was not a god just to the people of Alabama but the entire region and his teachings have been duplicated and in Alabama they've become perfected. 

In his days it was simple. The rewards of cheating were far greater than were the punishments so any assistant who ever worked for him at Bama were found guilty of recruiting violations, some of them at different schools, like Danny Ford at Clemson for example. You know damn well they didn't do this on thier own. People didn't chance losing a job working under the Bear. The orders came from somewhere. 

So winning and losing have long been a part of life and football, being an extension of life is not necessarily meant to teach values that aren't taught in other aspects of life. It certainly is not limited to the south either, merely more pervasive. Look at the irrational pleasure taken by certain northern schools for beating an in-state rival or a school that lies south of it in a different state, but same general area. Look at the fans of certain schools who will swear if a good to great coach does not beat this team or that team, their job is gone when nothing could be further from the truth. This is just plain silliness but it is what cfb has turned into.  So hell yes, it bears absolutely no resemblance to what it was at its start. This game can set a man up for life financially if they can play it or teach it. Look at UM today. We have a head coach that makes 9 million annually and the man that gave him the opportunity be teaching him the game and life values both made a handshake agreement for 18k per year. So it's changed. It's changed dramatically. 

Sure, lets give everyone a 1st place trophy.

It's a meritocracy. Let the boys play. Roll the ball out on the field, etc. 

Nobody to my knowledge has asked any UM player to leave or encouraged them to go. It's my understanding that if you get a spot on the team, coach does everything he can to find a use for you and motivate you to achieve. The players who are leaving are doing so because it seems to them they have a better shot at getting field time somewhere else. 

It's always been that way. 

The OP avatar’s pic of a child (Calvin?) flushing himself down the toilet is a perfect metaphor for all the feels in the post

There's no doubt that CFB is continually one-upping itself as a game of bloody excess. What else were we to expect with these revenues, salaries, facilities, media attention, desk job armies (e.g., a Schembechler Hall full of "analysts"), and so many of the largest however many stadiums on Earth? But that doesn't have to be negative. For sake of sanity, pasttime and tethering to the social consciousness of other fans, I insist on embracing it with eagerness.

I think people care less about making the playoffs and more about BEATING osu and msu.  Seasons where we beat those two are nice.  To place the type of misery we have experienced on osu in the last 17 years would be extremely nice.

Win at all costs and athletes are just pawns to be used for their play on the field. Saban and Meyer have taken that model and perfected it. I do miss the old days of scholar athletes.

I think things are much better now for the players. Roster management has always been around and at times it was literally vicious. The difference in how much more we know now is greater than anything else. Now that coaches and schools are operating more out in the open, players have greater protection. The rule changes have come gradually, but they have also served to help the players. One example is the one encouraging schools to graduate their players. There used to be programs where that was rare.

The one point I'll agree with is all the talk about playoffs. There's too much of it for my liking. But I don't think it changes that much from the players' perspective. Most teams are not realistically aiming for the playoffs. There are plenty of other goals. The ones that are were aiming for national championships in the past. Perhaps a conference title, but how different is that in a practical sense?

 

Now he’s a philosophizer.....

I’m more pissed about all the commercial breaks.

Go through collage with no ragrets

Did not read

love Michigan football.  FWIW, the money system is a bit backwards imho and I don't have a perfect answer.  Jimbo Fisher could pay every player on his roster 10 k a year and he would still net 6.65 million a year to coach his new "amateur" college players.   Not under NCAA rules of course.  So while I  don't have a fix for perfection, I do think it would not hurt the NCAA to allow players in Power 5 Division I football a couple hundred bucks a month spending money to go with their valuable scholarships, at least while school is in session.   Michigan would be in a better position than most and likely happy to do this if it was legal.  Jimbo probably would too if legal.   

Agree with KC Wolve the number of commercials is troubling.  So is making kids play in really cold weather at night for tv revenue and having commericals drag the games on for up to 4 hours.  Going to hop off the soap box now and try to enjoy what I can of bowl season.

 

There was a time when you could have more players on the roster and not give as many guys the firm handshake, but the ncaa tightened limits and now either you fit into the plan or you don’t. I do hate the college football playoff though and I miss the days where We played to go to the rose bowl and the other conferences were jealous because they didn’t get to go. The cfp will always suck because the seasons are uneven and they reward teams for playing weaker schedules. But there’s no going back now, so it is what it is.

Perhaps what we are witnessing is one of the unintended consequences of the scholarship limitations. Prior to 1973 there were no limitations. But, beginning in 1973 the NCAA imposed a limitation of 105 which in 1978 was lowered to 95 and later to its current 85. Simultaneously we witnessed freshman becoming eligible and the demise of the freshman teams. While the intent was to level the playing field, it also ignited a mad scramble for talent and the upgrading of facilities, at significant cost, to attract that talent. A football arms race.

and he agrees college sports should be about feel good stories, quarterbacks who struggled but overcame adversity, Ohio State being awesomely humble and winning with a chip on your shoulder a-la Mike DiAntonini. I think the post came from the right place, but thinking that big time college football isn't about the Benjamins first and foremost for universities is naive at best.

Its all about winning and I want to win...bad

Seems like we did pretty well with Winovich

go back to Russia!

this post would've never been made

You a socialist, bro? Not interested in starvation and genocide, Mao.

Even the King and Queen have no power to change the game.

Only the invisible hand of economics has the power to truly change anything.

Lol, nm.