Scott, on a competitive balance level, at least the NFL shares TV revenue and has a draft and hard salary cap which does give a chance for every team to compete. Plus, they make a effort to keep historical rivals in the same division. With the addition of the NIL, the transfer portal, and the creation of mega-conferences, the competitive imbalance between the haves and have nots in college football only increases and long standing rivalries based on geographical proximity that made the game so popular nationwide get cast aside. I was drawn to college football by the fact that each conference seemed to embody a distinct and unique section of the country. While each conference had competitive imbalances, the Goliaths did have down years and it was great fun to see a local David such as Northwestern, Kansas State or Wazoo rise up. The realignments seem to be leading CF to large, bland nationwide conferences that mirror pro sports but without the tools that some pro sports use to maintain a competitive balance. Not sure that turning college football into NFL lite with no competitive balance is a good prescription to the long term health of the sport.
I have a lot of agreement with this. A little on the flip side though, I do believe the NCAA was/is not consistent in their penalties. Some get away with a lot more than others and there will be a lot less chicken**** rules for players.
For more than a few years, essentially since that first round of conference realignment where the SEC and Big 10 expanded, there has been talk of a 64 team Super Conference that breaks away from the NCAA and takes control of Major College Football. Interestingly the main impediment to it supposedly is the Mens Final Four Basketball tournament, unless the NCAA came to some agreement with the 64 schools that they could be a part of all other NCAA tournaments including the Final Four it would be a problem.
Interesting article about Knute Rockne and a dinner he attended in 1930 and his comments about college football at the time. Times may have changed but some of the concerns people are expressing about the direction of college football aren't really new. _____________ Rockne said college football “is not commercialized enough because there are only about 25 out of 1,000 colleges making any real money out of it.” Sperber wrote that Rockne rejected the solution offered by Carnegie’s reformers – drop big-time football and play it at the club level – “because de-emphasis would eliminate the highly paid coach and, at those few schools making money from the sport, it would obliterate many athletic department activities supported by the successful football program.” Rockne believed that a more commercialized form of football was the best way for more athletics departments to make more money, a position that would become a standard line of defense in the decades to come. Just one problem with that: the number of self-sufficient college athletics departments, where revenue exceeds total expenses, is about the same today as it was in Rockne’s time. Data compiled by USA Today, in partnership with Syracuse University, pegs the number for fiscal year 2019 at 24. Erik Brady: Remembering when Knute Rockne came to Buffalo
Fall Camp 2021. 25 practices in the 29 days leading up to your teams first game of the season. There are also new parameters for the practices...Mainly Concussion prevention related. The latest impending modifications keep both the number of practices (25) over the same amount of days (29) but adjust the type of practices coaches can hold. In the latest working model, a 25-practice camp must include at least nine non-contact, padless practices (helmets only). That’s up from the current rule of two mandatory padless practices, which are part of an acclimatization period at the beginning of each camp. No more than eight practices can feature full pads and full contact, up from 21 under the current rule. Lyons refers to the working model as 9-8-8: a minimum of nine padless practices, eight practices in shells (helmets and shoulder pads) and a maximum of eight practices in full pads with full contact. In shells, players cannot be tackled to the ground, under current rules. The working model would also reduce scrimmages from three and a half to two; would permit a maximum of 90 minutes of full tackling in any one single padded practice; and would prohibit more than two consecutive full-padded practices, requiring coaches to wedge in non-contact and shell practices. Lyons left the door ajar to future changes in the model. “Is it going to be the perfect model? No,” Lyons says, “but it’s not the end all be all. We’re in a short time frame here to make these changes. Does the camp in 2022 look different? It could.” One thing that may never return to college football practices: the archaic head-knocking, one-on-one collision drills. That includes the Oklahoma drill, Board drill and Bull in the Ring. The prohibition on these drills would be year round, barring the exercises completely from college football. Major Changes Coming to Fall Camps After Concussion Study
More nails in the coffin of the game. Tackling is going to be less than optimal if they don't practice it.
Will these make games safer? I would actually expect the result to be MORE injuries during games since proper technique, which is already on a downward trend, is no longer able to be internalized.
It would seem like as noted that this will result in a decline in fundamentals, but it would also seem that it favors the offense, esp the passing offense.
I respectfully disagree. Coaches will adapt. There still are the same number of practices. The difference is less full contact. Coaches will continue to focus on fundamentals the same as they always have, and they have 16 practices to evaluate the team's readiness, 8 in shells and 8 full contact. You can accomplish a lot in shells, almost as much as in full contact. I don't see a "decline" on either side of the ball. We'll see.
Nutcracker, Bull in the Ring, Bag drills. I can't even imagine football practice without those drills. We did three things in practice back in the day. Contact. Running and repetitious play execution. Games were a relief. I never got hit as hard in a game as I did in practice. We lost three games in four years. Different strokes, I guess.
Sounds like the vote is likely to be 14-0 The Texas A&M board of regents voted 8-1 on Wednesday to direct president M. Katherine Banks to vote in favor of extending invitations to Oklahoma and Texas to join the SEC.
How long after A&M and Missouri entered the SEC did they announce the current lineup of teams/divisions? Was it pretty soon afterwards or did they wait a year?
It probably depends on if they mean to have 16 be the final number. It's been speculated that it might not be the end, although I think it will be.
Thank you for that link Stu. This story was referenced within that story, and I found it a must-read: Big 12 commish Bob Bowlsby takes aim at ESPN, echoing a distrust schools have for network
Kes, I am afraid this is only the beginning of things to come. College sports that we all have cherished over they years will no longer exist.