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Message: [QUOTE="RF2044, post: 4254944, member: 40"] No, I'm just expressing that all of these changes collectively have done irrevocable harm to college athletics. As I recall, you have been squarely supportive of players getting paid, unlimited transfer flexibility, NIL, etc. Those things each individually had the potential to be Pandora's box -- and they were. Together, they've wreaked havoc in just a few short years. Because while they might have been well-intentioned, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And now the genie can't be put back in the bottle. Giving players who've graduated the ability to transfer without sitting out was a great idea -- but it created an unintended loophole that players who'd already transferred could exploit. NIL makes a lot of sense -- but when it was rolled out so hastily, everyone could see that it wasn't enforceable, and would quickly get out of hand. It only took 1 year for that to occur. And now we have players threatening to transfer if they don't get compensated better, and corrupt business men chirping back and forth on social media with those players they've paid. We have schools overtly negotiating deals with players -- this isn't how it was supposed to happen. We have thousands of players in the transfer portal, most of which stand to lose their scholarships because nobody picked them up, and outside of a small minority who upgrade, most will not. So no, the answer is not to support a model that emulates semi-pro athletics. We've replaced a highly corrupt, bastardized version of pretend amateur athletics by allowing the cheating to now occur out in the open for all to see. If that's what you want, then go pick a semi-pro team to support. As hoopsupsate posts above, 99.9% of college athletes won't be able to go pro in their sports. The system shouldn't be entire geared around the .1% that will. And yet, somehow the narrative that the education student athletes get for free because they are good at a sport is somehow of diminished value is bunk. I reject your notion that many -- or even most -- students playing sports are not student athletes. Are there exceptions? Absolutely. And there are certainly programs that view players in certain sports as assets. But the vast majority do not fit your description. Do you think that's true of the players in our basketball and football programs? I don't. It is going to be very interesting to see how this unfolds. The system was broken before, and now it has gone off the rails. It can't be fixed. The programs that want to be semi-pro probably need to splinter off, as the ND AD predicts. And the NCAA needs to be replaced with a governing body that doesn't have archaic rules that are arbitrarily and capriciously enforced. [/QUOTE]

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