Everyone in the MAC will be in the same situation. Ball St just lost their MAC Freshman of the Year QB to the portal.
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I listened to On Campus on ESPN College Radio this afternoon while I was out and about. Jimbo Fisher is a regular on the show on Tuesdays.
Jimbo called what’s going on in college football today a travesty. He thinks - with the direction it’s going based on media-driven money - there might only be 36 to 40 teams competing as true upper level teams within two or three years.
He believes all of those teams will be in the Big10 or SEC. To illustrate how the divide is widening, he pointed out that no Big 12 or ACC team signed a single 5 star recruit last week. ACC adjacent Notre Dame signed one.That is the first time that has ever happened.He said Florida State alone used to sign four or five every recruiting cycle.
Fisher called for Congressional action to take FBS football away from the NCAA and create a powerful Commissioner of College Football position to oversee the FBS. He believes forced revenue sharing is what might save the sport as we’ve known it.
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My question is, do the supposed 36 to 40 upper tier schools want FBS football saved? And if they don’t (I don’t think they do, or we’d have seen different behavior over the last two decades), what then?
The quicker the latter the question gets answered the happier I’ll be for Miami.
I know I’ve said it several times on this board the past month, but Jimbo is seeing what is the obvious end game here. There will be a professional “student age” league where players are well compensated and likely won’t be required to go through the charade of enrolling and taking classes. The teams will be “sponsored” by universities (through media rights) and alumni/collectives aligned with the university. There will still be the Ohio State Buckeyes and Michigan Wolverines, they just won’t be students. This league will be made up of the current Big Ten and SEC along with a few other large brand name schools. It will be a real test to see if people care whether the players at Ohio State and Georgia actually go to classes, but I doubt it will affect the bottom line or interest.
The rest of remaining schools will continue in a model somewhere between the old way and today: players will receive scholarships and be required to enroll as students and will be eligible to receive stipends/NIL payments.
Alabama, Ole Miss, and SC sitting at home for Boise, Arizona St and SMU this year just accelerated this inevitability.
Honestly, its probably for the best. We’ve been lying to ourselves for the last 10-15 years pretending Miami is in the same division of competition as Alabama and Ohio State. Let the star players get paid their worth and treat the Big Ten/SEC as true professional development leagues and let actual student athletes compete in a separate division. I’ll miss the college football I grew up with, but the genie isn’t going back in the bottle. It would likely be better for Miami longterm to compete in this new division even though I’d miss the opportunities to play in Notre Dame Stadium or the Swamp.
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At some point though, the money will run out. As college enrollment slowly declines, and these “professional athletes” want more money, I can’t see schools doing this forever
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Nope
We should privatize / sell to private equity our football and basketball programs. Set aside shares for the university and other shares for sales to alumni. Band together with other Group of 5 schools for media rights, collective bargaining and actual rules. Take it a step further and set up like EPL and have divisions with relegation and promotion.
Ewwww. Hell no. That ends with the whole thing going bankrupt and PE funds going after the assets of the university itself.
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Yep. Even the NFL, as money-hungry as any sports league on the planet, is only allowing PE to purchase up to 10% of their teams. They know that even if you want cash you can’t get in too deep or they’ll pick you apart.
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Don’t forget to open with the cliche…”First and foremost….” ,!!
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Tp put NIL in perspective, Texas, OSU and LSU are all above $20 million in collective funding in 2024.
Our financial report to the NCAA for 2022 showed we spent a total of $10.4 million in total expenditures (scholarships, coaches, travel, equipment, guarantees, etc) on football that year.
We used to live in different world than the Power 4/5.
We now live on a different planet.
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With all the Yo-Yo’ing between programs, maybe Duncan can be an official NIL sponsor of the MAC
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It seems almost cruel that the big schools just sit back and throw money at their hand-picked selections in the portal, while smaller school staffs have to work like hell just to convince players to consider their programs.
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A clip from The Athletic today highlighting top G5 players in the portal.
Kent State’s Chrishon McCray also has plenty of portal suitors. I think Virgil has two years of eligibility left.
Reggie Virgil, Miami (Ohio), WR: He only has one year of eligibility remaining, but Virgil has become one of the hottest commodities in the portal with offers already from Oklahoma, UTSA, Texas Tech, Pitt, Florida, Michigan State, Florida State, Miami, UCF, Illinois, Georgia Tech, West Virginia and Arkansas. He caught 41 passes for 816 yards and nine touchdowns this season, averaging 19.9 yards per catch.
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I think we really need to get a portal QB just to show we have a starter for next year. It feels like that would help dominos fall from the portal. Especially for OL and WR
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Look the NCAA is much like MLB now. There are teams eliminated from title contention before the season starts. MLB like the NCAA has stratified into the haves and have nots. The SEC and B10 are the Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, Giants, Red Sox. Pirates, Royals, A’s the Sun Belt. Reds, Cards, Brewers, etc the MAC, CUSA, MWC, AAC.
“I wanna get paid” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it
As of noon today, there are 121 QB in the portal. That number will certainly increase after the bowl games get underway…