Fans and pundits often cut down student-athletes when they make professional decisions while giving wide latitude to coaches making similar decisions.
Coaches recruit high schoolers on any number of promises. They assert that they will serve as mentors for the young talent that comes to their school. They insinuate the potential of reaching an NFL paycheck. They talk up the campus, the classes, anything that will sell both the player and the player’s family on entrusting their formative collegiate years to their stewardship.
Coaches are supposed to set examples for their charges. The example they often set is one of self-interest and a willingness to ditch their present situation for better opportunities. When the message sinks in and players make similar decisions, though, it either comes with draconian punitive countermeasures or questions about what it means for the character of student-athletes who choose to bet on themselves.
Loyalty, then, is a one-way street when it comes to intercollegiate athletics. College football, as the preeminent cash cow that funds most athletic departments, requires a large labor force that earns a small fraction of the total revenue earned through the sport to cover ever-rising coaching salaries, non-revenue sports, and the arms race to build more and more lavish facilities.
Part of loving something is being able to give a critical examination when it is warranted. And given the way players and coaches are treated for similar decisions, let’s take the time in this week’s Sunday Morning Quarterback to look at the double standards baked into the NCAA’s policies that are at the heart of the hypocrisy inherent within college football.
NCAA transfer policy is explicitly designed to punish a level of freedom of movement for student-athletes that is viewed as an inalienable right for coaches and other college students.
On December 13, Miami defensive coordinator Manny Diaz was tabbed by Temple to take over the head coaching seat that was vacated by Geoff Collins, who left Philadelphia to replace retiring Paul Johnson at Georgia Tech. As the architect of a top-10 Hurricanes offense, it was only a matter of time until Diaz earned a chance to lead a program, and the American Athletic Conference school jumped at the opportunity to secure his services.
Diaz immediately left the Hurricanes and headed to Temple to begin work on shoring up a recruiting class. Seventeen days later, just a few days after the Hurricanes lost the Pinstripe Bowl 35-3 against Wisconsin and Mark Richt retired from coaching abruptly, Diaz jumped ship on the Owls and returned to Coral Gables to replace his former boss as the head coach at Miami. The Hurricanes, a school that reported $35 million in football revenue to the Department of Education in their most recent filing, footed the $4 million buyout.
At the same time this was transpiring, athletes across the country were contemplating decisions about where to attend school next year. For the vast majority of players who have not yet completed their undergraduate studies, options are limited. If for whatever reason a student-athlete opts to leave for a new school before earning their Bachelor’s degree, they are forced to sacrifice a year of eligibility to make a move to a new institution.
While Diaz won’t have to sit a day, a player he might court from another school will be left to sit out a season. That gives high-profile players like Georgia-transfer Justin Fields limited options. Either they can sit out that valuable year of game experience that can build a professional resume, or they are forced to hire powerful attorneys with experience litigating exemption cases before the NCAA.
For college football stars such as Clemson’s Kelly Bryant and Notre Dame’s Brandon Wimbush who have already completed their undergraduate degrees, they have full freedom of movement. Originally allowed only for students transferring for a Master’s or PhD program not offered at their undergraduate school, the rule has liberalized over time as its popularity has increased.
But even the freedom that is granted to graduate transfers is perceived by some head coaches and pundits is an overabundance of student-athlete agency.
Penn State head coach James Franklin, for instance, told Sports Illustrated in 2017, “In most cases, these aren’t academic decisions. I think that’s the challenge. We put things in place, but they really morph over time into being something that they’re not. I don’t think it’s working in a way that it was intended.”
Yet Franklin, it must be noted, had no problem initially telling Commodores players he was staying at Vanderbilt in 2013 before leaving Nashville abruptly to take the Penn State job. There was no recompense for Vanderbilt players that committed to play for Franklin and were left in the lurch. Other than a $1.5 million buyout there was no penalty for either the coach or his new school in poaching him away while under contract.
Schools enthusiastically pay to bring in new coaches. Athletic departments enthusiastically pay other athletic departments to steal their coaches away. And they enthusiastically pay to get rid of unwanted coaches. It is an open marketplace where colleges and coaches alike are celebrated for making cold, calculated employment decisions.
The myth of amateurism, on the other hand, is dependent on the notion that student-athletes are anything but employees of the athletic department. For players who are putting in as many as 50 hours per week on providing the labor force for college football, forcing their loyalty to institutions that until 2012 were banned from even guaranteeing scholarships for more than one season at a time.
What makes this even more ludicrous is that any other student is afforded the opportunity to shift between academic institutions. The new school is free to offer scholarships, and work-study opportunities are not restricted until transfer students have been on their new campus for a year.
Student reporters at the campus newspaper, for instance, are not required to wait a year to write for the media outlet at their new school if they decide to transfer colleges during their baccalaureate studies. But the players they interview after games and take classes alongside are held to a different standard of loyalty than either the individuals covering them or the individuals coaching them.
Over the past few years, people are finally beginning to tolerate the idea of players sitting out bowl games to avoid injury and start preparing for the NFL Combine and NFL Draft.
When Houston took to the field for the 2018 Armed Forces Bowl against Army on December 22, they did so without standout defensive tackle Ed Oliver. The result was a 70-14 beating at the hands of the Black Knights, as the service academy ran the ball for 507 yards through the heart of the Cougars defense.
From the time he arrived on campus three years earlier, Oliver was an instant success. After becoming the first freshman to win the Bill Willis Award as the top defensive lineman in the country, Oliver played a critical role anchoring the defensive line for his first two seasons with the Cougars. But after a junior season marked by knee injuries, Oliver made an entirely prudent personal decision to sit out Houston’s bowl game to focus on recovering for the NFL Draft.
In making the choice to sit out the postseason, Oliver was joined by other notable players like West Virginia quarterback Will Grier, Arizona State wide receiver N’Keal Harry, LSU cornerback Greedy Williams, and Stanford running back Bryce Love. The decisions, like so many made by coaches that leave their programs after the regular season and force programs to head to bowl games with interim leaders, is one purely based on an economic decision.
Just a few years ago, that decision would have drawn comprehensive ire from fans, pundits, and coaching staffs alike. At least now, though, coaches are supporting their players when they make these decisions. With Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey showing just a few years ago that sitting out a bowl game and preparing earlier for the NFL Combine won’t drop a player out of the top 10, there is less incentive to play in bowl games.
At least now, here is one place where player agency is tolerated. The NFL has absolutely no issue with the trend, understanding the value of protecting first-round talent for games that offer paychecks. And coaches know that there is a point when preserving eligibility and playing for a meaningless bowl game is less important than preserving health.
Ultimately, the system as it exists is designed to disincentivize transferring to new opportunities for student-athletes while making it both lucrative and consequence-free for the adults in the system to do that very thing. Selfishness is considered not just normal but logical for coaches, while players are written off as turncoats and written off as mere children for following their coaches’ leads.
It is time for the NCAA to normalize the situation and level the playing field. Either they ought to allow greater freedom of movement for students that is equivalent to everyone else within the industry of intercollegiate athletics, or they need to either restrict contract breaking by coaches or make those contracts the same one-year deals that most schools give to their players.
Anything less continues to demonstrate that the NCAA and the leadership of every college football team only pays lip service, merely saying they have the best interest of student-athletes in mind.