re: Saban in Congressional roundtable speaking about NIL today

Gus, a lot to unpack here in my response, and while I think several of your statements are ridiculous, I will say at the outset that I also really enjoy college football and, War Eagle,….for whatever that is worth.

First, on the purpose of the scholarship,….the purpose of the school in getting the players onto their football team is to exploit their athletic abilities to win games which in turn earns millions and millions for coaches and institutions. The scholarship is just window dressing that used to mean something. An untold number of posters on the rant say over and over that the players should be sooooo grateful to have a chance at a free college education when no one involved is seriously thinking about that when they start their college football careers.

I have never said the current situation is sustainable, and I agree it will evolve into some system or operational mode different than what it currently is. A point I am trying to make is that these millionaires who perpetuated the previous system and often exploited 18-22 year old players should be viewed skeptically when they tell us what is wrong and how to fix it.

You blame the athletes for cashing in on NIL and hurting non-revenue sports. That is a laughable oversimplification of cause and effect in terms of connecting those two. The athletes did not create the operating model that causes the non-revenue sports to depend on football. Again it is the millionaire administrators and coaches that led us into this unsustainable operation. Before you limit athlete’s ability to grow their NIL earnings why not use the millionaire salaries of administrators and coaches to fund the non-revenue sports? That would be a better connection of placing the onus on the people that caused us to be in the current situation.

Finally, in terms of being delusional your final two sentences in your post have me picturing someone out of touch with the reality that most large college athletic departments are money-driven win-or-else organizations that are almost completely divorced from the purpose of the college, and they cannot be preserved by going back to the “good old days” of college football.