More Conference Commissioner Stupidity

Time to take a break from the games and talk about the stupidity emanating from the conferences. A week ago, Jon Solomon of CBSsports reported some conferences and their commissioners were considering bringing back freshmen ineligibility, all in the name of "education".

The initial report seemed to suggest this was going to be for basketball only. Well, today, Raphielle Johnson of collegebasketballtalk.com, reported the Big 10 has considered it for both basketball and football.

Let's get the particulars out of the way. New qualification requirements would require student-athletes to achieve a 2.3GPA and have completed 10 core classes out of 16 before their senior years. This is to begin in 2016. If athletes meet the previous requirements, they will be granted an academic redshirt, able to practice but not play. They'd still get 4 years of eligibility. Beyond this, though, leagues appear to be seriously considering a mandated Frosh redshirt, which was once a thing. The basic argument is, student-athletes can't handle the academic load as freshmen and under perform their non-athlete classmates.

The NBA is expected to pursue an older minimum age requirement of 20 in the next labor discussion. If this occurred, it would seem not necessary for the conferences to enact this for basketball but if football does it, you can certainly expect basketball to follow suit. This is ridiculous at every level.

1. If these commissioners were truly concerned about academic performance, then they never would have expanded their leagues. Why is a kid from Nebraska traveling to New Jersey? Morgantown to Ames? Syracuse to Miami?

2. Why have the leagues expanded the seasons to 12 games plus title games and bowl games in football? Why does the college basketball season last nearly 6 months?

3. Why not allow those their solely to play sports to major in those sports while still requiring core classes? Let's call a spade a spade.

These leagues don't like being feeder leagues for the NFL and the NBA. This is the bed you've made. You've made college sports big business. All of the major schools have shoe deals. Don't think for a second schools aren't pressured to bring in kids that are playing for certain travel teams sponsored by similar shoe partners. Now, these schools are concerned about academic well-being? Balderdash.

Scott Stricklin, AD at Mississippi State has suggested guaranteeing 5 years of eligibility instead of redshirting which makes more sense so you can dismiss that idea.

As long as the NCAA and its members allow themselves to be the feeder leagues for the NBA and NFL, they need to accept they're being used by athletes with no desire to be in school other than to pursue a dream to play in the NFL or NBA. And as long as these schools are happy taking checks from shoe companies and TV, that's what they are.