Bison06

So because corruption of the rules is very likely, we shouldn’t push for a more equitable set of rules for all parties involved? Imagine if our law system followed this logic. People will still break speed limits so why have them at all. Etc, etc.

Does that include strength coaches? That seems low.

Do you think adding 9900% and laughing your a$$ off somehow makes your point more valid? By saying not viable, I mean players have to move halfway across the world to participate. Truly not an option for a lot of these kids. A minor league with the top talent that isn’t playing at the pro level has never been tried outside of minor league baseball and guess what, minor league baseball is incredibly popular. If top NBA and NFL future prospects played in a league and didn’t go to college, those leagues would be very popular because the scouts and analysts would spend their time there and not in college as much.

This isn’t an issue that affects 1% as you say, in fact, I would argue in affects the “little guys” much more than the guys who will/could eventually play professionally. The athlete in partial scholarship at a DII school is affected much more by these rules. i agree with pretty well everything you’ve said about the challenges that would arise if they changed the rules, we just disagree about how bad things are now it seems.

Seems like what started as an attempt to root out unethical recruiting practices has turned into an overreach that disproportionately affects the athletes. Probably why we’ve seen so many lawsuits over this. Let’s find a middle ground that doesn’t eliminate the athletes ability to have ownership over their own face.

Europe isn’t viable for most American high schoolers. Additionally, the fact that the European pro leagues have this age thing figured out only further shows how the NCAA and NBA have colluded with this one and done rule to force college on kids. As far as how these leagues would affect the colleges. Of course I’d much of the top talent played in this proposed league, tv contracts and advertising dollars would go to these leagues too and that would hurt the NCAA.

The ideal scenario is both basketball and football having a viable alternative to the NCAA as a route to the pros. If that existed then none of this would be an issue. Of course the NCAA would lobby very hard against that as it would be a death blow for them. Having an alternative league allows all parties to get exactly what they want. Member institutions can keep their rules and players who have zero interest in pretending to be students for 2-3 years can get paid while preparing for their professional career.

So a 4th year biology student at UND can take the knowledge that UND provided and teach a summer biology camp for an appropriate wage, but a UND football player doing the equivalent with the skills and knowledge they have will result in a revocation of their scholarship and you think that’s “selfish”?

Answer this direct question: If James Johanneson wanted to put on a running back camp in Fargo over the summer for Fargo South High School using his name and making money for his personal time, what is your argument for why that is bad?

Two things: 1. Your hostility is completely unfounded, this has been a civil conversation about a very hotly debated topic in college athletics right now. 2. If it ain't broke don't fix it? It's broken, it's been broken for a long time, fixing it is an absolute necessity. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/sports/college-athletes-paid-california.html

I agree and am aware of the school's budgets. Which is why I'm not advocating for these funds to be paid from the university in the form of a stipend or salary to the players. I'm simply advocating for the players to be allowed to profit from their own likeness and name on their own if they choose to do so. To give the NCAA a pass on your second paragraph, implies that the NCAA and the pro leagues don't collaborate to create mutually beneficial rules, which happens constantly. Who does it help to have the "one and done rule" in college basketball? Well, the NBA gets to let top players develop one more year before they need to invest and they get to further vet them against a higher level of competition. The NCAA benefits from having the top talent not skip over them and go straight to the NBA. The only party it doesn't benefit in the slightest is the athlete. The NCAA and NBA have created a captive situation and are in effect forcing these athletes to go to college against their will in most cases. Risking further injury before getting paid. Of course, there would need to be proper oversight, I'm not advocating for the wild west. But say Joe Burrow had a year of eligibility left and planned to play next year. If he wanted to run the Joe Burrow QB camp for highschool kids in Baton Rouge, why shouldn't he be able to do that?

Agree 100% that it would create the above scenario and that is a problem that would need to be addressed properly through very specific rules if this is to happen. The trouble with “they were never intended to be minor leagues” is they have become de facto minor leagues with no other viable route to become a pro in many sports, football being the most obvious. The NFL gets to have a minor league without the costs and the NCAA and it’s member institutions get free labor to make literal billions. I think hockey and baseball have the best scenario for high school athletes. You want to get an education? Go through the NCAA. You want to just play your sport and try to go pro, we have the minor leagues for that. As it stands now, a high school football or basketball star is basically forced to become an NCAA student athlete if they’d like to play professionally.(basketball could go to Europe, but that pipeline has only worked for one American star that I’m aware of, Jennings) It certainly isn’t a simple solution and your points are well taken and true. Hopefully the NCAA can come to a solution that has the interests of these athletes in mind and not exclusively their own interests.

Haha, I don’t have the proper equipment to succeed there.

Absolutely. I’m not sure what the end result looks like, but as it currently stands, I believe it’s extremely unfair to college athletes. Where I see issues potentially is in recruiting. If a player has value and can profit from his own likeness, I’m not sure how you would police local businesses hiring athletes as spokespeople as a way to sweeten the pot in a recruiting. The capitalist in me says if a business thinks a kid brings their business value and wants to pay him, then have at it. But I see it potentially becoming a problem too.

I used to fall mostly on your side of the discussion, but now find myself advocating more for the student-athletes rights. Most people who haven’t been NCAA student-athletes don’t understand the extent to which the university you play for and/or the NCAA truly own your name and likeness. Sure, we all see the high profile cases where the university is making millions off of an individual eg. free publicity gained from an athlete winning the heisman. But what they don’t see are the simple examples. Say a UND player is from a small town and has made a name for himself and wants to run a camp with their name attached to it in their home town. They can’t. Another example, I worked at a bar to make money while playing college football. One day I showed up and they wanted to take pictures of me interacting with the bar patrons for a new menu, they wanted to pay me a few hundred bucks for my time and to use my likeness moving forward. This is an NCAA violation under the current rules and I would have had my scholarship revoked for profiting from my likeness. These smaller examples is where I really side with the student athlete.

Lol

We’re all still waiting on that NCAA investigation into the lack of institutional control.

I have no idea where Hedberg or any other NDSU coach falls in the grand scheme of things, but if getting coaching jobs was strictly merit based in the NFL, there would be a very different crop of coaches.

I think your take is right on. Football is a team game and none of the three phases of the game compete in a vacuum. The goal of the game is to win, not to break offensive output records. I think a lot of the griping about conservative play-calling from many of the NDSU OC’s over the years has been unwarranted as it’s NDSU’s plan heading into most games. Shorten the game by keeping the ball in our hands. Wear out a defense by letting our Oline grind them for three quarters so they are worn out in the fourth. It isn’t a coincidence that NDSU always seems to win the fourth quarter, they design it that way and are committed to it. Clearly it’s worked out for them.

Actually, the talk in this thread about differences in personnel between the two defenses is spot on. Mr. Holinka is likely very well aware of the current conversations surrounding the defense and is downplaying the differences between the two. Savvy media comments. The two fronts are very different, much more than just standing up or putting his hand on the ground. 3-4 defenses require your nose to be responsible for two gaps vs one. Without a Haloti Ngata type at the nose that can absolutely manhandle the center and requiring a double team on nearly every play, the defense is vulnerable. Point is, they are very different fronts and require very different recruiting, IMO. Mr. Holinka clearly knows this and I'm sure will do a great job recruiting the players that best fit his defense.

I agree with you and others who have said that a defense can be successful regardless of the scheme, but I lean your way on recruiting for each scheme being different. It seems like the 3-4 requires a few players on the defense to be a very specific type of player to be successful. Nose tackle has to be an absolute dude and your outside backers have to be a very specific hybrid of pass rushing/coverage players to be great. (Terrell Suggs, Jerry Hughes types) A player with linebacker hips and d end pass rushing skills is hard to find at the FCS level. The 4-3 scheme seems a bit more flexible with different types of athletes.

This is a thread about FCS playoffs, if you’re not interested then why read it?

That’s interesting, NDSU opened as a slight favorite correct? I wouldn’t be surprised if JMU ended up as slight favorites given they are the more experienced team.

I agree, JMUs defense is solid. Athletes at every level. They are one of a few teams at the FCS level that I believe likely has equal if not better players than NDSU at many positions. We’ll need to play our best game of the year to beat them I believe. This is the first year it’ll be on ABC, really good for FCS I believe. Hopefully it’s a great game and continues to introduce new fans to FCS football.

In other news...back to playoff discussion. I’ve been looking forward to this matchup and hoping it would be in Frisco all year. JMU is damn good, well coached and has incredibly talented players at every position group. NDSU will certainly have its hands full. What concerns me about this game is some of the little things NDSU seems to have become slightly less disciplined with this year. As a fan, I need a larger sample size to determine if it’s the youth of our group or simply a more undisciplined version of NDSU under our new coaching staff, but the penalties and missed tackles that have become more common this year I think may bite us when playing a team as great as JMU. Seems like a toss up on paper so I’ll pick an NDSU win in a surprisingly high scoring affair, relatively speaking. I’ll go with 31-27 NDSU, but I would be hard pressed to put a large sum of money on that one.