The effects of the Rashada lawsuit will be felt long into the future

A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning:

It was business as usual at the Florida football complex on Wednesday. Other than dealing with the aftermath of freshman defensive tackle Michai Boireau having to post $60,000 bond after spending a couple of days in the Monroe County, Georgia pokey for driving a teensy bit over the speed limit and a few other things, widespread panic was not settling in at The Heav.

Boireau will be dealt with by both police and Billy Napier. Among other things, he’s charged with reckless driving, driving on a suspended or revoked license, driving 150 or so miles per hour while trying to elude police who were in hot pursuit and crashing his BMW into another car, which caused a serious injury.

There was no widespread panic at The Heav over Boireau or the lawsuit by Jaden Rashada. Boireau will pay a price for having his brain jammed in neutral while driving a car and it’s likely his arrest guarantees a redshirt year in which he will have a chance to trim 30 or 40 pounds of excess from his ample body. If Rashada attorney Rusty Hardin or Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who gave the lawsuit his blessing, expected nuclear winter in Gainesville, they were likely disappointed. The lawsuit was well discussed on Tuesday. It was old news on Wednesday and by the time the weekend arrives, fans will be more engrossed in who’s in and who’s out when the NCAA selection committee chooses the 64 teams that will compete for the national championship and the eight teams that emerge from the softball super regionals to advance to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City.

If the intention was the publicity equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off in Gainesville, then the Rashada lawsuit failed miserably. It had all the power and effect of a fart in an elevator. It stunk for a few seconds, then the elevator door opened offering immediate relief.

This isn’t to say the lawsuit isn’t serious. Up until now, Billy Napier was considered one of the last boy scouts in college football, a straight arrow among straight arrows so a lawsuit that says Billy Napier helped stiff a kid out of life changing money damages a cultivated image. The lawsuit claims Napier promised to make good but never delivered on a hyper-inflated deal negotiated by Hugh Hathcock worth a paltry $13.85 million.  

We know Hathcock may have negotiated the deal but when it came time to put up his money, his check-writing hand developed a severe case of rigormortis. Minus a contract  with Napier’s signature, a recording of his voice making promises or a witness who can affirm he knew everything, there is no way to prove if Napier was as involved as the lawsuit alleges.

That Jaden Rashada was ever promised $13.85 million qualifies for what Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) calls a “special kind of stupid.” Whether Napier was trying to salvage the deal or not, the perception is that he along with Hathcock were the stunt doubles for Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) in the movie “Dumb and Dumber.” Napier could be absolved of any involvement in the negotiations, but even if he wasn’t involved there will be lingering questions. That he signed Rashada to a scholarship raises a lot of questions that need to be but won’t ever be answered at least in public. When it comes to speaking out loud about this deal, Napier’s lawyer needs to cover his mouth with Gorilla Tape.

On his Late Kick podcast, Josh Pate suggested that the Rashada lawsuit may be the first but it won’t be the last when it comes to jilted recruits going after coaches or boosters who they believe lied to them. Coaches lie to recruits and players every day. More than half the kids who are recruited to a Division I school sign scholarship papers because they believe that this coach will get them NFL ready. I can’t tell you if Billy Napier lied or not to the Rashadas, but if he did lie, he’s not the first coach to ever do it nor will he be the last.

There are lessons to be learned from this debacle. First and foremost, there is no such thing as a high school quarterback worth $13.85 million. John Talty of CBS Sports says the market price for a transfer quarterback to a Power Four school is in the $500,000 to $800,000 range. Obviously, quarterbacks who attained a level of stardom somewhere else will command more, but double up the high end and you still come up more than $12 million less than what Rashada was offered.

Second, whenever a kid claims he had a huge offer such as the $9.4 million deal allegedly offered Rashada by Miami, call his bluff. Make him show a proof of funds and if he can’t then consider him a liar. Do not get into a bidding war over a kid who has never played a down in the SEC.

Third, make sure whoever does your negotiations to pay NIL money (a) actually has the money and (b) is willing to put the money in escrow until a kid is signed.

Fourth, Florida made out like a bandit because Graham Mertz had a great year and now the Gators have a proven 2-year starter at UF, five years a starter in college football. Plus, the Gators got DJ Lagway. Had Rashada been a Gator, it’s not a reach to think Lagway would have chosen another school other than UF.

UF BASEBALL: Gators are still in the hunt for the field of 64

At the Southeastern Conference Baseball Tournament in Hoover, Alabama, Wednesday, the league’s top four teams took it on the chin. Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas A&M and Arkansas all lost their first game in the tournament. All four will play elimination games today and two of them will depart Hoover with an 0-2 record.

All eight teams that played Wednesday, whether winners or losers, will make the NCAA field of 64. The question is how many more SEC teams make the tournament. Georgia, which lost to LSU Tuesday, is a mortal lock. No SEC team with 17 wins in league play has ever been denied since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, so that’s nine SEC teams in.

In addition to Georgia, there were three other losers Tuesday. Ole Miss lost, but the Rebels won’t make the tournament because they have a losing record. That leaves Florida (28-27) and Alabama (33-22). Florida has the No. 1 strength of schedule in the country, but the Gators are No. 28 in RPI and 13-18 against Quad 1 opponents. Alabama is the No. 20 RPI with the No. 5 strength of schedule and a 15-20 record against Quad 1 opponents. If the NCAA decides 10 teams from one league are plenty, then the Gators probably won’t make it. For the NCAA to allow 11 teams in, there can’t be many upsets whether that’s in leagues that should get two or more bids, or in the 1-bid leagues.

If LSU, Mississippi State or Texas A&M were to make it to the championship game of the SEC Tournament, that could help Florida’s cause since the Gators won the 3-game series with each of those teams.

Wednesday’s games: LSU (38-20) 11, No. 2 Kentucky (39-13) 0; South Carolina (35-21) 6, No. 5 Arkansas (43-13) 5; Vanderbilt (37-20) 13, No. 1 Tennessee (46-11) 4; No. 15 Mississippi State (38-19) 5, No. 4 Texas A&M (44-12) 3

Today’s games: 10: 30 a.m. No. 5 Arkansas (43-13) vs. No. 2 Kentucky (39-13), elimination game; 2 p.m. No. 4 Texas A&M (44-12) vs. No. 1 Tennessee (46-11), elimination game; 5:30 p.m. LSU (38-20) vs. South Carolina (35-21); 9 p.m. No. 15 Mississippi State (38-19) vs. Vanderbilt (37-20)

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: The NCAA council has approved a $2.8 billion settlement to halt the anti-trust lawsuit brought on by the United States House of Representatives. The Big 12, Big Ten and Atlantic Coast Conference have already signed off on the deal. The Southeastern Conference and Pac-12 supposedly will sign off today.

The NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, has been pushing for this settlement for quite some time. In addition to back pay for athletes who never had a chance to cash in on NIL, the settlement opens the door for revenue sharing and other benefits for the power conference schools. Initial estimates are that revenue sharing will cost 20-22 percent of income for each conference and school. It could go so far as to bankrupt a good many of the Group of Five schools/conferences that won’t be able to afford paying players anything close to 20-22 percent of their revenues. Per Brandon Marcello of CBS Sports, more than half the Group of Five schools have less than $40 million a year in revenue. They operate on a shoestring as it is so how can they afford to pay football players 20-22 percent of their income?

The settlement is certain to take away scholarship limits such as the silly 11.7 scholarships allotted for baseball. That will have the Title IX people screaming their lungs out. And, how will the schools justify paying football players and not paying every athlete on scholarship, both male and female? How many non-revenue sports will even survive once this is implemented?

There is also the matter of players as employees, which would open the door for unionization and salary caps. Will players ever agree to a salary cap? Will we see a strike that could torpedo a school or an entire conference? All that is on the table.

These questions are going to have to be answered and the answers most likely will be found in some court room. Not an ideal situation.   

There is also the matter of numerous other anti-trust lawsuits against the NCAA, different conferences and schools. How many of these plaintiffs will back down once the House of Representatives suit is settled? If even one or two go forward, it could skewer the entire settlement.

Drew Weatherford, the former Florida State quarterback, is working with a hedge fund to help boost college athletic department revenues. It sounds promising, but what happens if the national economy takes a not so good turn? Will these hedge funds continue to bring in the bucks for athletic departments, or will the people who invest in them elect to spend their money on something deemed more practical?

The one thing we can know for sure is that college sports as we now know them are about to change forever. There is a very good chance we aren’t going to recognize them in five or ten years. We could be seeing cutbacks in budgets that result in reduced numbers of scholarships. We could be seeing some sports programs curtailed or eliminated altogether. We could see some athletic departments forced to declare bankruptcy.

Yes, this does sound doom and gloom, but this is a time when we need practical solutions to lingering problems and we’re seeing money being thrown at the problem without any sustainable answers.