The Ten Suggestions: How To Save College Football From Itself

The Bible tells us that Moses came down from Mount Sinai with two tablets inscribed by the hand of God with what we know as The Ten Commandments. These 10 rules have formed the foundation for laws designed to keep societies safe and orderly for more than 5,000 years. The NCAA has laws designed to keep college football safe and orderly, too. They haven’t been around 5,000 years but for however long they’ve been in place, they aren’t working very well.

What we have now is more than just failure to communicate. It’s utter chaos and until someone comes up with a new set of rules or a brand new organization, the chaos will only get worse. We aren’t that far from widespread panic because the NCAA has clearly lost its grip and no one trusts the organization to come up with a plan to get everyone on the same page with a sense of this is the way it’s supposed to be done. Oh, there are meetings going on left and right – one in Scottsdale, Arizona this week, for example – with everyone pitching in with some sort of proposal but good ideas are worthless unless a leader emerges to blaze a path out of the wilderness so the football playing schools can thrive in an all-new promised land.

The Bible tells us that it took Moses 40 years to lead his people out of the wilderness to the promised land that was flowing with milk and honey. College football isn’t that lucky. If it takes 40 years to come up with a plan to fundamentally change the game for the better, the sport will have died and been left for dead in the desert. What college football needs in the worst way is for a new leader, a new organization and new rules. Now. Not later.

Rather than Ten Commandments to bring order and safety to the college football society, here are The Ten Suggestions. Someone may have a better list than these. Someone may even have a more comprehensive list of say 20 or more suggestions to reform college football, but ten is a nice round number and a good place to start.

THE TEN SUGGESTIONS

1. FOOTBALL SHOULD SECEDE FROM THE NCAA

The NCAA may run a dandy tennis tournament and everybody loves the College World Series, the women’s gymnastics championships and the other big events but it’s pretty clear the organization is clueless when it comes to football. The evidence is in all these nonsensical socialistic one-size-fits-all rules. One size doesn’t fit all. The haves have and the have nots have not. The NCAA can’t seem to get that through its rather thick skull.

There is also the matter of selective enforcement. We see how the NCAA will turn a blind eye to potential issues with Duke basketball or how they will overlook a mountain of evidence against North Carolina basketball, yet they will crush a non-blueblood. The same holds true with football. The 1984 case against Florida and Charley Pell is a perfect example that Gator fans can relate to. Rules were broken at Florida, but what was going on at Florida paled in comparison to what was going on at other SEC schools. The NCAA decided to make Florida a poster child for enforcement with some of the most severe sanctions in history while handing out the equivalent of parking tickets to bluebloods that were doing things 100 times worse. Just recently, the NCAA gave show cause to Nebraska coach Scott Frost for a pair of Level II violations. Parking tickets. Scott Frost got show cause for a couple of parking tickets because it wanted to nail Frost and Nebraska but didn’t have enough evidence. So, it hit Frost with penalties far more severe than the violations demanded because its investigators were either too lazy or too incompetent or – perish the thought – there wasn’t any more evidence to be had.

What this tells us is we cannot allow the NCAA – in the name of reform – to come up with a new set of rules for football. No way. Ditch the NCAA completely. Secede. Form a brand new organization led by a commissioner who has the kind of power the NFL gave Pete Rozelle, the greatest commissioner in the history of sports. Tell the new commissioner to rule with an iron hand but do it fairly. Come up with a new common sense rule book that doesn’t require each school to have a compliance staff of a half dozen or so lawyers to determine what’s legal and what isn’t. Make the penalties for breaking the rules harsh. No blueblood exceptions. We can’t have a situation that causes a modern day Jerry Tarkanian to say, “The commish is so pissed off at Georgia that he’s giving Wake Forest two more years of probation.”

The consequences of breaking the rules should be severe but fair. Even then, we know that some will still try to skirt the rules, but when they are caught, make sure the school and the coach responsible feel the pain for a long, long time.

Not every school is going to have the same athletic budget or the same ability to raise money, but there can be an expanded College Football Playoff that double or even triples what the current CFP contract with ESPN pays out. Make sure there is an equitable distribution of the playoff money. The playoffs and the money they generate could also be the best way to deal with cheaters. Cheat and you get a 5-year ban on participating in the playoffs or getting a share of playoff revenue.

Maybe the football schools would be happy to allow a “reformed” NCAA to handle all the other sports for which there are championships, but football has to go its own way. We cannot allow the NCAA to continue to have its fingerprints on anything remotely involved with college football. They’ve had decades to do keep up with the times and they’ve done absolutely nothing except keep college football wandering in the desert.

2. REDUCE MEMBERSHIP IN DIVISION I

We have a Power Five made up of the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC plus Notre Dame that is about to expand from 65 to 69 teams when BYU, UCF, Cincinnati and Houston join the Big 12. There is plenty of sentiment that the Power Five should have their own division and that they should only play Power Five members. But, is that the wise thing to do? If the Power Five haves of college football eliminate games with the Group of Five have nots, then the financial fallout will be quite a number of schools eliminating football altogether or cutting back on sports programs. Eliminating scholarships is not a good thing, so the Power Five schools will have to keep playing the Group of Five. However, there is a way to make this work out well for everybody concerned.

Currently there are 130-plus teams in Division I and that number is expanding because D1AA members like James Madison, Sam Houston State and Jacksonville State have moved up with the promise of a few more D1AA teams joining Division I within another year or so. That’s way too many and basically unsustainable.

Division I should be reduced to somewhere between 70-85 schools. You have the 69 that will be members of the Power Five, but you also have schools like San Diego State, Boise State, Army, Navy, Air Force and perhaps a handful of others that are capable of competing with most of the Power Five teams. Some of them could be absorbed into current conferences in the event of expansion. For example, if the Big 12 were to lose Kansas and Iowa State to the Big Ten, that would create an opening for two schools. Perhaps the Pac-12 will choose to expand to 14 teams.

Another option might be to create a new conference from schools that belong to the American and Mountain West. Logistically, that might be a nightmare but it could bring in competitive schools and give them a chance to play at the highest level.

It’s easy to say that Boise State or Navy could never win a national championship, but adding a few more teams wouldn’t hurt and it would always provide that Cinderella possibility when playoff time rolls around. It’s unlikely that Boise State could win a national championship, but impossible? At least give a chance.

3. CREATE A DIVISION IA AND A NEW DIVISION IAA

With the reduction of Division I to perhaps 80-85 teams, there would be perhaps 50 former Division I schools that are certainly incapable of competing at the highest levels, largely because they don’t have the money. There is also at the D1AA level two or three conferences that are consistently better so they could merge to make a Division IA that would be about 80 schools.

The new Division IA could have its own national championship which would certainly have an appeal not only to the members, but to recruits. Kids at Sun Belt and MAC schools, for instance, only have the incentive of a minor bowl game that no one watches on TV to entice their players and fans. But give them a national championship to play for? That’s a whole different animal. Do you think for one second that the coaches at Louisiana or Coastal Carolina wouldn’t tout their schools as potential national championship contenders if they were in a division of similar budgeted schools that don’t have Texas A&M-like facilities? Kids who currently are at schools like Toledo or Central Michigan will never have a chance to play for a national championship under the current format, but re-arrange things for a newly-minted Division IA and the recruiting landscape changes and so do fan expectations.

Real national championships, by the way, not a phony one like UCF claims from 2017.

The Missouri Valley Football Conference is home to North Dakota State, which has won nine of the last 11 D1AA titles. This new division would be a step up for NDSU and the other members of this D1AA powerhouse conference but it would offer a chance to win national titles against better competition. The Colonial Athletic Association and the Big Sky Conference would probably be good fits at this level, too.

The new Division IA would be allowed to play paycheck games against the teams in Division I, so they would still have a chance to pick up millions in revenue.

The new Division IAA would lose two or three conferences, but for the 80 remaining schools it would certainly be more competitive, so this would be a good move for everyone.

4. FOR DIVISION I, AT LEAST, MAKE FOOTBALL PLAYERS EMPLOYEES

University of Miami shooting guard Isaiah Wong is the first NIL holdout because a transfer guard from Kansas State got an $800,000 deal. How long before that happens in college football? How long before we have our first strike when, say, an offensive line decides the QB and the wide receivers are getting all this NIL money and they (the OL) are doing the blocking and heavy lifting? You may think it will never happen, but did you ever think we would be in a situation where players are getting NIL deals worth millions?

One thing that might help would be to make players employees and give them a salary with an ironclad contract that assures them they can get raises but can’t have their salary reduced. Sure, they would have to pay taxes, but it’s only a matter of time before the government decides scholarships and all the other benefits athletes get are taxable. Of course this also means a coach can fire players for breaking rules or failing to make minimum academic progress. Contracts can be written in ways to protect players from being randomly fired.

A low on the rung tight end who suddenly has a breakout spring and a good season, could get quite a nice raise for the next season. Of course, that same player could be fired as well after failing to make progress after a couple of seasons. There are consequences for everything, but putting players on salary and making them employees has more benefits for everyone involved.

5. AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL, ELIMINATE COUNTERS

The American Football Coaches Association recommends that the scholarship rules should be simplified. The NCAA mandates an 85-scholarship limit and 25 scholarships per year. Most coaches don’t have a real problem with the 85 scholarships. It’s the 25 per year that is at issue here because a school that only signed less than 25 the year before can count early enrollees back to the previous signing class. So, a school that signs only 18 in December and February could count seven early-enrollees for the next year and have them count back against the previous year. That would free them up to sign 25 high school, jucos or transfers in December or February. The way this is set up, it is also possible for a school to over-sign on scholarships and then pare down the roster after spring practice or during the summer to get to the 85-limit prior to fall camp opening up in August.

Under the AFCA recommendation, a school can sign 40 players in December and January if it wants or needs, but at no time can it exceed 85 on scholarship. This makes sense for a school that, for example, sees a huge exodus after firing a coach in November or after the new coach’s first spring practice. A school that loses 20 seniors and then has 20 transfer out would be short 15 scholarships and at a severe personnel disadvantage, but with this new recommendation as the rule, the coach could sign 40 so that he would have 85 on scholarship.

This is one of the truly good common sense rule proposals to come down the pike in a long time.

6. CREATE THREE WINDOWS FOR TRANSFERS

Another very good recommendation by the American Football Coaches Association is to create three windows for players to enter into the transfer portal. The way it is right now, a kid can quit on his team and go into the portal during the season. So, first things first, eliminate in-season transfers completely by setting up three windows for kids to enter the portal. The first window would be from December 1 until the December 15 early signing day. The second would be from mid-January until the national signing day the first Wednesday in February. The third and final portal would be from mid-April until May 1. If a kid enters the portal during one of those three windows, he could be eligible to play immediately providing he’s in good academic standing. Kids will still be allowed to transfer out, but they’ll have to sit a year if they transfer outside the three windows. This way teams won’t get broadsided by a kid getting an NIL deal from some other school then leaving a week before fall camp opens or a week before the season opener. NIL deals for kids who have to sit a year are going to be few and far between so having three windows for transferring without sitting will definitely curtail some of the hanky panky that might be going on in the transfer portal.

7. FRESHMEN MUST COMPLETE AN ACADEMIC CALENDAR YEAR TO TRANSFER

One of the plagues of the transfer portal is too many freshman impulsively leave after not getting to play in their first semester on campus. A better way to eliminate a good many of the freshman transfers is to make them spend a full academic year at the school they sign with before they can transfer without having to sit a year. Leave before they’ve been on campus from September until May and they have to sit a year. Exceptions only in case of family emergency or hardship. Also, any freshman who transfers who isn’t in good academic standing would be required to sit a year to get academics in order at the new school.

8. SIT OUT A YEAR IF A TRANSFER IS STILL TAKING REMEDIAL COURSES

Since so many kids come to college from underperforming high schools, you can’t keep them from being given a chance to play college football if the school is willing to admit them in the first place. We’d probably be overwhelmed at the number of college football players in their first couple of years who are taking remedial courses. There should be a rule in place, however, that any kid still taking remedial classes who wants to transfer out will have to sit a year to focus on academics once he’s at his new location. If colleges and universities are truly serious about preparing kids for life after football, then they have to get them off the remedial courses and into real classes sooner and not later. Kids have to understand that they have to take their academics seriously so there will be no encumbrances if they feel the need to find a better place to play ball.

9. HAVE A REAL SPRING GAME AGAINST A D1AA OPPONENT

Spring games are boring because they are glorified scrimmages. They could be and should be revenue events. The way to do that would be to first of all, eliminate games against D1AA teams during the regular season, then schedule a D1AA opponent in the spring. Have a real game. It would be a far better way to evaluate players for what they’ve accomplished during spring practice, and it might be a good way for coaches to scout potential transfers from D1AA as well.

Players could get hurt, you might say. They get hurt during practice, far more in practice than in games (72 percent of concussions happen in practice, for example) so the get hurt argument isn’t very strong. In practice, players hold up and don’t hit hard because it’s a teammate or often take it easy on a buddy across the line. In a game like this, coaches could see their players go against someone that isn’t a teammate and get a far better evaluation.

He's another example of how this could be a real spring event that fans from all over the state would want to be a part of. Let’s say Florida plays FAMU for the spring game. FAMU not only brings its band but 10,000 fans who want to see the Rattlers go against the mighty Gators plus want to take selfies inside and tailgate outside of one of college football’s iconic stadiums. Florida fans would flock to the game as well to see something other than a glorified scrimmage and to see the FAMU band. Or how about the following year, the Bethune-Cookman band. Are you kidding me? This would be an event, not just a spring game.

The D1AA team would get its payday and the loss wouldn’t hurt them on selection Sunday for their playoffs. They wouldn’t have the worry of players getting hurt or discouraged during the season, which could result in a major loss against a D1AA foe the next week. And what if they spring the upset? Well, it won’t count against the Division I team (see Appalachian State over Michigan in 2007 or Georgia Southern over Florida in 2013) if it loses so it wouldn’t hurt in the playoff polls.

10. PUT SOME SORT OF STRUCTURE IN NIL TO PREVENT KIDS FROM SHOPPING AROUND

We have a dilemma on our hands with NIL. Coaches, for the most part, believe kids should be able to get some money, but what they don’t like is that they’re selling themselves to the highest bidder. It’s bad enough that they’re doing it when they go into the transfer portal, but worse because now kids are doing it at the high school level when they are being recruited. You aren’t going to eliminate NIL deals. The Supreme Court in its 9-0 decision in NCAA v. Alston made that abundantly clear, but there has to be a way to put some structure and some rules in place that bring some sanity to the process.

In the NFL or professional sports, they have strict rules to prevent tampering when a player is on the open market. There are no rules for high school kids or transfers so we have a form of unrestricted free agency that was never intended. Total chaos is the better description and it didn’t have to be that way. Had the NCAA had taken the time to put rules in place, there could be some sanity in the process but that would have meant the NCAA actually did something with a measure of common sense. What we have now is like trying to fly a 747 with only an owner’s manual and no flight lessons. Put some rules in place. Put some teeth into enforcement so that tampering is dealt with swiftly and severely. If there are no consequences like we have now then we have chaos, which we have in abundance.

NIL is supposed to stand for Name, Image, Likeness, but since there are no rules in place, we have cheating going on like never before. Paying for players has always been a part of the college football landscape but it used to be against the rules. Now, thanks to NIL, we can say, “Now It’s Legal.” Charley Pell rolls over in his grave at the mere thought of what is going on these days and times.