Sharing thoughts on a message board may be cathartic, but certainly drifts somewhere between egotism and inanity. Anyway, my thoughts on the last 24 hours:
• If reports are true that Pitt was able to muster a $2m match, not to mention find a way to keep two defensive players in the fold, well then Pitt is not planning to quietly slink away and accept a place in lower or middling tier of collegiate competition.
• If the above bullet is true, my fellow Panthers, that is a much bigger development than any one player leaving for one semester of work.
• If Pitt is not packing it in, well, my fellow Panthers, neither should you. We're still in the fight. It may not be the good fight, but we're still in it.
• Still, there is no doubting it sucks that Pitt football is on the wrong end of this historic transaction just as it appears to be awakening from a 40 year slumber.
• If you are holding your breath for the NCAA to get involved in shoving this genie back in its bottle, you are about to asphyxiate yourself. State legislatures started this and basically told the NCAA to "shove off; we're in control now." The NCAA has no real ability to do anything anymore.
• As Addison has clearly demonstrated, these are professional players now. Direct payment of players, players being employees, this is already here and it is full steam ahead, and everything else is just technicalities and semantics.
• There's no use mourning what now is, and what will never again be. There have been many "new eras" in the history of football the last 100 years. Time to embrace it and take advantage of it, just like Miami is doing, or get permanently left behind, like the Fordhams of the 1940s. If Pitt can match a $2m offer, then it can become a predator in some regards too. Pitt should not take some moral high ground on the issue like in the 1940s and 1980s which resulted in wrecking its then elite-status programs. History should be a guide here. Pitt likes to repeat history. Time to break that cycle of self-abuse.
• California is getting close to passing a law that would permit college players to be payed based on the amount of profit a program generates. It includes many caveats to those payments. But just like Florida being the first state to pass an NIL law, which now finds itself behind the 8-ball because subsequent states passed much less restrictive legislation, I'd watch for other states to follow CA in passing much less restrictive versions in the name of equitable competitiveness.
• Of course, all these payments and freedom of movement have already resulted in gun-for-hire, free agency that is found in no other professional sport. Remember, we are only in year two of this new era. But no one should be surprised how fast this progressed. It was obvious to anyone that had paid attention to college athletics for any length of time.
• I hope the brain trust at Alliance 412 has already started thinking about creating a long-term war chest and how to bring as many supporters into the fold as possible. Seriously, forget the on-campus stadium you-know-who-you-ares. It is a professional sport now; Pitt needs a major war chest to buy players, just like USC and Miami.
• With professional employment, comes contracts, buy-outs, penalty clauses....that may be the only thing that will reign this wild west in.
• So, can you start loading NIL contracts with look-ins, bonuses, non-complete clauses, penalties, etc? Can such things be enforced? Will NIL conglomerates or universities have a stomach to go after those that break contracts when they clearly haven't had that fortitude in the coaching world? I don't know, and lawyers would need to weigh in. But if you are bringing in a 2 or 3 star nobody and developing them into an All-American, I'd certainly be tempted, if I were an NIL organization, to tie them up at the school for the length of their eligibility starting with the contract they sign going into their freshman year.
• However, I can't see eligibility rules surviving in an era of professionalism very long.
• If eligibility rules dissolve, combined with contracts apparently already surpassing NFL rookie deals, then how does the NFL not start looking at college football as a competitor? Might Saturday NFL football be coming in the future? I will say this, thank goodness Pitt and the Steelers have a long history of cordial cooperation. In a hypothetical future where there was competition between college and NFL, those ties could either destroy Pitt or save it.
• If reports are true that Pitt was able to muster a $2m match, not to mention find a way to keep two defensive players in the fold, well then Pitt is not planning to quietly slink away and accept a place in lower or middling tier of collegiate competition.
• If the above bullet is true, my fellow Panthers, that is a much bigger development than any one player leaving for one semester of work.
• If Pitt is not packing it in, well, my fellow Panthers, neither should you. We're still in the fight. It may not be the good fight, but we're still in it.
• Still, there is no doubting it sucks that Pitt football is on the wrong end of this historic transaction just as it appears to be awakening from a 40 year slumber.
• If you are holding your breath for the NCAA to get involved in shoving this genie back in its bottle, you are about to asphyxiate yourself. State legislatures started this and basically told the NCAA to "shove off; we're in control now." The NCAA has no real ability to do anything anymore.
• As Addison has clearly demonstrated, these are professional players now. Direct payment of players, players being employees, this is already here and it is full steam ahead, and everything else is just technicalities and semantics.
• There's no use mourning what now is, and what will never again be. There have been many "new eras" in the history of football the last 100 years. Time to embrace it and take advantage of it, just like Miami is doing, or get permanently left behind, like the Fordhams of the 1940s. If Pitt can match a $2m offer, then it can become a predator in some regards too. Pitt should not take some moral high ground on the issue like in the 1940s and 1980s which resulted in wrecking its then elite-status programs. History should be a guide here. Pitt likes to repeat history. Time to break that cycle of self-abuse.
• California is getting close to passing a law that would permit college players to be payed based on the amount of profit a program generates. It includes many caveats to those payments. But just like Florida being the first state to pass an NIL law, which now finds itself behind the 8-ball because subsequent states passed much less restrictive legislation, I'd watch for other states to follow CA in passing much less restrictive versions in the name of equitable competitiveness.
• Of course, all these payments and freedom of movement have already resulted in gun-for-hire, free agency that is found in no other professional sport. Remember, we are only in year two of this new era. But no one should be surprised how fast this progressed. It was obvious to anyone that had paid attention to college athletics for any length of time.
• I hope the brain trust at Alliance 412 has already started thinking about creating a long-term war chest and how to bring as many supporters into the fold as possible. Seriously, forget the on-campus stadium you-know-who-you-ares. It is a professional sport now; Pitt needs a major war chest to buy players, just like USC and Miami.
• With professional employment, comes contracts, buy-outs, penalty clauses....that may be the only thing that will reign this wild west in.
• So, can you start loading NIL contracts with look-ins, bonuses, non-complete clauses, penalties, etc? Can such things be enforced? Will NIL conglomerates or universities have a stomach to go after those that break contracts when they clearly haven't had that fortitude in the coaching world? I don't know, and lawyers would need to weigh in. But if you are bringing in a 2 or 3 star nobody and developing them into an All-American, I'd certainly be tempted, if I were an NIL organization, to tie them up at the school for the length of their eligibility starting with the contract they sign going into their freshman year.
• However, I can't see eligibility rules surviving in an era of professionalism very long.
• If eligibility rules dissolve, combined with contracts apparently already surpassing NFL rookie deals, then how does the NFL not start looking at college football as a competitor? Might Saturday NFL football be coming in the future? I will say this, thank goodness Pitt and the Steelers have a long history of cordial cooperation. In a hypothetical future where there was competition between college and NFL, those ties could either destroy Pitt or save it.
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