Saban on 5 power conference break away

[Carl Spackler]

"On the surface, the plan seems to have trivial implications.........{name}..... admits that there's a great deal of ego involved--a team's pride in being a part of the top college football division. Yet he calls the restructuring plan "stupid and offensive," explaining it implies that a commitment to college football means you have a big stadium and high attendance. "The plan does not ask for a measurement of commitment, it asks, does the market accept your product?" he explains.

Jim Litvak - 1978


Read this one:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1981/12/7/harvard-officials-criticize-ncaas-vote-to/

The proponents of the new requirements said they had a "deep commitment" to football, Reardon said, adding, "We tried to show that we had a deep commitment to football, but that we also had a commitment to other sports."

"Their only interest is their television appearances and their television dollars," Peters said. "I just don't think they realize the commitment we have to intercollegiate athletics, especially football."

John Reardon - 1981.

Times they come around, and return, got learn from your past, not to repeat it.

 

[WestHartHusk]

Nick Saban on academics: "huh?"

 

[RedSoloCup]

One key will be Title IX; the federales will have to be placated with any big changes like stipends. It will be all sports or none.

Also,

You think that will make anyone here in CT will go crazy if we can't pay a Women's BB player and they go to a school in TN or IN because there is $$ waiting? Yeah, there is not big money mentioned, but that perception will cause screaming...

Oh, Blumenthal is all over that one!!

 

[Carl Spackler]

here';s a nice little news clip:

http://spectatorarchive.library.col...rpos=&dliv=none&e=-------en-20--1--txt-IN----

There was one man, one voice, in college football, that could have prevented all the madness, and had such a wide ranging effect on people, that has transpired since 1978. His name was Joe Paterno.

The man, did NOT speak up, in favor of the true mission of intercollegiate sports, even though he professed it at his own program.......

My belief, is that he did not speak up, and raise the voices necessary to oppose what the CFA accomplished in intercollegiate athletics b/w 1979-1985 - because he knew it would make it a hell of a lot easier to recruit to his program in central Pennsylvania, and he actually had a hand in it, by creating the minimum seating requirement regulations for football.

It turns out that same guy with such great power, was also quiet, and didn't speak out, and make a difference in people's lives, about other things as well.

The Ivy league, is an interesting study in athletics. They claim to have a certain approach to athletics, but it's really no different than anywhere else, they just have enough $ to be able to do what they want on their own, without external revenue streams funding it.

Every Ivy league school recruits football players in numbers and as actively, and in some cases, MORE - than the current division 1A national champion recruits. They also admit football players regularly that score as much as 100-150 points less than the average freshmen SAT score accepted (those are still higher than the majority of schools around the country - but still that's what they do) and although they don't have formal athletic scholarships, they grant financial assistance to athletes, and the only reason they don't get in trouble, is if a student decides they no longer want to compete in a sport they were recruited for, they still keep whatever financial assistance they were awarded. A recent Columbia university publication, shows that as many as 20% of incoming freshmen at Ivy league schools are recruited athletes, rather than academics only. That's a pretty big number of athletes, taking the spots in schools that aren't supposed to be focused that much on athletics. Compare that percentage of incoming freshmen, to a school like UCONN, or North Carolina, or Texas or Michigan, where less than 5% of incoming freshmen are actually recruited athletes.

Oh well, enough filling time today. I'm psyched for football season.

 

[jdb50]

"I happen to think ABC and CBS will find Ivy League games appealing and put them on." 1981, wow this sounds like someone we know now. Depressing if things don't change, the number of have's is shrinking and they may not want any more mouths to feed.

 

[Carl Spackler]

"I happen to think ABC and CBS will find Ivy League games appealing and put them on." 1981, wow this sounds like someone we know now. Depressing if things don't change, the number of have's is shrinking and they may not want any more mouths to feed.

No - the timing is off. That quote you mention, came when the Ivy league was still classified as 1A football. It wasn't until an "emergency" session of the NCAA meetings of 1-A football was called in the early 80s, that the Ivy league amendment to the 1A/1-AA rules created in 1978, was shot down, and the Ivy's and ONLY the Ivy's were excommunicated from 1A football (and Joe Paterno effectively wiped out the league that he most feared and competed against in recruiting for football.

In 1981, Yale finished the season ranked I believe in the top 15 in the country - in 1A football. Yale v. Harvard games were still drawing numbers of people to the Yale Bowl, that make Rentschler field attendance - well - not look so good.

had the Ivy's remained 1A, there was no reason to think they couldn't still compete and draw - why?

Because of what I"ve been harping about this off-season.

RECRUITING.

I posted a long article from Vanderbilt law journal (and honestly, I wonder if there are people there, that read this website, because there is a direct quote in there, from Joe Restic, that I put on this website about ayear ago, maybe more, in a little RIP thing I put up) that talks about how the major difference came in recruiting after the 1-AA reclassification.

You can go read the full 64 page article on the conference affiliation part of this webisite. It basically reads like a compilation of stuff I've written over the past 2 years, and it's pretty good. I wish they cited me.

THey (the Ivy's) simply couldnt' recruit the same type of athletes anymore, and that's why it fell off. You can read stuff from the athletic departments at Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Dartmouth etc. that all tell the same story.

The ability to recruit in competition with the rest of the new 1A programs effectively ended with the 1-AA classification in 1981. Recruits that could play 1A, didn't want to play 1-AA, and EVERYBODY knew what they were doing when they voted the Ivy's out in 1981.

Reducing the competition.


And that is why - how we recruit football players to UCONN, and what type of player, and from where, and why - is so damn important for us moving forward.

We (and the rest of the NCAA that we are now classified with) cannot let another division to occur in the NCAA with football.

We will not be able to recruit the way we need to, if it happens, and we are on the outside.

All the BS about money and this and that, and television, and it all, is all true - but the fundamental common denominator, is that success, whether it be wins and losses, or in revenue streams from TV and bowl games, all depends on your ability to recruit.