Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But one day — and one day we’re all likely to still be alive for, depending on your cholesterol and financial status, because as we know, the rich die old and comfortable here. And it won’t be the complete end of the NCAA, as long as it holds the keys to the basketball tournament and enough people still want to take off work for two days and drink and gamble all day (and they do, and will).
But when it comes to football, the first step has already been taken. The CFP, or the 11 presidents who make up something like a governing body for the organization that is in charge of the college football playoff, have at least allowed for the idea of telling the NCAA to do one and they’ll take care of it themselves to be born and germinate. This only goes in one direction from here. Because there’s more money to be made this way.
We already know that if the Big Ten and SEC wanted to, they could break out on their own tomorrow and strike it rich. Oh sure, people would feign incredulity about the idea of ACC or Pac-10 or the Cincinnatis or the Boise States of the world being shut out, and that would end after about seven minutes. People are only interested in the biggest teams long-term, and aside from Clemson’s occasional insolence, we know the teams that matter come from the SEC or Big Ten (and really just the SEC).
Breaking away from the NCAA would allow the CFP, or whatever they change their name to, to instill any rules they want. Not that these 11 presidents and chancellors would be in a hurry to give players an actual salary or some such, but it would be on the table along with the NIL deals they can get now. It could probably even do away with any class attendance or grade requirements, which the schools or players have never really been interested in anyway. It could be a true minor league for the NFL, which the SEC certainly has been anyway.
And perhaps most tantalizingly, it would be the middle finger to the NCAA that the organization has deserved for decades, if not for its entire existence. It has shrouded its greed in high-mindedness and pearl-clutching, and certainly hasn’t shied from making minority student-athletes the villain until it couldn’t anymore. The acquiescence to NIL deals always felt like the last gasp that wouldn’t survive the tide (not that Tide, jerk), and so it looks even more now. It has been well past time for the NCAA to croak, and we’re almost there.
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You always dream about a day like this, and then when it’s actually becoming a reality you don’t know what to say. Just a little further now, you’re almost there.
Bit of a slow night last night, but we always have time for a true Thunderbastard goal. Come on down, Toronto FC’s Domenico Croscito:
The fact that Toronto went for this from a corner, and Criscito was the only teammate Michael Bradley was looking to pass to, must mean Criscito has been crashing these in during practice fairly regularly. Though given the reaction, Criscito’s teammates were just about as shocked as he was, which means they were expecting him to blast it to Newfoundland.
It tied the game at 2 for Toronto against New England, which is where it would finish. It was Criscito’s first ever goal in MLS, which makes the audacity to take it on even more astounding. May we all be so confident once in our lives.