Freshman Ineligibility Making a Comeback?

[Woneone]

Really dude? So now Chad Ford is the GM for every NBA team in the league. Uh... ok.

So if saving puppies and walking old ladies across the street is the standard you make... how many athletes have done that at any school?

I guess since WCS doesn't wear an Irish jersey across his chest then he is simply just another talented athlete that doesn't care about academics, degrees, etc. It's those kind of shallow statements made by people that really make me laugh. I don't know this guy personally but have read enough about him to compliment him on his decision to return to school... even with his name on several teams board as their first pick while he was injured. He turns the money down, returns to school to get his degree, reads books that will make him a better person away from his sport, and all some can do is bad mouth him. Amazing... and pretty sad given the current climate of college athletics... to which no school is exempt from. Including Notre Dame.

You can take your tin foil hat off now. Enjoy.

No, Chad Ford isn't. However, I do find him (as well as statements from WCS himself and other analysts) a bit more reliable sources of NBA potential than T Town Tommy. And, since "Internet Research" was advised, that's what I did. You may want to take that advice, as your initial post is littered with, what I assume were statements you didn't think anyone would question.

WCS may be a decent academic student now, but he wasn't. Actually, quite the opposite, as from what I read, there were serious questions about him qualifying for an DI athletic scholarship until, as I said previously, being "pushed" academically after moving/transferring.

After some internet searching, the book club stuff was reported way before the Game Day piece. As I said, the same books were referenced even then. Yea, I'm drawing conclusions, but if you asked me to put $100 on if it's still occurring? I'd say no (I'll look, but one interview from earlier this year called it "temporary" I believe). It's just fun to tell everyone how far and away Cal goes for his players.

Yea, he returned to school and mentioned "getting closer" to his degree, but you think that degree is the reason in itself he came back? Come on man. You're better than that. You can take either press release, from after his freshman or sophomore season, and infer basketball was the driving factor. Again, that's not a knock, that's an obvious statement. Coupled with the idea that he has FLAT OUT SAID he doesn't enjoy academics, and we have the exact situation that had been raised previously.

I guess we could ask WCS himself, "Cauley-Stein was less definitive, noting he will "absolutely" weigh his NBA stock. But he added that 'I really want a ring before I leave college'. I think it's pronounced "degree", must have just misspoken.

Or, I guess we could ask Cal..

"It shocked Calipari, but he couldn’t argue with Cauley-Stein’s logic.

“He said, ‘One, I’m having a ball. Two, I’m not ready for that league, to do what I want to do. Three, I want to win a (championship) before I leave,’ Calipari remembers. 'Well then it’s good reasons to come back.'" But yea, probably that degree that was important to him.

He was never bad-mouthed, it's stating the obvious. He doesn't like school. That's ok. If you have hurt feelings because this misplaced belief that kids like WCS do it for the schooling, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he isn't. You don't sign up to play at Kentucky under Cal and think, "Man, I can't wait to have that degree in 4-years." That's just being willfully naive.

It's not a Notre Dame thing. It's not even a college sports thing. It's a common sense thing at this point. It's not right or wrong, it's just how athletes are wired at many of these high level institutions. Couple that with interviews / stories about WCS, it's not hard to make the assumption that he's just biding his time until he's ready for the NBA. Again, all fine, but doesn't make anything that was said about him even remotely untrue.

It just doesn't make him different. Sorry.

Superman died. Santa isn't real, and WCS isn't at Kentucky to, as JT would say, "Play School".

 

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

Superman died, and Santa isn't real? Holy shit bro, how bout some "SPOILER" tags. Have you no decency!?!

 

[irishtrain]

With so many positive points to freshmen non eligible I will just say I cant see one negative rather than point out all the many positives. Let 'em grow up before they leave for NFL. It would also allow for a more quality game with more upper classman/college students. I think this would really improve college football-plus just think the sec schools could go nuts with the grayshirt/redshirt policy and have 200 guys on campus for tryouts.

 

[RDU Irish]

Screw the one and done guys. Make the LOI a true two way street. Four year commitment from BOTH parties. If you back out you owe the school half your paycheck until the four year commitment expires. If you don't like it, go Developmental League and retain full rights to your future paycheck. That would scare these guys out of college pretty quick who think so highly of themselves and the actual 4 year scholarship would ensure the colleges have more invested in these guys too.

 

[T Town Tommy]

No, Chad Ford isn't. However, I do find him (as well as statements from WCS himself and other analysts) a bit more reliable sources of NBA potential than T Town Tommy. And, since "Internet Research" was advised, that's what I did. You may want to take that advice, as your initial post is littered with, what I assume were statements you didn't think anyone would question.

WCS may be a decent academic student now, but he wasn't. Actually, quite the opposite, as from what I read, there were serious questions about him qualifying for an DI athletic scholarship until, as I said previously, being "pushed" academically after moving/transferring.

After some internet searching, the book club stuff was reported way before the Game Day piece. As I said, the same books were referenced even then. Yea, I'm drawing conclusions, but if you asked me to put $100 on if it's still occurring? I'd say no (I'll look, but one interview from earlier this year called it "temporary" I believe). It's just fun to tell everyone how far and away Cal goes for his players.

Yea, he returned to school and mentioned "getting closer" to his degree, but you think that degree is the reason in itself he came back? Come on man. You're better than that. You can take either press release, from after his freshman or sophomore season, and infer basketball was the driving factor. Again, that's not a knock, that's an obvious statement. Coupled with the idea that he has FLAT OUT SAID he doesn't enjoy academics, and we have the exact situation that had been raised previously.

I guess we could ask WCS himself, "Cauley-Stein was less definitive, noting he will "absolutely" weigh his NBA stock. But he added that 'I really want a ring before I leave college'. I think it's pronounced "degree", must have just misspoken.

Or, I guess we could ask Cal..

"It shocked Calipari, but he couldn’t argue with Cauley-Stein’s logic.

“He said, ‘One, I’m having a ball. Two, I’m not ready for that league, to do what I want to do. Three, I want to win a (championship) before I leave,’ Calipari remembers. 'Well then it’s good reasons to come back.'" But yea, probably that degree that was important to him.

He was never bad-mouthed, it's stating the obvious. He doesn't like school. That's ok. If you have hurt feelings because this misplaced belief that kids like WCS do it for the schooling, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he isn't. You don't sign up to play at Kentucky under Cal and think, "Man, I can't wait to have that degree in 4-years." That's just being willfully naive.

It's not a Notre Dame thing. It's not even a college sports thing. It's a common sense thing at this point. It's not right or wrong, it's just how athletes are wired at many of these high level institutions. Couple that with interviews / stories about WCS, it's not hard to make the assumption that he's just biding his time until he's ready for the NBA. Again, all fine, but doesn't make anything that was said about him even remotely untrue.

It just doesn't make him different. Sorry.

Superman died. Santa isn't real, and WCS isn't at Kentucky to, as JT would say, "Play School".

So does it appear Chad Ford's prediction of WCS is going to pan out? Don't think so. He will probably never be a perennial all star but he will be a very serviceable pro player who is really still developing his game so nobody really knows how good he may become. As far as his academics, the question was not if he had the ability to learn. It was getting him motivated to learn. He went from cruising through high school without much pressure to work hard in the classromm to becoming an academic all conference player. Even WCS has said as much. Most of us at one point or another could probably say something similar. His maturing in the classroom with his academics isn't worth celebrating? I think it is.

For a person of a team who's fans pride themselves on kids staying in school instead of chasing after the money, it does seem odd that you would want to pick this guy apart. WCS coming back to school served as two very important decisions he could have ever made. One he can get a degree that appears to be more important to him today than in years past- that's what he said... not what you or I said. Two - it allowed him to become a better basketball player who overcame an injury and thus elevated his draft stock even more. In both cases, his decision should be something one would think we would appreciate. But hey... like I said, these things don't always fit in some people's little boxes they like to put things in.

I think we have kooned this thread a bit. I apologize for playing a part in the hijacking.

As far as the topic of the thread, I don't believe freshman ineligibility will get enough support to pass. It would separate the divide between the haves and the have nots even further as many teams outside the Power 5 would have a hard time financially supporting another year of school for athletes. I much prefer what the NCAA has done by raising the core class standards which take affect with this next upcoming recruiting class. It will be interesting if this new standard gets challenged legally as I believe we will see a lot of HS seniors affected by the new requirement.

 

[RDU Irish]

I would add the college should pay for insurance for players that project as top 3 rounds of the NFL draft or first round NBA picks who come back senior year. Drop in the bucket relative to the value added to the team getting an extra year out of these guys.

 

[IrishLax]

Please someone explain to me the point of this, other than to stop one and done players in bball? Football players will still practice, lift, and participate in all activities as usual. So what's the difference whether they stand on the sidelines or see the field on saturdays. The problem isn't that these kids are playing early, it's the fact that football at a D1 school (especially power 5) is no longer an extracurricular, it's a full time job. These changes will do nothing to help shift the focus of student athletes time allocation.

If anything i would argue that because these players would be unable to make an early impact on the field more would end up being expected of them in the film room, the weight room, and on the practice field.

This is actually an incredibly complex topic that goes back almost half a century now. This'll be long winded going all the way back to when freshman ineligibility was simply how things were:

-Start with the problem.... Title IX. Title IX is the devil and Exhibit A on why politicians and big government are the worst. Don't believe the lies feminists (and mainstream ignorant media like ESPN, etc.) spread about the "good" Title IX has accomplished. In truth, Title IX has been the single biggest cancer to the welfare collegiate sports since it was passed in 1972. It's basically taboo to discuss the harm Title IX has done, because if you do you "hate women"... the truth is that Title IX caused cataclysmic changes towards the way athletic departments had to manage their finances and is "Ground Zero" for all the "bad" commercialization of collegiate sports/the gradual shift further and further away from amateurism.

-Before Title IX, there was freshman ineligibility and unlimited scholarships.* When Title IX was passed in 1972, the colleges had to get together and decide how they were going to pay for all these women's sports that no one cares about, no one plays**, and certainly no one is going to pay to watch.***

-For the sake of brevity, let's focus on the revenue sports of football and basketball. Following Title IX, the member institutions of the NCAA decided that they would cap scholarships at 105 and remove the freshman ineligibility rule. The reason why is that football rosters used to routinely bloat up to 150ish players at power programs, which made it very easy to just shelve all your freshman without fear of depth issues.

-The whole point of freshman ineligibility in the first place had to do with making sure athletes were real STUDENT athletes. We'll circle back to this in actually answering your question.

-So then couple Title IX with the proliferation of lucrative TV contracts that made revenue sports REVENUE $PORT$. As such, lots of "little guys" looked to cash in... and coupled with scholarship caps established first thanks Title IX, the scholarship caps gradually wiggled their way down to the current 85. "Big guys" found that was still enough to win with consistently, little guys found it more affordable to compete and liked the new-found parity, and everyone made more money. Everyone wins... except for the student athletes, many of which were artificially losing out on scholarships they would've otherwise earned. This artificial scholarship cap is actually at the core of a current lawsuit against the NCAA that has a very good chance of winning.

-All of this eventually leads to a perfect storm of litigation and BS that the NCAA currently finds itself mired in. So now they reconsider "What went wrong? And how can we fix it?"

-Freshman ineligibility accomplishes a lot of things that are good for the NCAAs image:
1. It hearkens back to true amateurism. Kids are supposed to be in school to "play school"... this measure makes them "play school."
2. It stops one-and-dones in basketball.
3. If passed, a scholarship limit increase in football would have to follow, possibly to unlimited, but definitely up to 95-105 at the lowest. This is all going to go a LONG way to stopping the unscrupulous acts of oversigning, blue/grey/green/fuchsia shirting, cutting kids, mysterious "medical" scholarships, etc.
4. The scholarship increases will also go a long way to stopping a huge chunk of the litigation against the NCAA.
5. 80% of academic violations in the NCAA happen in two sports - basketball and football. Freshmen ineligibility should help curb that, by not forcing kids to be "all in" on their sport over all else in their freshman year.
6. It'll increase graduation rates.
7. The way NCAA eligibility is done, it's virtually impossible to become ineligible early in your career. This would stop kids from being able to play for multiple seasons with terrible academics that don't have them on the track towards graduation.
8. It's going to help the athletes themselves that are unprepared for college adjust to college level academics and life.

*Speaking only on football.
**The biggest problem with Title IX is that the number of girls who participate in sports and care about sports pales in comparison to boys. So because of Title IX equivalency bullshit you have ~100 women's lacrosse programs while only ~65 men's programs despite more than double the interest at youth levels among boys when it comes to playing lacrosse. This holds true for basically every sport, and it's why there is such an inflated amount of girls teams and why it's so hard for FBS schools to add sports and why many of them have to cut teams. It's about 4x as easy for a girl to get an athletic scholarship to college than it is for a boy from when they both start playing youth sports... yet it's the men's sports at the next level that make 95%+ of the money. Completely ridiculous.
***With the exception of UCONN women's basketball and a few others, there is no such thing as women's revenue sport and they do not command TV money.

 

[PANDFAN]

lol

lol

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Why not a "Year of Readiness" for everybody in college sports? <a href="http://t.co/YCpaeLURiM">http://t.co/YCpaeLURiM</a> <a href="http://t.co/EKBWKpYQrM">pic.twitter.com/EKBWKpYQrM</a></p>— SB✯Nation CFB (@SBNationCFB) <a href="https://twitter.com/SBNationCFB/status/570321076934168576">February 24, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[kmoose]

Please someone explain to me the point of this, other than to stop one and done players in bball? Football players will still practice, lift, and participate in all activities as usual. So what's the difference whether they stand on the sidelines or see the field on saturdays. The problem isn't that these kids are playing early, it's the fact that football at a D1 school (especially power 5) is no longer an extracurricular, it's a full time job. These changes will do nothing to help shift the focus of student athletes time allocation.

If anything i would argue that because these players would be unable to make an early impact on the field more would end up being expected of them in the film room, the weight room, and on the practice field.

You can't really believe that a kid who is travelling, but ineligible to participate, has to prepare as much as a kid who is playing? I don't think this would fix all of the academic issues with major college sports, or even most of them; but I do think that it would be a step toward placing more emphasis on education.

 

[MNIrishman]

This is actually an incredibly complex topic that goes back almost half a century now. This'll be long winded going all the way back to when freshman ineligibility was simply how things were:

-Start with the problem.... Title IX. Title IX is the devil and Exhibit A on why politicians and big government are the worst. Don't believe the lies feminists (and mainstream ignorant media like ESPN, etc.) spread about the "good" Title IX has accomplished. In truth, Title IX has been the single biggest cancer to the welfare collegiate sports since it was passed in 1972. It's basically taboo to discuss the harm Title IX has done, because if you do you "hate women"... the truth is that Title IX caused cataclysmic changes towards the way athletic departments had to manage their finances and is "Ground Zero" for all the "bad" commercialization of collegiate sports/the gradual shift further and further away from amateurism.

-Before Title IX, there was freshman ineligibility and unlimited scholarships.* When Title IX was passed in 1972, the colleges had to get together and decide how they were going to pay for all these women's sports that no one cares about, no one plays**, and certainly no one is going to pay to watch.***

-For the sake of brevity, let's focus on the revenue sports of football and basketball. Following Title IX, the member institutions of the NCAA decided that they would cap scholarships at 105 and remove the freshman ineligibility rule. The reason why is that football rosters used to routinely bloat up to 150ish players at power programs, which made it very easy to just shelve all your freshman without fear of depth issues.

-The whole point of freshman ineligibility in the first place had to do with making sure athletes were real STUDENT athletes. We'll circle back to this in actually answering your question.

-So then couple Title IX with the proliferation of lucrative TV contracts that made revenue sports REVENUE $PORT$. As such, lots of "little guys" looked to cash in... and coupled with scholarship caps established first thanks Title IX, the scholarship caps gradually wiggled their way down to the current 85. "Big guys" found that was still enough to win with consistently, little guys found it more affordable to compete and liked the new-found parity, and everyone made more money. Everyone wins... except for the student athletes, many of which were artificially losing out on scholarships they would've otherwise earned. This artificial scholarship cap is actually at the core of a current lawsuit against the NCAA that has a very good chance of winning.

-All of this eventually leads to a perfect storm of litigation and BS that the NCAA currently finds itself mired in. So now they reconsider "What went wrong? And how can we fix it?"

-Freshman ineligibility accomplishes a lot of things that are good for the NCAAs image:
1. It hearkens back to true amateurism. Kids are supposed to be in school to "play school"... this measure makes them "play school."
2. It stops one-and-dones in basketball.
3. If passed, a scholarship limit increase in football would have to follow, possibly to unlimited, but definitely up to 95-105 at the lowest. This is all going to go a LONG way to stopping the unscrupulous acts of oversigning, blue/grey/green/fuchsia shirting, cutting kids, mysterious "medical" scholarships, etc.
4. The scholarship increases will also go a long way to stopping a huge chunk of the litigation against the NCAA.
5. 80% of academic violations in the NCAA happen in two sports - basketball and football. Freshmen ineligibility should help curb that, by not forcing kids to be "all in" on their sport over all else in their freshman year.
6. It'll increase graduation rates.
7. The way NCAA eligibility is done, it's virtually impossible to become ineligible early in your career. This would stop kids from being able to play for multiple seasons with terrible academics that don't have them on the track towards graduation.
8. It's going to help the athletes themselves that are unprepared for college adjust to college level academics and life.

*Speaking only on football.
**The biggest problem with Title IX is that the number of girls who participate in sports and care about sports pales in comparison to boys. So because of Title IX equivalency bullshit you have ~100 women's lacrosse programs while only ~65 men's programs despite more than double the interest at youth levels among boys when it comes to playing lacrosse. This holds true for basically every sport, and it's why there is such an inflated amount of girls teams and why it's so hard for FBS schools to add sports and why many of them have to cut teams. It's about 4x as easy for a girl to get an athletic scholarship to college than it is for a boy from when they both start playing youth sports... yet it's the men's sports at the next level that make 95%+ of the money. Completely ridiculous.
***With the exception of UCONN women's basketball and a few others, there is no such thing as women's revenue sport and they do not command TV money.

Wow, best answer ever. I never realized that about title IX. It sounds like it replaced equal opportunity with equal numbers that don't correlate with demand. That's really unfortunate for thousands of folks a year who no longer have the opportunity to earn a scholarship even though their level of play and dedication would otherwise earn it.

I would love to see more scholarships go to Lacrosse. I personally find it to be a lot more interesting to watch than basketball (which often seems a lot like pingpong with infinity fouls) and about on par with hockey.

If freshman ineligibility were adopted, it sounds like it'd do a lot of good for the sport. I'd love to see frosh get a year to figure out where they fit instead of feeling pressure to play right away. I'd also be willing to bet that, with appropriate scholarship number increases, such a move would increase the average level of play.

Screw one-and-dones. I want the NCAA to do something to preserve college ball as an end for student athletes and not just a route to exhibition for the pros.

 

[phork]

If the SEC BIG12 and PAC10 aren't on board then no one else should be either. Talk about hand cuffing yourself.

 

[kmoose]

If the SEC BIG12 and PAC10 aren't on board then no one else should be either. Talk about hand cuffing yourself.

Leadership 101: I'm not gonna do it if you don't do it...

Someone will have to take a stand, and dare to lead.

 

[dshans]

Leadership 101: I'm not gonna do it if you don't do it...

Someone will have to take a stand, and dare to lead.

I'm a tad confused. Assume that I'm as dense as I appear to be.

Are ye fer or are ye agin.

Is there an equivalent call to extol a return to child labor and unlimited hours and the number of days in a work week?

Or is this simply a matter of entertainment supply and demand for an elite few?



"It's money that matters."

 

[FWIrish4]

To go along with what Lax was saying about Title IX, how is it possible that only men's basketball and football freshmen would be ineligible? I can't possibly see any rule requiring a women's sport freshman to redshirt, while not having any men's sport do the same.

I don't post much, but this topic is interesting to me as I am currently a college student athlete.

 

[DonnieNarco]

This is just a way for the NCAA to act like they care when they won't do the smart thing and make it guaranteed 4 year scholarships.

 

[phork]

Leadership 101: I'm not gonna do it if you don't do it...

Someone will have to take a stand, and dare to lead.

And suffer the consequences of elite talent taking their talents South.

 

[dshans]

And suffer the consequences of elite talent taking their talents South.

Sure.

Suffer the children ...

Be as little children ...

The child is father to the man ...





The Dude shall abide ...

 

[Irish#1]

Lots of good points being made.

If the B1G were to do this buy themselves, then they would find competing nearly impossible as kids would shy away from going to one of the B1G schools. There would be exceptions, but by and large the other Big 5 conferences would get the best talent.

Title IX began the demise of college sports. When it was being argued everyone thought (at least the proponents did) that this would force schools to spend more money and add more women's sports. What they didn't realize or consider was the true impact where schools dropped sports to be compliant instead of adding women's sports. Some proponents cried foul, but they found out , "Be careful what you wish for" was alive and well.

Scholarships limits for football would probably be raised but schools wouldn't vote for unlimited schollies. That would mean the rich get richer as a lot of schools don't have the money to fund more.

I would be in favor of making freshman ineligible. I think there would be restrictions on the amount of time they could spend on athletic activities during their freshman year to ensure they focused on academics. Nothing wrong in setting a foundation for these kids to fall back on when they find out they're not as good as they think they are and never make a pro team.