How Do We Fix the Dirty Culture of College Recruiting?

[ShotgunDawg]

A boring Tuesday seems like a good time to have this discussion.

With what we have seen at Ole Miss, Louisville basketball, these assistant college basketball coaches today, & then realizing that somehow Alabama manages to land most of the top high school football players in the country every year, I believe it's become apparent that the current recruiting model in college athletics doesn't fit in 2017 where there is more money in the sport & desire to win than at any point in history.

At this point it feels as if, not only has the playing field become extremely uneven for the schools themselves, it's even made coaching or working in college athletics an undesirable career field due to coaches & administrators basically being forced to either cheat or get fired.

So my question for discussion is: How can this be fixed?

- A draft in which players that enter into the draft are eligible to paid? If there is a draft, how many rounds?

- Does limiting scholarships help?

- An official ranking service in which teams could only sign a total number of stars?


There are no dumb answers in this thread. I'm looking for creativity & ideas.

[msstate7]

I think beating auburn Saturday night is the only solution**

Unless the NFL and CFB popularity fails, there's no fixing it. Pay players and someone will pay more

[Spiderman]

A boring Tuesday seems like a good time to have this discussion.

With what we have seen at Ole Miss, Louisville basketball, these assistant college basketball coaches today, & then realizing that somehow Alabama manages to land most of the top high school football players in the country every year, I believe it's become apparent that the current recruiting model in college athletics doesn't fit in 2017 where there is more money in the sport & desire to win than at any point in history.

At this point it feels as if, not only has the playing field become extremely uneven for the schools themselves, it's even made coaching or working in college athletics an undesirable career field due to coaches & administrators basically being forced to either cheat or get fired.

So my question for discussion is: How can this be fixed?

- A draft in which players that enter into the draft are eligible to paid? If there is a draft, how many rounds?

- Does limiting scholarships help?

- An official ranking service in which teams could only sign a total number of stars?


There are no dumb answers in this thread. I'm looking for creativity & ideas.

There has been cheating from day one. Only deterrent is go scorched earth every time someone is caught. Even for small stuff. Have to make the risk too great to take.

[BrunswickDawg]

I don't know that there is a fix, other than making penalties so severe that it keeps schools in check. Like serious death penalty type penalties. You cheat, your program gets shut down and comes back as a DIII non-scholarship program for 5 years. Ultimately, there is so much money wrapped up in college athletics that I don't think you can stop it.

[ShotgunDawg]

There has been cheating from day one. Only deterrent is go scorched earth every time someone is caught. Even for small stuff. Have to make the risk too great to take.

I actually like that the FBI is dipping their toe in this.

Even the FBI just investigates 1 case every 3-5 years in college recruiting, it will create an enormous deterrent. It's one thing to get a show cause, it's another to commit a felony & go to the clinker.

Coaches won't go along with it if there is a chance of criminal charges

[lefty96]

Sit back and watch the FBI work. . .

Those wire fraud and conspiracy charges will be hard to beat. . . you can be every coach in the country is nervous.

[Ifyouonlyknew]

There is no way to fix it. This has been going on since the beginning of collegiate athletics. The best way is allow the players to be paid but that won't happen because the NCAA wants to keep up this charade of college sports being amateur athletics. You're argument makes it seem like only a few schools are only paying kids when that's just not true. Everybody does it just varying degrees. You can't be upset when you're doing something shady & others decide to take it farther than you. That's just the game being the game. Either adapt or stop playing or quit whining. If you get caught well you knew the consequences going in.

[GoToHellOleMiss]

There has been cheating from day one. Only deterrent is go scorched earth every time someone is caught. Even for small stuff. Have to make the risk too great to take.

This

[confucius say]

Deterrence is the primary way. Combine mandatory audits conducted by NCAA and harsh penalties, this will go away.

You get busted, automatic 10 year show cause. Deterrence for coaches. You get busted for numerous (3 or more) level ones, automatic 10 years with no scholarships. Deterrence for university and promotes oversight.

[confucius say]

There is no way to fix it. This has been going on since the beginning of collegiate athletics. The best way is allow the players to be paid but that won't happen because the NCAA wants to keep up this charade of college sports being amateur athletics. You're argument makes it seem like only a few schools are only paying kids when that's just not true. Everybody does it just varying degrees. You can't be upset when you're doing something shady & others decide to take it farther than you. That's just the game being the game. Either adapt or stop playing or quit whining. If you get caught well you knew the consequences going in.

Mandatory audits. Harsh penalties for coaches and even harsher for universities. Problem solved.

[Ifyouonlyknew]

Mandatory audits. Harsh penalties for coaches and even harsher for universities. Problem solved.

The NCAA takes 3yrs to complete an investigation. They're short-staffed as it is. You think they're going to spend millions of dollars to create a staff just to perform audits on hundreds of universities? Not gonna happen.

[QuadrupleOption]

The NCAA takes 3yrs to complete an investigation. They're short-staffed as it is. You think they're going to spend millions of dollars to create a staff just to perform audits on hundreds of universities? Not gonna happen.

Millions would be peanuts to the NCAA. The NCAA generated $876 million in revenue in 2012 (from their website). Yes, that's not profit (they claim all but 4% goes back to member institutions). Still, if they spent $30 million a year on an auditing staff it wouldn't make much of a dent in what they pull in.

The money is there. The will to do it? Not so sure.

[Homedawg]

Mandatory audits. Harsh penalties for coaches and even harsher for universities. Problem solved.

how does an audit stop anything? hell ole miss got caught yes, but 90% of stuff they do never got caught and won't. Cash is hard to follow. They slipped up and made some mistakes but it didn't and won't stop what they have going on there. Sorry but cheating isn't going anywhere, audits or not.

[Ifyouonlyknew]

Millions would be peanuts to the NCAA. The NCAA generated $876 million in revenue in 2012 (from their website). Yes, that's not profit (they claim all but 4% goes back to member institutions). Still, if they spent $30 million a year on an auditing staff it wouldn't make much of a dent in what they pull in.

The money is there. The will to do it? Not so sure.

Oh no doubt they could but they won't. We already know the NCAA isn't big on spending money that doesn't make them more money.

[Mimi's Babies]

I actually like that the FBI is dipping their toe in this.

Even the FBI just investigates 1 case every 3-5 years in college recruiting, it will create an enormous deterrent. It's one thing to get a show cause, it's another to commit a felony & go to the clinker.

Coaches won't go along with it if there is a chance of criminal charges

I was told that OM cheating dated back to 1960 -- according a an OM booster.... (a life time booster)

[Pinto]

You get 85 scholarships that are valid for 4 years. If a kid transfers the scholarship is unusable until those 4 years are up. If you offer a scholarship it is binding on both.
All players are paid work study wages for the hours they put in during season and off season.
Any extra benefits to any students results in automatic loss of that scholarship for 4 years. If student has graduated, then school is docked 5 scholarships per student for 4 years.

[Doggie_Style]

In any endeavor involving humans there is going to be a tendency toward corrupt practices. Schools like OM should be severely punished as a deterrent. Paying players is the worst idea ever. It would end college football as most school would not be able to afford it. Scholarships provided are compensation for players efforts. Also, under title IX, an equal number of women athletes would have to be paid. Where would it end? Maybe one day college football will look a lot like baseball as the top talent plays for a developmental league instead.

[Really Clark?]

Millions would be peanuts to the NCAA. The NCAA generated $876 million in revenue in 2012 (from their website). Yes, that's not profit (they claim all but 4% goes back to member institutions). Still, if they spent $30 million a year on an auditing staff it wouldn't make much of a dent in what they pull in.

The money is there. The will to do it? Not so sure.

If those numbers are correct then 4% is $35 MIL. So $30 MIL a year would make more than make a dent. It's a complex issue because for the pay the players people you have budget issues that 85-90% of the schools would have trouble with and you also will have Title IX and non revenue sports headaches galore. Where do you make cuts to pay football players?

If you go scorch earth with detterants, you could see major football powers decide to leave the NCAA. Is there a balance to be found? Doubt it but the member institutions have to decide what model they are ultimately looking for and what makes sense. Is competitive balance something they even care about? The haves don't want that.

Complex problem but I agree it does need to be much better.

[Reason2succeed]

We are watching professional athletes. We just don't want to admit it.

Take away the facade (with special c) and allow market forces do their work. We believe in free market capitalism in everything else.

Making things illegal just punishes those who are too moral or too scared to break the law.

[TUSK]

I think it's working great.*