This is technologically feasible these days. Players are paid already and soon will be able to get endorsement $ in CA.
Why shouldn’t this happen.
I believe in Free Agency. Could you imagine being drafted to play at BYU or worse Rutgers?
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Like being drafted to the Browns. Then there is the transfer portal for free agency.
I don’t like the idea of a draft for many reasons but something should be done to spread talent around more equitably. They could keep the current rules but allow each team to offer a limited amount of premium scholarships. All scholarships would be as they are now but a limited amount of players would get additional benefits. I don’t know how much additional $$$ and how many players, I would guess 100k a year and 10 premium scholarships per school. Whatever it needs to be to get the top players more spread around.
Too many intangibles. For starters, technically kids should choose the school that best fits their degree goals. Plus many family, ahem moms, demand that kids play close to home. Don’t let any recruit fool you, mom makes the decision.
Now in the real world, most of these kids don’t give a crap about an education or a degree until they’re 22 and realizing their pro dreams are not going to happen.
A draft just doesn’t make sense and if it leads to transfers and free agency, you open up a slippery slope of inconsistency and powerless coaches who will be fired for things completely out of their control.
What the OP is really asking for is a minor league system to replace the NCAA, which might be a long-term goal. Problem is the NCAA makes trillions of dollars off of these kids, won’t let go so easy.
Sounds like a salary cap. I like it.
What’s the difference? The NCAA already is a minor league system and they already don’t want to give up the golden goose so they will adapt or die. Look at their reaction to the CA legislation.
Degrees matter to some, and mom matters to some or maybe even most, but both things could be compensated for.
What I like about the idea is that it could reward coaches and coaching that spends more time on development and actual coaching than salesmanship and shuckstering.
It might work but revamping the entire recruiting scene is much more difficult than revamping the playoff scene. You can see how reluctant they are in doing that.
One question, Would the #1 HS player in the country from California want to go to Massachusetts? A program that doesn’t put any effort into growing their program? Seems more like a punishment. How long until they can transfer, 1 year? Lose 1 year of growth potential on bad coaching until you can just go to where you would’ve in the old system?
What really needs to happen is the Power 5 needs to become Division IA Elite
Separate the top 65 programs from the bottom 65 in two leagues. It might destroy some non-Power 5 programs but it might force them to improve. The catch, just like in FIFA soccer, every year bottom power 5 swap out with the top teams of the lower league.
In this season, Rutgers and Arkansas would be bumped for Memphis and Central Florida
I understand your thought process that it might level the playing field but it’s just not practical.
Good point, however the trend towards this is already happening organically anyway.
This question is a bit of a stretch because it assumes all things would be equal “then” as they are “now”… which they would not be, and that is an important difference. And I don’t mean which teams suck now vs then, but the overall landscape. This question is the same as that posed in professional drafts currently, and even trades where the tradee doesn’t want to go, as has happened to the Jazz a number of times. It can be dealt with.
Perhaps one way to do so would be to limit the number of rounds in the draft like the NFL does, and have a sliding scale of compensation like the NFL does. Bad teams with little interest in getting better but with an interest in $ could trade their picks and/or draftees away to other schools with more $ and interest.
College football is already semi-pro… with more pro than semi.
Undrafted players could sign as “free agents” similar to how people sign today, but with the base compensation rate. So any really good player who really wanted to pick his school could do so by not declaring for the draft, then signing as a free agent. The cost would simply be compensation level. I’m sure there’s a hundred other ways and options it could be worked.
But yes, I think 1 year seems reasonable per the existing rules for transferring, for any draftees. And maybe trading only happens in a small window immediately following the draft each year and only for current year draftees, otherwise it is the transfer portal.
I really like the idea of the soccer style movement to upper echelon leagues based on performance and would love to see it. It could simplify the playoff question and provide access to some of the non-P5’s (currently) while also keeping the playoffs small enough.
Agreed to your post. I understand it might take a few years to level the playing field but is that what the NCAA wants? I think the NCAA loves dynasties.
It is unfair how Vanderbilt and Harvard have been able to give scholarships that cost more than state schools. Honestly asking this. How is it currently not an even playing field.
Are you suggesting that a draft would make it an uneven playing field?
No, the current system is even. People who think scholarship limitations make it so.
Haven’t watched an NBA game in five years, NFL in four. I’m guessing, as the NCAA has stated, “on or before January 2021”, I’m out. You can have it.
So a draft wouldn’t cause any reduction in evenness. I agree, it is fairly even now and scholarship limitations do function that way.
But a draft could yield a better on-field product if more coaches can focus more on coaching and less on selling.
This is the reason that the NCAA finally folded on paying players, because if they didn’t, a minor league was exactly what was going to happen. The D-league would have blossomed.
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That’s because you live in bag man country. Nothing Free in Bama FreeAgency. All about the bag men in the SEC.
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