Op-Ed: Deion Sanders ready to feed dawgs with dollars, not puppy chow
It’s laughable what came out of NCAA headquarters this past week. The beleaguered, alleged, governing body of college football introduced policy measures intent on paying athletes instead of the current model. Now? NIL “collectives” outside athletic programs are the drivers to the insane money being thrown around at athletes and leading coaches like the Deion Sanders to correctly point out, “These kids cost money.”
Like a smoldering fire turning into an inferno, alarms have been sounding for quite some time. Problem is the fire department (NCAA) has slept through the initial four alarms and the blaze has gotten out of control. It’s a five-alarm special. The current structure of college football is being incinerated. No sense sifting through the ashes. It’s toast.
The famous Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral in Paris, France burned to the ground in April 2019. It’s being completely rebuilt but the NCAA and its relevance to director Charlie Baker’s words, “Rich Schools?” Barring a heaven-sent miracle? Ain’t happening. As mentioned before in this column, those pricey thoroughbreds sprinted from the barn long before this blaze became uncontrollable. The one nugget of significance from Baker’s idea was a better distribution of NIL money. Right now, 95 percent of all revenues are going to male athletes, primarily in football and basketball. With the growing popularity of women’s sports and their television appeal, this must change and the NCAA proposals address this issue.
Equally laughable are the comments pouring from the mouths of college football coaches, primarily from the schools who want to play on the “Rich” school playground but realize how difficult it will be to compete against programs with unlimited resources like Texas, Michigan, Alabama, Texas A&M and Notre Dame to name just five. I was watching a press conference featuring Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and Kentucky’s Mark Stoops. The coaches and teams will meet in this year’s Taxslayer Gator Bowl.
Two-time national championship winner Swinney offered the first salvo. “I’m less concerned about the NIL and transfer portal than the tampering that’s going on. We’ve got to try and stop the recruiting of one another’s athletes outside of the designated time frames.”
Stoops, now in his 11th season with the Wildcats, was nodding in affirmation. How can these “Rich” schools regulate themselves? Good luck there. Folks, let nobody fool you, this is an arms race where the faint-at-heart need not apply. Buff fans, can the University of Colorado really compete in this rich and rarified air of crazy money? Time will tell.
But the early returns are promising. The Buffs have secured the services of the nation’s best offensive lineman, Jordan Seaton. The IMG Academy product made the announcement on FOX Sports talk show “Undisputed” and shocked hosts Skip Bayless, Michael Irvin, and Keyshawn Johnson when pulling a CU cap from a bag the mammoth 6’5” 290-pound tackle brought onto set. Spurning the Undisputed “rich” schools mentioned earlier, Seaton snorted, “You gotta believe in Coach Prime. You know, have an opportunity to play with somebody who has done it at the highest level, gold jacket level. Very few can say they did that. You know I got two Heisman candidates: Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter. They’re amazing. You know how they go.”
Swinney and Stoops are lamenting rival coaches poaching their rosters? What to do with high profile players basically recruiting peers around the country? Come play with me? Seaton was not done. He mentioned the well-known fact CU quarterback Shedeur Sanders was the most-sacked quarterback in major college football. “It will never happen again. If you ain’t rockin’ with us, and you say you a dawg, and you claim you a dawg, why you not coming to Colorado?”
Holy smokes. The biggest dawg is barking loudly and no doubt other husky hounds eager to elevate their status are listening. We saw this happen over the weekend with Sanders and his staff pulling in multiple offensive lineman via the transfer portal. Who else wants to block and protect two front-runners for next season’s Heisman? Colorado has a lone Heisman winner, the late and great Rashaan Salaam in 1994.
Next season? Sanders and Hunter will be in the mix if the dawgs get fed. Dollars, not Puppy Chow.
