Top College Football Players Unite to Demand Change

College football players are finally uniting, but what does it all mean?

Last week, we saw a group of football players from the Pac 12 and the Big Ten conferences come together to voice concerns and raise demands before the 2020 football season began. These demands included more COVID-19 testing, scholarship guarantees, hazard pay, and a split of the revenue generated by the sport that season. We also saw numerous players decide to opt-out of playing football this year due to health concerns and the unknown surrounding the virus.

Like with most things in life, change doesn’t come easily in college football, or sports in general. The actions of these players pushed back and challenged the status quo of the system at large. The movement was labeled with #WeAreUnited. 

Fast forward to Sunday evening, when the future of this college football season began to look dark and uncertain, and another movement began with a simple tweet from Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence. 

This one hashtag began a flurry of controversy over the next several hours. Social media began to split into two groups with almost no in-between. Is this the power play college football players have been waiting for?

Maybe it didn’t start out that way, but that’s certainly how it ended up by midnight. The two groups had aligned themselves together. Now #WeAreUnited and #WeWantToPlay are one solidified group standing up for the student-athlete. A simple graphic with a list of demands may have changed college football forever. To take a hashtag and then suddenly drop a list of demands after it gained so much support seems like mass organization from the players in the power-five conferences.

What does this all mean? Where is it all heading? If there was ever a time for college football players to realize the power they yield and use it to make the situation better for themselves, this is that time. Some may say that using a global pandemic as a prop to get what you want is the wrong way to go about it, but if not now, then when? The most popular players in the sport are the ones speaking the loudest.

The players clearly want to play this upcoming football season, but even if that doesn’t happen, they’ve finally found their voice. As the NCAA becomes less significant in power-five football, this is the time to stand up and demand change. If you want to put these players' health at risk, then you’re going to have to meet their demands. That may not save 2020’s college football season, but it certainly won’t hurt it. 

The decision makers are now left with a tough choice. Do they cancel for health and safety reasons, or is canceling the football season seen as a chess move so the old way of doing things isn’t broken up? Whether you agree with the players getting more than they currently do or you don’t, it is hard to argue with the last 6-7 months of proof that someone of their status speaking up brings about change. 

It’s a little too early to call what’s being formed as a players union for college football, but it’s certainly the first significant step into making that a reality. In the coming days, I would expect the group of five to join this movement and apply even more pressure on the NCAA and conference officials. 

We don’t know what any of this means in the short term, and while playing football in the middle of a global pandemic could still be a bad idea, the long term effect of this will change things drastically. The players having a say in their future is invaluable for future generations of student-athletes. Whether you want to see the field or feel it’s best to opt out, having the option to do so without major consequence is, like the graphic says, “ultimately” what a players' union is for. If the men and women running the sport don't have a proper plan in place, then it's up to the athletes to put themselves in the best situation.

There’s still a lot of questions to be answered, but now we have the right people asking them: the student-athletes. Are you listening?

This story is evolving like everything else right now, so be sure to check back here with us at All Seminoles for more updates.