Like him or hate him, Saban is right.

If they are paid, then they are a professional athlete and are no longer a student athlete and should not be treated as such. They should have meet the ACT/SAT general student qualification standards for whatever school they are attending (NCAA sliding scale should be completely eliminated and they either academically qualify and can attend or they dont qualify and dont attend) If they do fully qualify academically (almost all will not), they should have to use their football pay for their books, tuition, housing, food, class exp, tutors, etc. Unless of course, they legitimately qualify for an academic scholarship, which speaking from experience, 98+% of college football players cannot.

98% of all D1 college players and 90+% of Alabama's current roster would not meet the minimum academic requirements for admission to the University and Saban knows this.

This is dead on!!!

This is not true. I worked in a D-1 college for 20+ years and a full college football team meets about the same average as the rest of the students. Yes, there are some really dumb one's but there are some really smart players and most meet in the middle like everybody else. Keep in mind, with the exception of UA and other big schools its rare for a college player to get a NFL contract and most of the players know that.

They might maintain that once they arrive but I'm saying qualifying to be accepted. I'd wager 50 percent shouldn't be allowed out of high school.

Its easy for just about anybody to get accepted into a college. They are so desperate to keep their enrollment numbers up to secure federal and state money they will let almost anybody in. A student can be accepted on a "probationary status" and take basket weaving and badminton classes for a semester and then get off probationary status after that.

They’ve all but done away with the ACT/SAT entrance standards. They’ve been deemed racist and unfair. LOL

I remember when I graduated from high school it was still a big deal to actually get accepted to a school, much less get a scholarship

You're right Skinny its not 98%, that was an exaggeration, but the overall premise is absolutely true. That is why the NCAA developed the sliding scale. It was a way for athletes, that otherwise would not, to be able to qualify to attend college and play football. Once admitted, the team and its support system make sure that the players remain eligible and you should know that nobody wants to see how that cake is made, they just want to see the final result which is that kid scoring on the field and putting fans in the stands. The national average ACT score for regular students is probably 25-26. The published national average for a "D1 athlete" is 19-20 and that average is raised/skewed significantly by baseball, golf, tennis, and women's sports. I'd bet the overall avg for football is 18 or less. The NCAA sliding scale for athletes, allows an athlete that made a 16 or 17 on the ACT but has a 2.6-3.0 high school GPA to still be admitted, while a regular student with a 16 ACT and a 3.0 in HS would not even be considered for admittance. Heck Skinny, there were kids on my son's D1 football team that could barely read or write and in his words, "these guys should have never graduated from HS", let alone did they have the intellectual capacity to comprehend college level courses, yet miraculously, they somehow managed to just barely be able to maintain that 2.3 GPA so they could play every Saturday in the fall. Getting them into the school is the hard part. Once there, the football support organization, tutors, etc, make sure they remain eligible until they have used up their full 4 yrs. For reference and to prove my point, the published minimum required ACT scores for incoming freshman are as follows: GA 27, FSU 27, AU 29, MS State 22, Florida 27, UAB 22-30, AU 29 Now tell me how many players on the 105 man rosters for those schools had those type ACT scores? Not many.

There are absolutely some really smart kids that play D1 football, my son, Tebow, and lots of others but they are the exceptions to the rule. On any 105 man roster, there are probably 80, or more, that do not belong in college. It's just like the NCAA random drug testing, nothing but a joke for appearances. Every single random drug test that they had while my son was there, from the first summer he reported to the last fall of his eligibility, he was one of the ones selected every single time as one of the 10 or 12 to be tested. After about the 6th time in a row, that he had to report at 5 am, he asked the trainer WTF was going on and why was he always being selected. Trainer smiled and said, think about it, you know youre going to pass and we know your going to pass, you're helping the team. He said there were 30 teammates that he knew for sure wouldve failed any drug test at any time during the year, yet once again, miraculously, not a single one of them was ever selected to be "randomly" tested. Funny how that works.

It may be that way at Troy but go try to get accepted as an incoming freshman at Florida or one of the big name schools. It's competitive there. FL lists a 27 as the minimum on their website but when my middle son applied, they told us at the admissions meeting that based on their current applications and the number of students they would be accepting in the fall, the lowest ACT score that they would be accepting for fall admission would be a 30 and the avg would end up being between a 31 & a 32.

The waiving of entrance standards is only for the minorities/non-whites. You'd better be bringing the big GPA and the high ACT if your skin color is white and want to start in the fall instead of them forcing you to show up for summer term.

That is so spot on, it ain't even funny no more.

Interesting stuff Abolt. Basically, we have lowered standards to help the inner city kids out.

On top of that, now NIL and BLM.

Players had the world on a silver platter. Phuck em I say.

^^^^

It’s all set up for the player now - no loyalty - it’s all about u - who cares about team - all about the player - that’s not always a positive thing - forget about commitment and character building

Yep to burbank (and that ain't often from me ) and yep to Tdog

I think you are right.

[quote=crenshawco]Sounds like a communist. Spread the wealth and let's not reward the top performers. Jimbo's got him rustled with A&M's spending spree this recruiting cycle

Nothing to do with communism. He saying it because the few players worth millions will go to the highest bidders which will in turn ruin the game. It's gonna
kill the smaller schools. There's nothing wrong with all the players making the same amount of money since the elite players will have NIL income to boot. They all live, eat, and play the same game together and it's not a job...
That's just my view. When I played baseball I would have had no problem with everyone on our team making the same amount of money

Saben is right that it is not sustainable but he only points this out because his Red Elephant Club can't match the money that Aggieland can throw out. He much prefers the old way of the REC paying under the table.