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Dawgfan1995
✭✭✭ Junior
@MontanaDawg I agree with you on that issue with Stetson. I'm thinking of the elite guys -- maybe like Tykee Smith once he's healthy -- who transfer up the food chain to a school where they can win and improve their draft status.
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DallasDawg
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
I agree with Herbstreit and Howard to an extent. Some players don't love the game, some do, but they all love the potential to make millions. And that's fine. But someone tell me, why should Nakobe Dean or Jordan Davis or any other high draft prospect play in the upcoming NC game? What's in it for them, other than pride? Their draft status is locked and all they can do by playing is risk an injury that would harm that status -- potentially permanently. I believe they should play but believe you me, my friends, the day is coming when even playoff games will be deemed "meaningless" because they don't put dollars in the players' pockets. And then that same theory is going to trickle down to star players on mediocre teams who will just quit in mid-season. And even why do star high school players play in All-Star games, risking a chance at college stardom AFTER they have a scholarship. Watch for it because it's going to happen. Go Dawgs!
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Ddavis0777
✭✭✭✭ Senior
I agree that the players should be able to opt out of meaningless bowl games; but also think that it’s overused. I this this was a great article but vehemently disagree that bowl opt outs are “occasional” as Connor suggests. Some teams had **** near 10 players opt out.
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JBMDawg46
✭✭✭✭ Senior
Herbstreit was pulling hard for the Big 10 team. It was killing him that the best team in his conference couldn’t even make it competitive.
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MontanaDawg
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
@Dawgfan1995....I would also argue that players who are NOT heading to the NFL - think Stetson Bennett - just want to play the game. They don't want to spend their college years on scholarship or otherwise as a bench warmer. Less than 2% of college football players end up in the NFL.
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MontanaDawg
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
@E_Roc....yes, the opt-out conundrum in bowl games. I believe there are way too many bowl games in the first place. There are like 30+ games, and teams that are around .500 or maybe a bit better get a bowl. Crazy. So, we need to whittle back down the number of bowl games to less than 20, because right now so many of them don't really mean much to the players. That's the truth. Because there are so many they DO become less relevant. The college football gods did this to themselves, because they wanted more money.
Expanding the playoffs will make more of the top bowl games relevant. I mean, I didn't even start watching the bowl games until the Wednesday or Thursday after Christmas. Most of my friends didn't watch any until Friday. The bowls used to be special, but they aren't so much any longer. They've all been watered down due to overreach.
And another thing to think about. We've made the December early signing period as important or more important than the actual signing day in February. And because of this you are having this carousel of coaches leaving their positions to be hired by other teams in the middle of December - to be decided preferably before signing day. What message does that send to the players the coaches are leaving? Why should they play in this bowl game? What loyalty did the coach have? Again, the college football "system" has created this mess, so it will be up to them to clean it up if they want to return more bowls to relevancy.
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MontanaDawg
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
@Hemingwey....Understand what you are saying, but there are hundreds of players in the portal. They won't all end up at the top programs IF they really want to play. They will have to go elsewhere which means - in theory - other mediocre and 2nd tier football programs should benefit. It may take a few seasons to really see the benefits at these other programs.
And I've said this before, but I'm not a big fan of the portal. It does help fill gaps. It would have helped the Dawgs tremendously this year if all the guys who transferred actually played. But we know how that turned out.
Yes, Bama picked off a 2020 4-star RB named Jahmyr Gibbs from Tech.
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Hemingwey
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
From what I understand, Bama just picked off Tech’s best player thanks to the portal. He is now predicted to be in the Heisman hunt next year. I don’t see how this helps the integrity of CFB.
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E_Roc
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
I've got some thoughts on the whole opting out topic, but I'll focus on one talking point that's been bugging me lately. It came up yesterday when I was talking to my brother and I just saw it again in the article: "Bowl games are exhibition games."
No. They're not. And saying that they are frames the entire debate under a false premise. Bowl games count on a team's record, just like every other game they play throughout the season. They officially matter. All star games are exhibitions. Pre-season games (NFL, college spring games) are exhibitions. Ever notice how no one cares when star players sit out of or limit their participation in those? Because exhibition games don't count for anything, and don't matter.
What's at issue here is that games that count are being treated as exhibition games. That's the whole reason this debate exists. So saying that bowl games are exhibitions either is completely disingenuous or demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of the topic.
Like I said, I have some other thoughts on the subject, but will leave it at that for now. There's nothing wrong with having a debate on things that people are passionate about. But that debate still needs to be had on legitimate terms. Calling bowl games exhibition games is objectively not valid.
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E_Roc
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Been done a million times with 0 flags thrown. Pretty sure they're in the clear.
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MantiTeosGirlfriend
✭ Freshman
I know it would happen because it did. Our very own Herschel Walker was one of the pioneers of opting out of your senior season to go play for guys like Donald Trump.
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UGADad20
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Tell me again how Alabama cherry picking 4 4-5* players from the transfer portal has helped CFB competitive balance? The TP will be a free agency way for the top programs to cherry pick players to fill holes. Every year. UGA picked up 3 in 2 seasons. Unfortunately 2 of the 3 have had injury issues. Do you realize which UGA player was top rated in the preseason list of the top 100 players in CFB? Tykee Smith. Would've been nice to have him this week. Still trying to figure out how a transfer sitting out a season of competition but still getting free tuition, housing, education, tutoring, training table and facilities, best medical care, coaching to improve play, maturation, etc etc is a bad thing? Removing the transfer rule has destabilized college sports. Loose/ non existent NIL "rules" will result in recruits being paid to attend certain schools.
These 2 semi final games are a good argument against playoff expansion. If teams 3 and 4 are this overmatched who wants to see teams 5-12? Totally against a 12 team playoff. Against the top 4 teams getting byes. The week off will create an insurmountable advantage for those 4 teams. The ONLY reason to expand to 12 teams is for money. Pure greed. If these games were non competitive imagine how non competitive the games will be with expansion.
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JimWallace
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Could someone explain this comment to me. I seriously have no clue.
Go, Dawgs!
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Dawgfan1995
✭✭✭ Junior
To an extent, yes. Players will stick around and wait if they feel that their prospects for playing in the NFL will improve by staying where they are or, conversely, they might leave when playing already if they think they can improve their draft status by changing schools. Alabama is a good example of this.
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MontanaDawg
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Players want to play. They don't want to spend much time as a backup. The transfer portal should help bring some parity to the world of recruiting and where elite players end up - spreading that talent around the league and helping teams get better. We've seen that happening already. Also, an expanded playoff should help the landscape as well.
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Hemingwey
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
I’d point out that the chance for players to develop and prove themselves in college for a chance at millions in the NFL is worth… … … millions?
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khummel
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Some people might not think that's a fair question, given NFL players are paid millions to play whenever healthy. But at a school like UGA, the annual value of a scholly is at least $100K (i.e., food, nutrition, housing, training facilities, orthopedes, PTs, rehab resources, equipment, skills coaches, counselors, exposure to scouts, press, tutors, college education, etc.), all geared toward preparing that young man to be at his very best so he might become good enough to later earn those millions. In fact, if you paid for that a la carte, it'd be well-beyond $100K/year.. not bad "pay" for a teenager. But I certainly get both sides of this tension, which will likely increase as the stakes go higher. Go Dawgs!
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BubbaBill
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Thanks Connor for a good article and for giving Stetson the credit he so much deserves…..something your colleague (MG) will never do. I’d challenge anyone to name a “back-up” QB who has contributed more to our program over 2 years. He started off by saving us against Arkansas last year and continued his winning ways this season. Go Dawgs and great job Mailman!!!
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Hemingwey
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
IDK, do NFL players get to opt out for “meanless” games? Real question.
Perhaps CFB needs to take a look at installing some revised rules to govern player participation, NIL, the portal, etc.?
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SmartsTheMan
✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
To those who say "some of today's players don't love the game as much as player's did in the good ole days."
Go back 25 years and put the same amount of money on the table and many of those players would opt out too.
Nobody should expect draft eligible players to play in anything other than play-off games. That is just being selfish on the coaches and fan's part.
