2016 NCAA football thread

The 2015 season is over, so let's keep the conversation going in this thread, as we approach signing day, conference expansion, and more.

So this is where we'll all be basking in Alabama's national title during the offseason? Okay, I was going to let it go, but if you insist . . .

Twitter FUN FACT: The SEC's annual revenue is equal to almost 6% of the NFL's annual revenue. Once you stop and think about that, it's pretty amazing . . .

Because they are generating that revenue with a volunteer work force? If so, yes, that is amazing.

As well as appalling.

The disadvantaged nature of the workforce has nothing to do with revenue. Unless you've confused revenue and profit, in which case, yes, it is unfortunate. And a common topic of discussion here in the CFB thread. Willkommen

ummmm........ said:

The disadvantaged nature of the workforce has nothing to do with revenue. Unless you've confused revenue and profit, in which case, yes, it is unfortunate. And a common topic of discussion here in the CFB thread. Willkommen

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They generate the revenue with volunteer labor, making profit an unnaturally large portion of the revenue. No confusion...at least here. If I had a way for my company to generate revenues with volunteer labor I would consider myself a genius. An evil genius, but a genius.

But it wouldn't increase your revenue, only your profit. And since the post you responded to was comparing revenues, there seemed to be some confusion. But perhaps not, I'll take your word for it

In football news, we still get the crystal football trophy. That's nice. I like the golden vagina and all, but the crystal football was pretty cool . . .

It may be that 6% of the revenue, when generated with volunteer labor, is superior to 100% of the revenues generated with paid labor. I was kind of pointing towards the question: is the SEC more profitable than the NFL? If so, and even if not quite, where does all that profit go? Heck, even if it isn't even close, where does it all go? 6% of the revenue of the NFL is a staggering revenue stream to generate, no matter how you do it. It certainly buys plenty of crystal balls and golden vaginas. One would think that every player should get one to keep.

Yes, it's the fact that it is a staggering revenue stream to generate that was the point of my post. The points you are getting at are a separate issue that has been discussed at length in CFB threads, usually in the offseason. We're not a high traffic thread, so old issues don't typically get a lot of play unless there is new information. But to sum things up for you . . :

With a couple of exceptions, everybody agrees that the athletes deserve more than they get, and for the most part everybody agrees they deserve a lot more than they get. Money is part of it, but the more important issues are health care for sports-related injuries during and after school, guaranteed scholarships and the right to profit off their names and images -- basically, to make endorsement deals -- without losing their eligibility . . .

The dissenters mostly fell in the camp that a full scholarship is enough, pointing to the massive debt typically incurred by the rest of the student body and the fact that the schools' primary function should be education and not athletics . . .

Either way, there are two obstacles to improving the situation. The first is the fact that the athletes have very little real power. I haven't kept up, but the attempt to unionize at NW was unsuccessful both legally and because a lot of the players got cold feet once they realized that if they were employees rather than students then their income was going to get taxed. So while public pressure will continue to mount and the athletes' conditions will improve as a result, they will never likely get all that they 'deserve'. Ofc, neither does anyone else in the world, right . . ?

The second and even more insurmountable obstacle is Title IX. To put it in NFL terms, imagine that not only must every player on the roster be paid the same amount and receive the same access to benefits and facilities, but every player in MLS and the WNBA must also be paid that same amount and receive that same access. Oh, and there also must be the same number of male and female athletes, so you're going to need a lot more WNBA teams. Basically, if you want to give an athlete in a revenue producing sport -- football and men's basketball -- a benefit, all the other athletes at the school must be given that same benefit. And you can't just get rid of the other athletes to eliminate the problem. That said, most folks think Title IX is a pretty spiffy thing, and we're not going to get rid of it just so football players can get paid more . . .

So while the current situation is inequitable, the solutions are a lot more complicated than they may appear before you delve into all the related issues . . .

EDIT: One last thing that I forgot to mention is that not all schools are in the same position. In the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) -- the highest tier of college football and the one that we are discussing here -- there are ten conferences and one-hundred and twenty-eight schools, three of which do not belong to one of the ten conferences. These schools and conferences have vastly different resources and goals for their athletic programs. The more profitable conferences frequently want to give benefits to their athletes that the lesser conferences cannot afford. There was a recent change in the way the conferences make these decisions which makes it easier for the monied conferences -- known as the Power Five (P5) vs the Group of Five (G5) for the unmonied conferences -- to pass rules that give their athletes more. So progress is being made, ever so slowly . . .

Sorry for roaming off down that tangent. The mention of the magnitude of the SEC revenue stream just had me seeing red for a minute.

Well it's not like it was a huge distraction. Like I said, it's not really a high traffic thread

ummmm........ said:

Well it's not like it was a huge distraction. Like I said, it's not really a high traffic thread

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Well, we could rage out the rest of the page about it...


Nahhhh.

Since you don't seem to cross over much and we do have all this open space...

Tell me about quarterbacks who have finished their college careers. Specifically, a QB will almost certainly go as the number two pick in the draft. Teams drafting within the next few picks may also be interested in quarterbacks. Is there one so clearly better that trading up from three to one to skip over the two pick would be worthwhile to consider? Or is letting one go at number two and then picking the next best a narrow enough margin to make switching that order not worth the effort? Does that extend three, or even four, deep before there's a clear gap?

Idk really. I don't really follow the NFL, so I don't know what translates well to that level other than that they are obsessed with measurables . . .

My impression is that Goff from Cal is the leader by a large enough gap that yes, you would want to trade past the others to get him. The two you'd be trading past would be Lynch and Wentz. Lynch from Memphis is supposed to be good but he didn't look that impressive to me really either when he beat Ole Miss or when he lost to Auburn, which were the only two times I saw him play. Carson Wentz from North Dakota State is supposed to be awesome, but he played at North Dakota State so I didn't see him until he played Jax State in the FCS title game when destroyed Jax State in a way that I would not have thought possible based on the way Jax State had played all year . . .

Connor Cook and Christian Hackenberg are two QBs from the Big Ten that others would be much better equipped to tell you about, but I don't think they are as desirable to the NFL as those first three . . .

Dak Prescott from Miss State and Cardale Jones from Ohio State are two that probably won't translate well to the NFL, but like I said that's just a guess bc my knowledge of what the NFL wants is limited . . .

Alabamas' QB Jake Coker has a strong enough arm that someone will probably take a flier on him as a backup. The biggest thing he has going for him other than his arm is the fact that he only actually played one year, so an NFL team might look at him as someone with a lot of upside if he's given time to learn. The biggest thing he has working against him is that the reason he only played one year is that he lost two QB battles -- one to Jameis Winston and the other to Blake Sims -- so how good could he really be . . ?

After that you're really getting into the dregs. Cody Kessler from USC and Brandon Allen from Arkansas are what I think NFL teams are looking for, but they're both really low in projected drafts so again, shows you what I know about what NFL teams want . . .

Jeff Driskell, who was forced to start too early at Florida and performed horribly in a horrible offense before he transferred to LaTech and redeemed himself may be worth looking at if you like a dark horse with really long odds . . .

So not a really deep QB class. I think it's Goff pretty clearly at the top, with Wentz and Lynch up next and then a pretty big dropoff with no sure things after that. But like I've said, I don't know much about this sort of thing. I'm just a fan, not a scout

Heck, I can turn on ESPN and get scouts. I asked you because I wanted your opinion, and thanks for giving it.

Think I'll bet on the Titans getting a deal and trading the number one pick. Sounds like somebody will want to jump Cleveland.

Again, not an NFL fan, but didn't the Titans just get Mariota? Is he not working out? And is there a team that needs a QB more than the Browns after Manziel? Why wouldn't they just trade up . . ?

EDIT: Nvm, I see you're saying that the Titans have the number one pick and are the ones that would be trading it . . .

Right, the Titans aren't going to pick a QB. But say the Chargers, picking at three, want to get ahead of the Browns. Titans trade down, squeeze a little something extra out of the Chargers for it, and when the Chargers and Browns both take quarterbacks the Titans get to draft the same player they would have taken first anyway.

This doesn't work if there are two quarterbacks that are pretty much the same, which is why I asked. Scouts and such are dumping out so much disinformation at this point it's hard to figure out, and since I hardly keep up with college ball I'm at a disadvantage.

Yeah, I see what you're saying, I just misread it at first . . .

Today's youth movement has reduced the average age of a CFP committee member to sixty-one years old . . .

Pretty nice turnout for Alabama's national title parade, considering the weather and all . . .

So the Super Bowl is down to Evan Mathis vs. Roman Harper and Kevin Norwood. Tough call . . .

EDIT: SEC QB vs. SEC QB for only the third time too. The NFL is becoming more watchable by the second . . .

EDIT EDIT: I also wanted to take this opportunity to praise USM coach Todd Monken for not waiting ten days to announce his new job . . .

I'm interested to see what USM does (I assume hire from within) now. That's a job where people have won over the last several years, and it's got great fan support and a decent recruiting territory. But CUSA has become so obliterated over the last few years, and USM's financial situation was more than dire....and this new, terrible CUSA TV deal isn't going to help.

Is any CUSA job really that good anymore?