One of the oldest traditions in college football may be coming to a close soon.
Many NCAA Division I teams have decided to cancel or alter their plans in place instead of playing the spring football game. Many traditional powerhouses and top names in the sport have chosen to cancel or alter their plans. This includes Alabama, Texas, Nebraska, Missouri and many more.
Spring games are an iconic staple in college football. It is where as a fan — and trust me, as a Nebraska fan these past 13 years — it is the one time where no matter the result you can be happy at a team’s progress and feel optimistic about the teams upcoming season.
The most interesting part of this is each and every one of them has a different reason to cancel the spring game.
Alabama has said it is canceling there’s in favor of an altered format that will be called “A-Day.”
Texas has stated playing 30 games during the past two seasons was a lot of strain on their players and they need the rest to prepare for the season.
Missouri has chosen to cancel because of the stadium renovations taking place at Faurot Field.
While all of these are valid reasons that can be understood, Nebraska coach Matt Rhule was openly honest with the media about why he and the Cornhuskers chose to cancel theirs.
“Last year we were one of the more televised spring games and I dealt with a lot of people offering our players opportunities after that,” Rhule said in a press conference.
Now Rhule is alluding to tampering within college football by other programs due to the very minimal oversight by the NCAA on their new name, image and likeness rules, which allow players to get paid, which is great, but when coaches can’t offer a simple public scrimmage due to people trying to poach players their is an issue within the rules or the oversight being taken by the governing body.
Listen, spring games are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to NIL, and there being rules that aren’t specific enough on how teams should go about recruiting players is an issue.
There are now agents in the NIL world who can help players find brand deals and other opportunities to make money with their talents. However, what is to stop coaches and teams from finding a player’s agent and reaching out to them saying we can give the athlete you represent so much money?
Basically, the NCAA needs to do a better job of overseeing the new NIL landscape in sports, because right now it feels as if it is a free-for-all on the recruiting trail with teams showing athletes who has the bigger wallet.
That is just the way recruiting is going to be nowadays. It’s all going to be who can offer the most money. I would just like to see the NCAA do a better job of overseeing the third parties that are getting involved in the action.
I think they can accomplish this by reaching out to professional leagues who already have rules in place for how and when agents can do things.
The NFL would be a great example, not only because it is the same sport being played, but also because it is more likely to have a lot of similar agents. They could help the NCAA develop a vetting process, as well to help make sure young college kids are not getting taken advantage of and being used solely as a revenue option by these agents.
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