Is the rematch a good idea?

   David Climer of the Nashville Tennessean takes a negative opinion toward the National Championship game.  Like many, he is someone who thinks that the rematch is the wrong math for the National Championship.  He thinks that Alabama already had their chance and no matter what excuses they come up with about being the better team, that its part of the game and they do not deserve a rematch.  He is upset about the fact that we will never know how Oklahoma State would do against LSU.  We can speculate all we want now, but we will never know.  We already know what happened the first time Alabama and LSU played each other.

I agree with both sides of the argument about the rematch so I do not really know what I think about it.  I do think that a rematch is not the right call especially for the National Championship because we already saw what happened and especially if Oklahoma State came out on top in most of the numbers then they should be in the game.  I think that the voters play way too much into the system and they can be really biased as to which teams they vote for.  However, I am also biased to the fact that I think that SEC teams are the best and it is good that both of the teams are in the SEC because you know that it will be a good game and one team for sure is not just going to get blown away by the other which has happened in many previous National Championships.  I am actually looking forward to the rematch, but I can definitely see the other side of the argument as well against it.  I think that the system is really subjective so it is hard to tell who the best teams really are.

NCAA will make changes in their own rules

Many have been surprised by the scandal that occurred at Penn State.  Brad Wolverton of the Chronicle of Higher Education writes about how this scandal could lead to further changes with NCAA rules and regulations.  It is hard to believe that such a scandal could happen within a college athletic program and the NCAA does not currently have rules to punish programs for situations such as the one at Penn State.

Wolverton says that the NCAA sent an inquiry to Penn State officials to see if there were problems with the way Penn State handled the situation.  If it turns out that Penn State did turn a blind eye and try to cover it up, than the NCAA might investigate their own rules to change punishment for this crime.  Right now, the NCAA does not have set rules to punish an athletic program for this but they think that they need to.  Wolverton talks about how the NCAA has many other rules that punish programs for things not as bad as this scandal so they should definitely have rules to punish the program for this.

I definitely agree that the NCAA should follow through with their rule changes like they intend to.  I think that if they have rules that punish colleges for things that are not nearly as bad as the incident at Penn State, then they should definitely have rules to punish Penn State if the investigation does come to find what all of the speculations and evidence lead to.  I am surprised actually to see that they do not have rules for this, but then again who would think that something like this could happen in a very esteemed athletics program and go without notice for many years.

Event Post #3

On Friday I attended the Fall Invitational Swim meet between Georgia, Cal, Auburn, Virginia, Indiana, UNC- Wilmington, Harvard, Maryland, Florida, and Alabama.  I had never been to a swim meet before so this was a first experience for me.  Despite the overwhelming smell of chlorine, it was a very good experience.  There were people that had to be timers for the races and there were three per lane to make sure that the times were accurate.  There were also people that were working to film the races.  Also, there were people that gave the swimmers massages.  There were not many messages being presented at the game if at all.  There were definitely not any commercial things being promoted. There were a few things to just promote the University of Georgia in general with pamphlets in the stands but there is not a screen to have any commercials so there were not any of those.  It was just focused on the event and promoting the athletes.  In the stands, there were primarily parents of the athletes.  Besides the students that were timers, I’m pretty sure I was the only other student at the event.  If I were a visitor to UGA, I would know that swimming probably is not as big of a deal at the school, but I would definitely be impressed with the facilities for the meet.

Event Post #2

I attended the Dawg Walk before the final home game of the season against Kentucky.  I have been to a Dawg Walk before, but it was a different experience this time because when I went before I was much younger.  This is understandable because the Dawg Walk definitely has a family atmosphere to it.  From what I could tell, it was more family – oriented and students were definitely outnumbered by parents and children.  However, I loved the atmosphere with the band playing and everyone getting excited for the game.  Especially since we were about to clinch the SEC east, everyone seemed really excited.  There were no advertisements from what I could tell and it was all focused on the school and the spirit of the fans, which I really like about it.  It is not about the money or anything else but it is about getting everyone excited about the coming game.  If I was someone from a different school coming to visit Georgia I would be impressed to see so many fans there and how much school spirit was there.  I would be impressed with the overall positive atmosphere of the event.

Scandals at universities will impact recruiting

Aimee Foster, Laurel Pfahler and Jon Santucci of TCPalm discuss the problems that are going to arise for universities that have scandals in their midst, like Penn State, from the position of the student’s perspective.  The students must think about if they want to accept offers from universities that will have a negative connotation to them when they get there whether the incident is finalized or not.  The students must think about if they want to take that risk or if they want to ignore them all together and take a different route with a different offer.

“If a school has some sort of a scandal, I would still look at them. You have to look at more than just football,” suggests Miller.

This prospective athlete says that he will consider the academics and other aspects of the school to see if they are best for him and ignore the fact that the school has a scandal in their athletic program.  This is one perspective of an athlete that is being recruited, but in my opinion I think that this opinion is going to be hard to come by.

When a school has a scandal, it is a major turn off for prospective athletes.  They want to come into a school that has a good, clean program and they do not want to come into something that already is tarnished.  They are going to want a clean slate and not go into something knowing that they are going to run into problems right off the bat with media especially. If they know that the media is going to have a negative connotation with the university, it is hard to imagine that a player would still really want to consider that university as their number one choice.  Even though you would like to think that a student-athlete would still consider the university for everything else that it has to offer, the scandal involved will still be a major flag for them when they are making their decision.

Should the SEC play more Conference Games?

Jon Solomon of the Birmingham News reports about the possible changes in the SEC.  It is not official but there is talk about having nine conference games in a season as opposed to the current six division games.  He examines the positives and negatives to changing the current system.

If the system did not change, teams would not play certain other teams in their conference for many years.  This would create a problem because teams would not rotate, as they should because there are too many teams in the conference for scheduling purposes.  So, changing to nine conference games would benefit just the system in general with all the teams playing each other within a reasonable amount of years.

However, changing the system to nine conference games would pose problems with the individual teams.  It would make a more challenging schedule and for teams like Georgia and Florida with the neutral game, they would have less home games.  The teams could potentially hurt their bowl eligibility chances because they would have more challenging games and less easy win games that help with their bowl chances.  They could even be hurt of their National Championship chances.  I think that changing the system would hurt the teams by making the schedules harder and their records on average would not be as good.  I also think that if they did not change the system the new teams would not get integrated into the SEC very well because they would not play all the teams in the conference.  I think that it is necessary to play more conference games in order for the newly added teams to get fully integrated into the conference.

Athletic vs. Academic Spending

Frank Fitzpatrick of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes about the money driven aspect of college sports today.  He concludes that it seems as if money, especially money from television contracts, is the main force behind much of the realignment happenings today and just of college sports in general.  He also touches on the fact that the gap between funding for athletics and the funding for academics widens more and more and the reforms by the Knight Commission need to be put into place in order to prevent the gap from widening even more.

The Knight Commission has concluded that as the economy gets worse, the cost of sports continues to rise and it is causing universities to spend even more on college athletics.  With the cost of athletics rising, the gap between money spent on athletics and spent on academics continues to widen.  They are spending almost eleven times more money on athletics than academics.   I know that college sports will always be given more money than academics, because that makes sense with many of the things for college sports costing more money.  However, I think that the gap is already bigger than it should be, and for it to continue to widen would not be very good for universities.  Also, with the smaller schools who do not have all of the television contract money coming in, the difference seems to be more significant because they do not have as much money coming in that can be directly spent on athletics.  I think that some of the ideas set forth by the Knight Commission would help greatly with this issue.  I think that some sort of system that “ties NCAA revenues to academic performance” would greatly help because it would be more motivation to keep up the academics in a university.  I know that it is not possible to get the spending distribution equal, but the gap should definitely not continue to get larger.

 

NCAA to change rules

In an article by the Associated Press on ESPN, the new changes of the NCAA are described.  Along with the major changes with the alignment of conferences, the NCAA has passed new rules to be put into effect.  The rules loosen grips on behavior and tighten the requirements.  The new rules will change some of the dynamic of sports, as we know them today.

One of the major changes is that schools can pay a stipend of spending money to athletes along with covering their tuition and other school expenses. The schools, however, must pay the same to male and female athletes.  The problem with this new rule is that it could allow room for the bigger schools to widen the difference between themselves and smaller schools.  There is a concern of more realignment between the schools that have enough money to pay stipends and the schools that do not.  There is also debate on whether this is pay-for-play or not and the NCAA claims that it is not because it is just paying for the cost of living for the athlete and they are not giving them just extra money.

Another change is that schools must meet a certain progress rate in academics to be able to play in the post-season.  The NCAA is stressing that academics is very important and that the goal of playing in college sports is to graduate the student while still playing the sport, so universities must really focus on this if they want to play in the post-season.  This is a very important rule because lately it seems that people may be forgetting that the athletes are students as well and they need to focus on their studies along with sports.  This rule creates the opportunity to use academics as a motivator for being able to be eligible for the post-season.

 

 

Benefits of Social Networking

  In an article on Medill Reports Chicago, Michael Tomko reports on the growing influence of social media and its impact on college sports.  We have talked a lot about how the social networking sites influence sports in today’s world and I thought that this article fully demonstrated many of the different ways that it has an impact.

The media is an avenue where fans can get and feel more connected with their team.  The media can get fans more excited about their team and be more informed with the happenings of the team.  It is beneficial to the fans because they can feel more connected and have more enthusiasm for their team.  They can be better informed about what is going on.

The social networking sites, however, are even more beneficial to the universities.  The sites are very cheap for the universities to produce, but they have a plethora of benefits.  The universities can get their fans more involved with what is going on at the university.  They can make the fans feel more connected with the team.  They can also do promotions to benefit the university through these networking sites.  Currently, the bigger universities have more support for the networking sites based on the number of “likes” on Facebook and followers on twitter, but the smaller schools are definitely benefiting from the sites.  Before, the smaller schools had a very difficult time getting their name out there, especially with no television contracts, but now with the cheap social networking media, they can make their name be known.

NCAA ends Investigation of Cam Newton

  Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal Constitution tackles the topic of the NCAA completing their investigation of Cam Newton.  The NCAA just concluded the case, so there has been much discussion about the issue.  He takes a very neutral stance and does a good job showing both sides of the argument considering the heated circumstances of the topic.

The fact that the NCAA completed the investigation of Cam Newton probably has many people very angry about the situation.  I admit that I was one of the people that thought that Cam Newton was guilty no matter what the evidence said and that Auburn should not have won the National Championship, but I may be a little biased.  However, I think that the NCAA made the right decision to dismiss the case.  There was evidence that the father did solicit money, but there was no evidence that his son knew about the situation, so they cannot punish him and Auburn University without there being sufficient evidence that Cam Newton was in fact involved with the deal.

Schultz explains that there were many people who say, despite what the evidence says, Newton had to have known about the money and there is no question that he is guilty, but you have to take a neutral standpoint and look at the evidence and see if he was really guilty.  You have to think about how if they did not win the National Championship and if he did not win the Heisman, would the investigation have been as big of a deal.  Also, you have to think about if you did not have any bias against Auburn, would you still think the same thing about the situation.  The statement by the NCAA states that they have made 80 interviews and none of them have concluded with sufficient evidence against Cam Newton.  So, it is in fact good that the NCAA dismisses the case unless sufficient evidence happens to appear.

Sports as a College Major?

 Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post argues that universities should make college sports an academic major and that it would improve the image of athletes and help them more than the general curriculum that they are “herded to”.  She also provides reason that it would lower the drive for just the money side of college athletics.  She mainly focuses on her side of the argument, however, and does not provide points from the other side.

Her main argument is that the athletes would gain more from having courses designed specifically for them about the history and theory of college sports and they should deserve a degree from these types of classes.  She thinks that it would diminish the typical view that people have of college athletes that they are athletic and that is all they are good for.  She compares them to theater majors in that they would be learning all about the strategy and theory of college sports just like theater majors are learning about theater.  She makes valid points in that they are very similar, but she does not take into account that maybe their degrees would not be worth as much if sports does not work out for them.  It is a given that every athlete at a university is not going to go professional, so how much would their degree in this academic sports major be worth.  I do not know the answer to that since the type of major does not exist right now, but I do not think that it would be really beneficial to the athlete.  I think that at some point they have to take classes other than for just athletics in case it does not work out.  However, since there are majors for sports journalism and things like that then maybe that would be a better alternative, rather than just the theory of sports.

Jenkins also compares the construction of a hospital to the construction of a football field.  She says that the hospital is not built to take people’s money that get sick, just like the football stadium is not there to take people’s money who come to the games.  It is there to provide an arena for the football players to show what they can do and put into practice the plays and strategies that they have been studying.  I do think that she has a very valid argument, because athletes are very smart and they have to be to understand all the plays and to be able to perform well.  However, I think that they still have to get a different degree and I just think that the idea is so far from how college sports has functioned, that it probably would not be put into place. It may be beneficial to the few athletes that go on to play professionally, but I do not know how much it would benefit everyone else.

NCAA is not the NFL

Of course the NCAA is not the NFL, but sometimes it appears to be so.  In an article written by Michael Marot on the Associated Press, he describes how the president of the NCAA, Mark Emmert, reminds universities and the public that the NCAA is not supposed to be like a pro football league.  He emphasizes that of course the money is important, but people should not think that universities are making their conference switches just based off of the money involved.

Marot explains both sides of the argument and presents a clear understanding of both sides.  It always appears from the fan’s perspective that the universities are making decisions based on the money involved because those specific statistics are always released and the other side of the decision is not always explained.  The numbers about what a change will do to the conference always comes out so that is what we see and what we take as why a university made a decision.  Emmert makes a good point in reassuring fans and pointing out that that is not the content of the decision.  The money is part of it and there is no harm in a university wanting to take that into consideration, but he makes a point to say that there are many other factors that go into a decision and if there is not then that decision maybe should not be made in the first place.

Emmert reassures that decisions should be based on what is best for the student-athletes and what is best for the university.  Not just what is going to make the most money for the university, but what will benefit the athletes with scholarships and other benefits to take away from universities reverting to things that are against NCAA rules and regulations.  In the end, money is a big contributing factor, but the NCAA is not supposed to be like the NFL where money is much more of a contributing factor and it is supposed to be more about what is best for the student-athletes than for the money.

Playoffs for College Football?

In an article on Yahoo Sports, Dan Wetzel describes what he thinks would fix the problem of forming super conferences, creating a post- season playoff.  Wetzel believes that all of the hype surrounding the conference breakdowns and build-ups could be solved if there was a post- season playoff for college football.  All of the money issues play out to be in favor of the universities and the NCAA if there were to be a play off system.

If there were play offs, it would encourage teams to stay in the conferences where they are and the ones that they have a better chance of winning so that they could make the playoffs instead of trying to just get in a big conference to have all of the benefits that come with a powerhouse conference.  There would be many more strong conferences instead of just a few huge and strong conferences.

Another benefit to the playoffs would be that the NCAA could make more money with the tournament and the universities would make more money for making it to the games if you want to look at the money side of the deal.  It would make a lot more sense for a lot of people instead of the traditional college bowl system.

Even though I love the traditional bowl system that college football has and the countless bowl games to watch over Christmas break, I would love to see a playoff system.  There would not be a playoff spot for all teams and it would only be set up where about eight teams could make it.  I have wanted to see something like this for a long time because of how controversial the top ten teams can be in college football because of different schedules and things of that nature.  It would be interesting to see the top eight teams battle it out to see who is really the best team instead of just being placed there and getting to play in the national championship game.

Event #1: UGA vs. Coastal Carolina

On Saturday, September 17th, I attended a football game against Coastal Carolina in Sanford Stadium. The Bulldogs won the game 59-0. There were many people that may have not been as noticed as the players playing between the hedges. There were the venders, walking up and down the aisles selling drinks and other things to the very thirsty spectators that were in the hot sun. There were also the event staff that made sure that everyone was behaving as they should and made sure that things did not get out of hand. There were also the camera crews that provided the game for the local television stations and for the replays on the screen. There were also the people that take care of the (temporary) mascot, Russ, to make sure that the dog is always happy.

A variety of messages were presented at the game. There were many messages about not drinking and driving and about not texting and driving to remind all of the spectators, especially the college students, about the dangers that are presented with these actions and driving. There were also promotions for the academic experience of UGA to remind the spectators that there is a lot more to UGA than the football game currently. Also, there were promotions for other sports to get spectators from the most popular sport to come and support the other athletics of UGA.

If I were a visitor to UGA, I would be a little disappointing in the crowd support at this particular game because the stands were pretty much empty going into the fourth quarter. However, the spectators from Coastal Carolina probably have not experienced a game with nearly the crowd support that was there, at least at the beginning of the game, so they would leave with the impression that the atmosphere at UGA is incredible. They would also be impressed with the academic promotions and the encouragement for further support of other athletics and not just all about football.

Can UGA Come Back?

Jeff Schultz, from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, explains the complications with Georgia football right now. The team has not showed the type of team that people expect when they think of Georgia football. He believes that the team must go 9-1 with the remaining games of the season for Mark Richt to keep his job and for the Bulldogs to have a relatively successful season. With the games that are left, it seems possible for the team to have that record. This will be a challenging feat, but with the games that are remaining, it does look doable for this Georgia football team.

The team and fans must let the first two losses roll off their shoulders and look ahead at what could become of this season. All of the heat on Richt is understandable, but he is still here and the fan base must rally behind him and support him in hopes that this season will have a more positive outcome than last season. The future does look bright after the South Carolina game, even though the Bulldogs lost. The team looked much improved and showed signs of real potential maybe for the first time in a while. However, almost winning does not count in the SEC.

The talk about Mark Richt losing his job will most likely continue throughout the rest of the season, unless things really turn around. Shultz puts it best by saying, “ Richt has left himself no room for error”. That statement is very true, because after all of the heat surrounding him already, if he does not turn things around then his job could very possibly be at risk. It is encouraging to see the players improving and still rallying behind their coach despite all of the criticism that has surrounded the University of Georgia’s football program since the disappointing season that they had last year. It would be sad to see Richt go after many years of coaching the Dogs, but he must turn around this season if he wants to continue to coach them in the future.

Conference Realignment has Reached the Limit

Tommy Hicks from the mobile- press register describes an unrealistic yet intriguing situation about how to do conference realignment. Hicks describes a situation where, after this year, the conferences get erased and the whole system started over. He describes the scene in a way that sounds like the draft for the National Football League. They would sell tickets, the conferences would each have their own tables, and then they would pick which teams they want in their conferences. The whole description that encompasses the majority of the article is well thought out and descriptive of what it would be like.  The whole article sounds ridiculous and like it would never happen, but the argument sounds compelling. However, there are also a lot of negatives that would come with a complete redo of the conferences.

With all of the realignment talk that is going on today, it would almost make sense for the conferences to start over. Texas A&M switching causes a lot of dramatic shifts, maybe more than expected. The Big 12 suffers a huge loss and the SEC might have to grow by more than one team depending on how they want the set up to be. It would almost make sense to just drop the whole system and start over. However, that would not be possible because of all the things that the conferences mean to a lot of people and tradition.

Maybe it’s just because I am bias, but I could never see the University of Georgia not in the SEC.  I think that complete conference realignment would cause way too much uproar and controversy for what its worth.  It would save all of the minor changes that have to occur currently, but many teams would not be okay with the results if they shifted dramatically.  With all of the tradition that comes with the SEC specifically, I cannot imagine it any different and it is even going to take some getting used to if Texas A&M in fact does join the SEC.  I could not agree more when Hicks claims, “ college athletics as we know it disappeared a while ago”.

Cheating will Not be Tolerated

Author: Mark Emmert

NCAA.org

In this article posted on the NCAA website, the author, Mark Emmert is very opinionated on the subject of all of the violations and the NCAA rules.  Emmert talks about all the negatives that have become almost the norm to college athletics and how they need to crack down harder on all of the cheating.

Emmert called a meeting of Division I presidents to discuss what action needs to be taken to crack down on the cheating.  They decided on rules that enforced that the athletes were students before athletes and that being a student is the most important thing.  They made stricter rules to set the standard of where the athlete needs to be in the classroom in order to play in games and be eligible.  They also saw the other side of the argument and decided that the NCAA rules needed to be simpler and stricter so that there are not really any loopholes to the rules and that they are simply put.  He also emphasized that the responsibility to uphold the rules is with everyone involved in athletics.

The author left out exactly what rules they changed and how they changed them, but I think that the gist of his argument is very true.  It seems that in today’s sports, there is always some sort of scandal going on, whether it is in the news or not.  It is disappointing to see that a central part of athletics has been to get around the NCAA rules.  I think that if they do follow through with the changes to make a lot of rules stricter and simpler, then that will help to ease some of the tension in today’s sports because there will be fewer ways for universities to try to get around the rules. Some of the rules do have gray areas, so that allows for some of the cheating that goes on today.  I think that Emmert put it best in saying, “Words, of course, do not mean much; only action counts. We cannot legislate integrity. But we can and will define it, expect it and hold ourselves accountable.”  The NCAA can make the rules but it is up to everyone involved to uphold them and just the rules spelt out will not ensure a clean playing environment for the players.

Texas A&M’s Departure is Final

Gil LeBreton

Ft. Worth Star Telegram

26 August 2011

 

This article solidifies the ongoing rumors about Texas A&M leaving the Big 12.  The letter written by Texas A&M was sent to the Big 12 and it is final that they will be leaving.  They have not, however, joined another conference.  The article states that the next step is for Texas A&M to write a letter to the SEC to ask formal permission for entrance into the conference.  The article also discusses the money issues and the possibility of more than one team to join the SEC.

“The 14^th team? There’s no rush, apparently.  But in case anyone is interested in joining college football’s best conference, SEC operators surely are standing by.”  The Aggies joining the SEC alone would alter the balance and would create an odd number of teams.  That is the reason why some of the teams already in the SEC might not accept the Aggies joining alone.  So, there is speculation that another team would need to join as well.

The decision would definitely include the money involved.  The teams would need to be widely broadcasted in order to expand the influence of the SEC.  According to the article, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Virginia Tech, and Maryland seem to be on the radar because of their “broadcast footprint”.  The shift of teams is mainly based on the money that will come with it.

In different articles that have been released recently, however, Florida State, Clemson, and Georgia Tech have been seen to be on the radar because then that would create in- state rivalries within the SEC.  The author of this article denies these speculations because they do not have the “broadcast footprint” that would be beneficial to the SEC.

The universities mentioned in the article are affected because the shift of Texas A&M could change dramatically how the conferences are set up currently if more than just Texas A&M moves.  Since these universities have been mentioned, they must take into account if they would consider changing conferences.  The author is leaving out, however, how these universities feel about the speculations of whether they should move.  The author is also leaving out how the current SEC universities feel about Texas A&M’s move and if it would be necessary for more than just one team to move in order to make the league have an even number of teams.  The Texas A&M withdraw from the Big 12 has caused some debate as to what the conferences will look like in the future.