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The headline: Top NFL prospects for 2021 want to play college football by 2020. The deeper message: They want to do it in a way that is safe and appropriate.
Multiple protagonists, heads up by Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence en Justin Fields, Ohio State Quarterback, tweeted a message under the logo of the Power 5 conferences and the hashtags #WeAreUnited and #WeWantToPlay.
“We all want to play football this season,” the message said, followed by a list of requirements. Establish universal mandate for health and safety procedures and protocols to protect college athletes from COVID-19 during all NCAA-wide conferences. Give players the opportunity to make and respect their decision. Qualification guarantees whether a player chooses to play the season or not. Use our voices to create open communication and trust between players and officials; eventually forming a College Football Players Association [with] representatives of the players of all Power 5 conferences. ”
It is not an unintentional declaration of the willingness to play by what standards the individual schools and conferences would adopt. The players want to do it in a way that is safe, with the kind of comprehensive approach that the various schools have hitherto adopted neither the ability nor the tendency to show.
It’s August 10th. Is there time to give them the things they want? Is there a willingness to join the establishment of a College Football Players Association?
For decades, the big universities have benefited from a model that was practiced for the athletes who provide extremely valuable services without getting anything back to real value. In theory, they get “an education.” In practice, football is their job. Some institutions take the educational aspect more seriously than others. Others treat the educational aspect as a task, a hassle, a distraction from why the players are there.
The best of the best players are there, because the NFL has created an artificial barrier to entry for three seasons after high school. The rest are under the vague assumption that if they do everything they have to do while not playing for a salary, they will eventually get a chance to play football for money.
For the college football system, this is not quite the bill that has been around for too long. But it is the kind of step towards recognition of player rights in a way that can finally level the playing field.
As the Power 5 conferences take their final step to chase the billions that college football would generate by 2020, the powers-that-be must now ask themselves the broader question of whether they are willing to empower the athletes more than that they have ever been. So, while some may see this as a last-ditch effort by the players to save the season, the strings attached to the broader message (if the players push aggressively for these things) may eventually be the tipping point to the plug because the long-term cost of giving the players bigger could cost much more than one lost season.
The more cautious approach would be to listen to the players and give them what they want. The problem remains that it may be far too late – and also far too expensive – to implement the measure that players are looking for in exchange for play this year.
