1-A IS NOT A RIGHT, IT IS A MARKET
Cartel-ish in the long run.Brian provides toothy points on the APR over at MGoBlog, calling bullshit on our APR/NCLB comparison:
Orson’s analogy to No Child Left Behind is inapt. NCLB, oddly, takes money from failing schools. The APR takes students, leaving behind a smaller corps of kids the Idahos (Idahoes? In your area codes?) of the world can fail.
Technically, they are taking scholarships, which is money spent on the open market of recruiting athletes on your depth chart, which in turn kills your ability to compete, etc, etc. It damages a school’s ability to compete if they cannot beef up on the academic support side. NCLB is a perfect comparison because, rather than offer some ameliorative way out of failing status, it simply stamps FAIL on a program until it pulls itself up by its own bootstraps, just as the APR does.
The inexactitude lies in the subject compared: education versus having a football program. As Brian points out, having a division one football program is not a right. (Unless you’re in the SEC. But Brian sagely points that out, too.) However, the reason the APR chafes me is its inexactitude and susceptibility to manipulation by larger schools who may tip the scales with boundless tutoring and academic support programs to support comparable marginal academic cases who fail out at what we suppose we can call the Florida International Select Level of college football.
The college football universe already tilts toward Mammon. Unlike some, we’re not troubled by this. We’re a big, swaggering, swinishly capitalist country, and our universities appropriately follow suit. College football is business. The APR is a small but pesky protective tariff/tax/duty that raises start-up costs for small universities to an even higher level than the current exorbitant tag. There might be too many programs in Division One, but frankly, that’s for the market to determine, not a wiggly proclamation from the Kiwanis Club of college athletics, the NCAA. (And by wiggly we mean exactly the points Brian cites via Bruce Feldman: the waiver exemptions, the 66 schools who promised to “do better.”)
Looking long-term, it has a faint aroma of cartel behavior. That is the bad part. It’s not injustice; no one outside the locker room will weep more than six tears if Florida International takes a dive to D-1AA. They may not deserve to exist, but they should be given the same allowances, waivers and understanding other member schools are afforded. Ticket sales determine the rest.
(Now, back to writing about RoboWoodyHayes rising from hell to wreak vengeance on Columbus. BTW, if the Big Ten is one half of the mini-cartel consigning college football to a non-playoff existence, they are at least a benevolent one: they’re outpacing all other schools in the EDSBS/Fanblogs charity drive by bounds. Praise Delany and his conference’s generosity, and praise the Rose Bowl!)
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47
sorry, i was out of town.
I think a herd of goats could dine very well on the large strawman you just erected (i.e., please note where anyone criticizing the implementation and enforcement of the APR suggested anything remotely close to what you’re postulating here…)
did you read the original post?
However, the reason the APR chafes me is its inexactitude and susceptibility to manipulation by larger schools who may tip the scales with boundless tutoring and academic support programs to support comparable marginal academic cases who fail out at what we suppose we can call the Florida International Select Level of college football.
to me, this reads as an indictment of spending levels and suggests that the NCAA should disallow this big-school pocketbook bullying or something…
if you read my previous post, you are aware that i was not only suggesting the retreat of poor unfortunate pitiful D1 have-nots to D2, but actually to club-level. why is this suggestion discarded and the argument furthered? if D1 is unprofitable, standards are stacked against smaller schools, big schools compensate their coaches too much, and BCS facilities are too nice, why compete? if the rules are unfair, don’t subject yourselves to them. i wouldn’t move to Saudi Arabia as a Christian, why do so many schools make the jump to D1?
PS- i can’t wait to see the Chippewas prove the mettle of the MAC conference this season in Athens. perhaps they will further underscore the necessity of a playoff in CFB in spite of their impressive APR….which most of the MAC cannot brag about.
(UGA 965, eat it Ball State!)
Comment by dawgaddict — May 20, 2008 @ 11:42 am
46
“but attempting to limit the amount of tutoring a college is willing to commit to keep a student from failing or leaving school early is ridiculous.”
I think a herd of goats could dine very well on the large strawman you just erected (i.e., please note where anyone criticizing the implementation and enforcement of the APR suggested anything remotely close to what you’re postulating here…)
Then again, your grasp of college football history seems similarly shaky, so I’m not surprised.
Speaking as a fan of a MAC school, my beef with the APR is not so much the standards (although it’s pretty clear that the ability to throw money at academic support helps your score here), it’s with the uneven enforcement of those standards, the vague, mysterious “waivers” granted almost exclusively to BCS programs who fall below the cut-off line for punishment but are somehow spared while a non-BCS program doing the same is docked scholarships.
We’ve learned to live with the deck being stacked against us in so many other ways as the price of admission in 1-A, but getting punished for the same low scores that BCS programs are allowed to skate on is too much to take. How “business” concerns are allowed to come into play here is beyond me.
(And when I say “we” I mean other non-BCS programs, not my own. My alma mater came in at 941 this year, safely above the cut-off and ahead of approximately one-third of all BCS programs in the classroom…)
Oh, and FWIW, the APR rules apply to I-AA programs, too, so to make the silly “I-A is an exclusive club” argument really isn’t germane to this particular issue.
Comment by Papa Lou BSU — May 15, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
45
This dispute reminds me of a one-liner I heard from the comedian, a former congressman, from
“Ask A Republican”….
Audience question–”Why does the government give tax breaks to Big Oil companies and no tax breaks for poor people, even when Oil prices are sky high and profits are at record levels?”
His reply….”Last time I checked, my car didnt run on poor people….next question….”
Comment by Mr. Pelican Pants — May 15, 2008 @ 2:01 pm
44
@42
Penn State Endowment: $1.4 Billion
Georgia Endowment: $572 Million
but…there are some things money can’t buy.
like pretty Penn State girls. *zing!
or: i would argue that the overall contribution to campus life of attractive females would make them a worthwhile investment, but apparently the state of Pennsylvania disagrees.
Comment by dawgaddict — May 15, 2008 @ 10:38 am
43
“But even those of us who love the spectacle probably ought to keep in mind that college athletics aren’t necessarily any more important than other aspects of campus culture and that many schools arguably over-allocate resources to sports based on their economic return and overall contribution to campus life.”
Heretic!
BTW- thanks, guys, for the riveting and hilarious lecture series. I’m sure I’ll mentally refer to it as Dr. Rennie Curran performs his first radical cleatectomy this fall.
Comment by Because They Can — May 15, 2008 @ 7:33 am
42
I didn’t go to Yale.
Penn State Endowment: $1.4 Billion
Georgia Endowment: $572 Million
Penn State is bettah.
Comment by aventius — May 14, 2008 @ 5:10 pm
41
#38
Harvard is bettah…lol
Comment by dawgaddict — May 14, 2008 @ 5:07 pm