(Parenthetical) Thoughts About Power-5 Conferences Autonomy

By Ben Kercheval , Featured Columnist &

(Whitecorner, Parenthetical Columnist. Those’ll be the ones in parentheses! Get it?)

Aug 8, 2014

Saying that major college athletics is about to change forever is no longer a hyperbolic statement. Rather, such change is far closer to reality than it's ever been. (WOW, what a revelation!)
On Thursday, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors voted 16-2 in favor of a new governance model that would give the so-called power-five conferences—the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC—an unprecedented level of legislative autonomy. (So it looks like the inmates are gonna start runnin’ the asylum! Yer Power 5 conferences, aka – the schools with all the walkin’ around money, are gonna start makin’ their own rules so that payin’ players above and beyond the traditional scholarship is now legal. This way they won’t have to go to such lengths to cover up pay’em under the table! You know?...this could be a good thing. Think about how much more time’ll be spent coachin’ football than tryin’ to figure out how to not get caught transferin' the $5,000 from Terd Ferguson’s Chevy dealership into the account of the daddy, preacher, uncle, or cousin of yer future Heisman trophy winner who, BTW, hadn’t pissed a drop in a college football practice, much less a game!)

Thought I was kiddin' about Terd Ferguson, didn'tcha?

NCAA President Mark Emmert expressed his satisfaction with the vote in a statement: “I am immensely proud of the work done by the membership. The new governance model represents a compromise on all sides that will better serve our members and, most importantly, our student-athletes. These changes will help all our schools better support the young people who come to college to play sports while earning a degree”. (What the hell else is Emmert gonna say? He’s as impotent and powerless as the current President of the United States and sounds exactly like’em when he says crap that, no matter what the outcome, sounds like it was just the result he was lookin’ for! The Power 5 coulda voted to move to Ethopia and Emmert woulda made it sound like it was his idea! Good grief!) Should it pass a veto period, new legislation could be put into place in time for the 2015-16 academic year. What does it all mean? Here are some initial takeaways from Thursday's monumental news.

1. This Is Only the First Step

As mentioned above, the vote is subject to a 60-day veto period before the new governance model can become official. Per John Infante of AthleticScholarships.net, "75 override requests would trigger the override process while 125 would table the proposal and keep it from becoming effective while that process goes on."According to Dan Wolken of USA Today, "It is not expected enough schools will submit an override to put the legislation in jeopardy." (What school or group of schools is stoopid enough to disagree with the Power 5 mafia? They know if they do, someone's gonna end up sportin' a pair of those proverbial cement slippers at the bottom of the East River or cut up in a garbage bag in the Okeefeenokee swamp!)

Still, the road to autonomy is not completely paved. Among the items on the agenda (via Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com) are full cost of attendance, expenses and benefits, insurance and eligibility. Figuring out cost of attendance, widely considered to be the front-burner issue of autonomy, is still in its early stages, according to Wolken. Furthermore, it's guaranteed that there will be disagreement among power-five members about how to calculate it. (NO SHIT! That is priceless! I never woulda thunk that Texas, Alabama, LSU, and the like are gonna disagree on some paltry sum to pay their athletes… I mean, student athletes?? This just means yer Power 5 get a $5000 no harm, no foul card while the rest of the money their young scholars'll be receivin'll have to be transferred the old fashioned way… through Terd Ferguson’s Chevy dealership. Can you say bye, bye NCAA and hello NPAA, National Professional Athletic Association?)

A key addition—"Any amendment is subject to approval by a five-conference presidential group before consideration by the full voting group"—could make passing legislation complicated. In an interview with Jon Solomon of CBSSports.com, Nathan Hatch, Division I board chairman and president at Wake Forest, said the process for introducing legislation could take months: 

Now comes the heavy lifting. The next step is the five major conferences creating a process for them to introduce and vet their own legislation. The Power 5 will submit their own legislation for consideration by Oct. 1 that could be adopted at the January NCAA convention for 2015-16. There will be two ways to pass new rules: Get 60 percent of all the votes from 65 school representatives and 15 athletes plus a simple majority from three of the Power 5 conferences; or get 51 percent of the votes and a simple majority from four of the five Power 5 conferences.

So while autonomy essentially splits Division I in half, the steps that tend to slow the NCAA legislation process are still very much at play. That could lead to apprehension even within power-five conferences to go forward with it. (These last coupla paragraphs are s’posed to make us feel like the Power 5 boys are reinin’ themselves in, like they’re the paradigm of self-discipline; all while their ridin’ high in the irons and goin’ to the whip down the back stretch.)

2. Yes, There's a Recruiting Benefit; Yes, That Already Existed
NO SHIT, AGAIN! Refer to Terd Ferguson’s Chevy/Money Launderin' operation above!

A common point about autonomy is that it will widen the gap between the so-called "haves" and "have-nots" of college athletics. If power-five schools can provide their players with additional money every month, you can bet that's going to be a recruiting boost. This is all true, but that gap already existed. (NO SHIT, NUMERO TRES! See Terd’s Chevy yet again. Ya know, we may wanna think about buyin’ a Silverado LTZ Crew Cab 4x4 from Ol’ Terd. He’s gonna need some extra cabbage to grease all these young, money-cravin’ hard-ons and keep his 50 yard line seats in Doak Campbell)

According to the 247Sports.com composite rankings, only three teams not currently in a power-five conference finished with a top-50 recruiting class over the past five years: BYU (2010), Cincinnati (2011) and South Florida (2014).

A glance through USA Today's annual list of college athletic finances show plenty of familiar, blue-blood names at the top: Texas, Alabama, Michigan, Oregon and so on. With roughly $64.5 million in revenue in 2013, UNLV is the highest rated "Group of Five" program at No. 46 (Who woulda thunk UNLV coulda come up with that kinda cake in the middle of a desert? Amazin'!)

Many power programs have resources (aka – Terd’s Chevy Laundry) other programs don't. It's just the way the (under the table) setup is. If autonomy passes, power-five programs will vote on legislation that they feel more directly applies to them. The recruits who go there will benefit. (NS, like these teenage, boneheads weren’t gettin’ paid before? I’m just gonna abbreviate NO SHIT from now on since it seems to be appropriate commentary after all the profundities we’re bein’ treated to by Mr. Kercheval!)

3. Athletes Will Have a Slightly Bigger Voice (HAHA!!)

A driving factor behind Northwestern players pushing for unionization this spring was that they didn't feel their voices were being heard. A union would be compartmentalized—Northwestern's union applied to scholarship players at a private university—and tough to get trending nationally because of right-to-work states, but it also pushed the conversation of player rights forward. (As usual, the gutless NCAA knuckles under with just the threat of havin’ to deal with that little band of Chicago, Jimmy Hoffa, college football, union thugs. This Association is on the way to extinction of their own volition as long as they continue backpedalin' every time some bully draws a little line in the school yard sand.)

Before that, players didn't have much of a voice. That will change under the new NCAA governance structure, albeit ever so slightly. The new board will include the chair of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. That at least means student-athletes will have a voice at the table. (That’s one player representative voice, so they still don’t have a say. At least they’ll believe somebody’s representin’ so maybe that’ll shut’em up for a while so they can go back to playin’ ball and maybe attend a class or two.)

How influential that voice is remains to be seen (It’ll have ZERO influence. Saban’ll have a little chat with said player rep in the coat closet before the first meetin’ and that, as they say, u’ll be that.) In the long term, this may not change much as far as athletes driving the conversation about topics like compensation and player safety (NSS, that’s Sherlock on the end this time, just to change it up.) The new governance structure would feature a 24-member board, only one member of which would represent student-athletes. (That’s 1 outta 24 Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., Congrats on yer seat at the conference tableau!)

Is it an improvement? Absolutely (What Jim Jones flavora kool-aid are you drinkin'?  Improved what?? The ease with which the first $5K gets expedited into a kids pocket? Have Nick and his SEC boys already had "the talk" with ya?) Will the lawsuits over concussions and money end? It depends on whether the NCAA makes players feel like their voices are heard as loudly as they should be. (The answer is a big, “HELL NO” to lawsuits bein' over as long as there's money to be made and lawyers prowl the earth.) 

4. This is Not a Precursor to Splitting From the NCAA
(PUHLEESE! This is such an obvious trial run! It’s as if the Power 5 were datin’ other women with the wife’s permission with her knowin’ all the while she’s just one good date away from gettin’ dumped for the next hottie in the fish nets, mini skirt, and CFM pumps!)

Despite the popular narrative, autonomy doesn't mean that the NCAA is limping into the woods to die. (The NCAA as it currently exists?… means exactly that! They may be dead already and no one's bothered to tell'em.) SEC Commissioner Mike Slive pushed that narrative when threatening to abandon the NCAA in favor of a "Division 4" model if autonomy didn't pass. Obviously, that would be a moot point if autonomy survives the veto period, but as Wolken tweets, it's also impractical: 

As much as college football's power brokers lament the current system publicly, they've shown before they couldn't stand to live without it. In January 2013, the NCAA adopted numerous proposals designed to deregulate recruiting rules—with Emmert's backing—that were generally viewed as unenforceable. Less than a month later, Big Ten coaches and athletic directors issued a statement asking that a few of the proposals be re-examined. 

Sure enough, the pushback put the proposals under further consideration, much to Emmert's dismay. 

The point being, no matter how much the NCAA membership attempts to change the rules, or the process for developing the rules, the fact of the matter is that they need the rules. (It’s gonna be fun to watch this train wreck. The short of it is the Power 5 are draggin’ the NCAA kickin’ & screamin’ into the professional sports world while continuin' to hide behind the “Student-Athlete” label. Their still gonna pay whatever they wanna pay’em, but now some of it’ll be “legal” accordin’ to the Power 5 rule book. Simple as that.)

Could autonomy lead to another split down the road, either by power conferences or non-power conferences? (Yer damn skippy, it's gonna happen!) According to Infante, an NCAA expert, that's absolutely possible. (NS) When and how that would happen is unpredictable. (NS, but I’m bettin’ sooner than later) But breaking away from the NCAA simply isn't an option. (HUH?? Who are you kiddin’?)


This was just a little warmup session to get you semi Edge-U-Mah-Cated about this “Power 5” power grab. I’ve got another angle they may wanna try. I'll post it in my next blog.