Marshall University football fans would be wise to attend the 2024 Green-White spring game.
Why?
It’s because this game at 4 p.m. Saturday in Joan C. Edwards Stadium is probably going to be the last of its kind.
That’s because the NCAA, in the wake of a U.S. District Court injunction issued in December, has decided to go ahead and change its rules to allow immediate eligibility no matter how many times an athlete transfers.
Starting on Tuesday, college football becomes an “all skate, everybody skate†enterprise. The rule change will allow college athletes to enter the portal and change schools — and play — every year as long as they maintain their academic eligibility.
It means that a wide receiver who put on a show for Marshall fans on Saturday might not be a member of the Herd when next season begins. He might be playing somewhere else. In fact, MU already has lost one player to the portal during spring camp.
It’s not going to be pretty, folks.
The bottom line is this question: Will any connection remain between athletics and academics? The answer to that is becoming very murky.
Remember when getting a degree was important? Now, it carries very little significance for a vast majority of athletes. Hey, many Division I athletes will be playing at five different schools in five different years. Does anybody actually believe those athletes are going to give a rat’s behind about a piece of paper called a diploma? Who cares if they graduate?
This is just all about the money.
That is the Pandora’s Box that has been opened by NIL, the transfer portal and government mandates. More or less, the government has decided that athletics are much more important than academics.
Let’s see how that works out.
One Power Four athletic director told CBS Sports, “Quite frankly, they don’t care. They care, but mobility and money is more important than graduation right now.â€
More or less, college athletics are going down the rabbit hole with Alice and the Mad Hatter. The tail is wagging the dog.
When has that ever worked well?
It is only a matter of time until this new laissez-faire legislation completely ruins college athletics as we once knew them.
And who is the big loser?
The fans, of course. How long can anybody realistically expect them to keep going through the turnstiles to watch players they’ve never heard of before? A player will be just a name on a jersey that fans don’t know.
And when 40 or 50 or 60 new, unknown players show up season after season, how long will it take fans to stop attending games? The partisan fans will become nonpartisan in a hurry.
Then what is that school’s athletic department going to do? Football is supposed to be the cash cow. What if it isn’t? What then?
This is the havoc that will be wreaked.
Remember when education was the goal in college and sports were just fun? Not anymore. A new day is dawning in collegiate athletics.
And it’s always darkest before the dawn.
