The Miami Scandal Aftermath, or How I Would Fix College Football

What has happened to College football?

First it was SMU and now the University of Miami is awaiting it's day at the gallows. It seems that with every year the allegation's and unfortunately the results are worse than the last. Once proud universities like SMU, USC, Miami, and even Ohio State are left without a football program or smeared with a black eye that no amount of wins or crystal football trophies can fully clear away.

So what do we do about it? ESPN has been running a promo for the past week displaying their panel of experts talking about fixing college football. Unfortunately, I was not invited to this party but don't you worry that doesn't mean I am without an opinion on this topic.

Now let it be known that I did not play any college sports and am certainly no economist, but let's suspend some reality for a moment and let me lay down at least one brief idea on how to possible fix this very very broken system.

The problems seem to come from the fact that the "student athlete" doesn't feel like they are compensated enough for their actions. This has lead many "student athletes" to reach out to other means of income like dealing with boosters, agents, or selling memorabillia to your friendly neighborhood tattoo artist.

The problem with allowing boosters and agents around young impressional "student athletes" is that every booster and every agent has their own agenda, and ultimately looking at the athletes as a client or a product (something they plan to make money off of). But what if the agents where hired by the universities? My idea would be for each university to have a designated number or range of agents (depending on the size of the team or popularity of the team) working directly for them.

Each agent would be responsible for a set of "student athletes" or a set of positions and would be responsible for insuring that not only do the "student athletes" attend practice and classes but are also set up with a schedule of off the field activities that they can be slightly compensated for (these activities could be a meet & greet or autograph session or along the lines of that). The agents for the bigger name "student athletes" could demand more compensation for their "student client" and would hopefully play everything by the books as they would be hired directly by the university.

This clearly is not the solution to save all of college football but maybe it's a start.

What do you think? Where are the flaws? would you be ok with agents working directly for your university? How would you fix the problem? More importantly do you think there is a problem with College football?

O-H