B1G Loser Mentality

[Mierin]

Well, under those guide lines, the entire football program is "not noble".  It's there for the fans to have fun and the the university to have media exposure and make money.  We give scholarships to players so they come and satisfy all of our needs.  None of that is any more "noble" than allowing a partial qualifier to come in and get qualified before he plays the sport.

If Landlord has a problem with partial qualifiers, he should have a problem with the entire program.

You don’t have to have a “problem” with something just because it’s not noble. The purpose of the partial qualifiers wasn’t to help kids it was to gain a competitive advantage, but that doesn’t need to bother people. It’s just not really something to brag about as if we were doing it for noble reasons. LL does seem to have a problem with it but he’s said a few times it’s not a big deal to him. 

You can also be a fan and care about the kids enough to want partial qualifiers to be a thing and hope it will be allowed even if the teams want it just to help win games. Which is how I feel about it. 

 

[Huskers93-97]

You don’t have to have a “problem” with something just because it’s not noble. The purpose of the partial qualifiers wasn’t to help kids it was to gain a competitive advantage, but that doesn’t need to bother people. It’s just not really something to brag about as if we were doing it for noble reasons. LL does seem to have a problem with it but he’s said a few times it’s not a big deal to him. 

You can also be a fan and care about the kids enough to want partial qualifiers to be a thing and hope it will be allowed even if the teams want it just to help win games. Which is how I feel about it. 

Is it possible Dr Tom thought he had a great competitive advantage and also thought hey I can help some kids who have not made good decisions to date and I can get them in my program and mentor them to be better. Everyone wins. 

So which is better for those kids? Getting in a D1 program with rules and expectations and earn your right on the team in a good environment or go to Juco? 

 

[Mierin]

Is it possible Dr Tom thought he had a great competitive advantage and also thought hey I can help some kids who have not made good decisions to date and I can get them in my program and mentor them to be better. Everyone wins. 

So which is better for those kids? Getting in a D1 program with rules and expectations and earn your right on the team in a good environment or go to Juco? 

I agree. It helped the team and also happened to help the kids. I’m fine with it happening but think all conferences should have the same rules. 

 

[BigRedBuster]

You don’t have to have a “problem” with something just because it’s not noble. The purpose of the partial qualifiers wasn’t to help kids it was to gain a competitive advantage, but that doesn’t need to bother people. It’s just not really something to brag about as if we were doing it for noble reasons. LL does seem to have a problem with it but he’s said a few times it’s not a big deal to him. 

You can also be a fan and care about the kids enough to want partial qualifiers to be a thing and hope it will be allowed even if the teams want it just to help win games. Which is how I feel about it. 

Agsin, how is that different than us giving a scholarship to any kid, especially a JUCO?  

This was available to all conference programs. You saying we only did it to gain an advantage is like saying the only reason we try to use all 85 scholarships is to gain an advantage, so it’s only to benefit us, not any of the kids. 

Sorry, that’s a goofy thought process. 

And, landlord has said he has a “slight” problem with it......which I fail to see why someone would have any problem with it. 

 

[Mierin]

Agsin, how is that different than us giving a scholarship to any kid, especially a JUCO?  

This was available to all conference programs. You saying we only did it to gain an advantage is like saying the only reason we try to use all 85 scholarships is to gain an advantage, so it’s only to benefit us, not any of the kids. 

Sorry, that’s a goofy thought process. 

It is the same concept, and it’s not goofy.

We are giving 85 scholarships with the goal of winning more games. It just so happens those scholarships also help the kids. If the goal was to help kids they would give them to those most in need with no regard for athletic ability. Teams aren’t giving scholarships out for some noble purpose. They’re doing it to win. It’s great the kids get something in return for helping the team win.

It’s not only a benefit to us, and that’s not what I’m saying nor is it what anyone else has said. But the #1 purpose for giving scholarships is to win. If we could win without doing that we wouldn’t give them. 

 

[BigRedBuster]

It is the same concept, and it’s not goofy. 

We are giving 85 scholarships with the goal of winning more games. It just so happens those scholarships also help the kids. If the goal was to help kids they would give them to those most in need with no regard for athletic ability. Teams aren’t giving scholarships out for some noble purpose. They’re doing it to win. It’s great the kids get something in return for helping the team win.

And....OBTW.....in the post I quoted he brought up a moral and ethical issue with it. 

So....he’s the one that implied there was something not moral or ethical about it. 

Which I fail to see. And....with your posts, it would then seem that the scholarship program is not moral nor ethical. 

 

[BigRedBuster]

I probably wouldn't have done it

This is the part you haven’t explained. 

What is wrong about it?

 

[Mierin]

And....OBTW.....in the post I quoted he brought up a moral and ethical issue with it. 

So....he’s the one that implied there was something not moral or ethical about it. 

Which I fail to see. And....with your posts, it would then seem that the scholarship program is not moral nor ethical. 

Gotcha on the first 2 paragraphs. I missed that part of his post(s).

You’re misunderstanding my posts if you think I think it’s unethical. Again, unethical and not noble are not the same things. Something can be done for selfish purposes without being unethical or immoral.

If someone has to do community service as a punishment, they are forced to go help people. They’re doing the community service so they don’t have to go to jail. So they are benefitting. At the same time, people in need are getting help. Both win. Nothing is immoral or unethical about it. But the person wasn’t doing community service until it benefitted them personally.

And please don’t respond saying I’m comparing UNL to criminals. I’m just trying to come up with a different way to explain what I’m saying. I’m sure there’s a way better example. Anything where someone does something to benefit themselves but at the same time it helps people, so both sides win. IMO there was nothing whatsoever wrong with using partial qualifiers even if the purpose is to win games and make $. I’m not anti capitalism. 

 

[Landlord]

It's another step on the slope of forsaking academics alltogether. College athletics, or at least football, is already on the brink of being a total sham academically (and at some schools already is), which I think is a disservice to those players and also the other players and other students who care about a quality education. Every factor you bring in that further places emphasis in the direction away from academics further cheapens the quality of the education for everybody. Think of it this way - let's say 43 players on the team were full academic qualifiers who had legitimate care for their studies, and 42 players on the team were partial qualifiers. The presence of HALF the team not being up to snuff causes the program and the university to create fake or hilariously easy class curriculums, extremely overbearing programs where tutors will do nearly everything except sign your name on your work, and also normalizes bad academic behavior which makes it easier to justify stricter or more time-intensive non-academic requirements (since the kids don't have to try at classes then we can take the 2 hours they should have for studying and make more mandatory weight room time). Now, is that fair to the players that actually want a quality education? Or is it fair to the players who will never make it pro, and even if they don't think they want a good education and are happy to skate by, but are left with no actual skillset after graduating? 

It's just one factor of many that pushes the entire structure of an organization slowly and further away from a valuable focus and service to the kids in the form of a quality education that sets them up well after they leave school.

Now, in contrast to that, there are a lot of good arguments for valuable opportunities for kids who deserve a chance or at least are willing to put in the work and prove that they can take it seriously and belong. Which I also think are legitimate, and which is why I hold my opinion very loosely and only slightly tipped in the direction of not being in favor.

 

[Huskers93-97]

It's another step on the slope of forsaking academics alltogether. College athletics, or at least football, is already on the brink of being a total sham academically (and at some schools already is), which I think is a disservice to those players and also the other players and other students who care about a quality education. Every factor you bring in that further places emphasis in the direction away from academics further cheapens the quality of the education for everybody. Think of it this way - let's say 43 players on the team were full academic qualifiers who had legitimate care for their studies, and 42 players on the team were partial qualifiers. The presence of HALF the team not being up to snuff causes the program and the university to create fake or hilariously easy class curriculums, extremely overbearing programs where tutors will do nearly everything except sign your name on your work, and also normalizes bad academic behavior which makes it easier to justify stricter or more time-intensive non-academic requirements (since the kids don't have to try at classes then we can take the 2 hours they should have for studying and make more mandatory weight room time). Now, is that fair to the players that actually want a quality education? Or is it fair to the players who will never make it pro, and even if they don't think they want a good education and are happy to skate by, but are left with no actual skillset after graduating? 

It's just one factor of many that pushes the entire structure of an organization slowly and further away from a valuable focus and service to the kids in the form of a quality education that sets them up well after they leave school.

I get all that. I think I miss how things used to be in a lot of aspects of life. But unfortunately times have changed and now it’s all about tv money and going pro. Honestly CFB has been trending more towards an NFL prep league than college. People want to pay them like a free 60-150k education is not good enough. I am sure lots of 40 year olds still paying theirs off would love to argue that one 

 

[JJ Husker]

Lord knows I've tried but you can't seem to see them on your screen or something. Sorry I can't help more and am quite disinterested in trying to keep explaining the same things over and over again about something I care so little about.

Here's how this conversation would have gone in a bar.

"Yeah idk, I mean I get the approach and it's no big deal, we weren't breaking the rules or anything and plenty of kids got valuable opportunities because of it so I'm glad for that but idk if it was something to necessarily feel good about. I probably wouldn't have done it but can't really knock anyone who did especially with no rules about it."

You don’t have to have a “problem” with something just because it’s not noble. The purpose of the partial qualifiers wasn’t to help kids it was to gain a competitive advantage, but that doesn’t need to bother people. It’s just not really something to brag about as if we were doing it for noble reasons. LL does seem to have a problem with it but he’s said a few times it’s not a big deal to him. 

You can also be a fan and care about the kids enough to want partial qualifiers to be a thing and hope it will be allowed even if the teams want it just to help win games. Which is how I feel about it. 

 The disconnect in this discussion is that @Landlord is the one who first mentioned the word noble. No one else is saying it was noble to use partial qualifiers. However, Landlord said it wasn’t noble and that he wouldn’t have done it. And he has completely failed to explain why he would not have used them other than his self determined idea of it needing to somehow be noble.  This is the only false dichotomy, or actually more of a straw man, I can find in this discussion.

So mental note...do not ever hire Landlord to run a collegiate sports program. He will/would not attempt to sign, completely within the rules, the best possible players and there would be no bonus benefit of giving some kids a chance at a higher education that they would not have otherwise had.

Edit- just read Landlord’s explanation of wholesale cheapening of academics. I suppose you can imagine those things might happen but I sure would like to see some proof that IS what happened due to TO’s use of partial qualifiers. As far as I’m aware Nebraska has not and did not go the route you seem to be concerned about. It’s one thing to say you don’t like the whole idea of partial qualifiers for those reasons but it’s another thing to say you wish TO wouldn’t have done it or that you would not have done it like TO did.

 

[cheekygeek]

Harvard's last national championship was in 1920.
Yale's was (I believe 1909)

Virtually all of the Ivy League "National Championships" were before the widespread adoption of football at universities across the country and before NCAA records were even kept. This is an example of how statistics are like bikinis. What they show you is revealing, but what they HIDE is VITAL.

 

[Salsa Red]

Great discussion guys. The main point I wanted to make on the thread is why does the B1G put itself in a voluntary disadvantage when most other conferences aren't. Look at the SEC and ACC, they push the limits of the rules and have not had any repercussions from the NCAA on its championships. I feel the B1G thinks itself too honorable to make the changes the other conferences have. Hopefully the new commissioner will change some of the league policy. NU already has geographic restrictions and the added B1G restrictions make things more difficult.

I just would like to see some kind of parity across the board. I'd also like to see the playoff committee have some more transparency, it seems that a cleaner record is more important than strength of schedule. You can't tell me OK had a tougher schedule than OSU last year, but few in the conference argued that they belonged in the playoff.

 

[runningblind]

Harvard's last national championship was in 1920.
Yale's was (I believe 1909)

Virtually all of the Ivy League "National Championships" were before the widespread adoption of football at universities across the country and before NCAA records were even kept. This is an example of how statistics are like bikinis. What they show you is revealing, but what they HIDE is VITAL.

It's called a joke dude.   :cheers

 

[JJ Husker]

Great discussion guys. The main point I wanted to make on the thread is why does the B1G put itself in a voluntary disadvantage when most other conferences aren't. Look at the SEC and ACC, they push the limits of the rules and have not had any repercussions from the NCAA on its championships. I feel the B1G thinks itself too honorable to make the changes the other conferences have. Hopefully the new commissioner will change some of the league policy. NU already has geographic restrictions and the added B1G restrictions make things more difficult.

I just would like to see some kind of parity across the board. I'd also like to see the playoff committee have some more transparency, it seems that a cleaner record is more important than strength of schedule. You can't tell me OK had a tougher schedule than OSU last year, but few in the conference argued that they belonged in the playoff.

You seem to have a couple preconceived notions that I'm not sure are accurate.

1- Is the B1G really at a disadvantage as far as championships are concerned? I think you would have to provide some pretty compelling evidence to prove that point. Bama and Clemson dominating recent history of CFB really isn't any kind of proof.

2- Has anybody really "changed" what they were doing to gain an advantage or is it just some slight variations in how different conferences have chosen to handle things?

3- And I'm struggling with your premise of national championships being used as the gold standard for exhibiting that a conference is best serving their student athletes or that they're near as important as you imagine them to be. Sure they're fun and nice and we want them but in the grand scheme they're really not all that important. It's better to turn out well rounded and educated people than to be some kind of farm system for professional sports. Why characterize what are honorable attributes as being "too honorable" and needing to change?

When we have a team worthy of a Natty we'll get it. The rules that make our conference better than others aren't and haven't precluded winning championships. Our past AD's and coaches and deteriorated culture have been the problem, not conference rules.