I wasn't aware that the athletes are restricted to 20 hours/week for required football-related activities to make sure that they put enough time into academics. On paper it sounds like a good idea especially for Cal players with their more demanding classes. But Barry Alvarez of Wisconsin wants it abolished. His reasoning is in the attached article. What are your thoughts?

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/wisconsins-alvarez-abolish-called-20-hour-rule-211637629--spt.html

He makes a great case about NCAA stupid rules:

Quote:

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''How do you keep track of [20 hours]?'' he said Wednesday. ''C'mon. Don't have rules that you can't enforce.

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The points about peer pressure and coaching pressure for "volunteer" training, film study, etc. are all too true.
Enforcing and strengthening the oversight and enforcement of academic progress would go a long way toward showing the athletes must also be students.

A rule requiring each player to have at least a 2.2 GPA overall and in season would be a better measure and put pressure on coaches to recognize academics. Would there be cheating? Does a Bear sh!t on a baby Tree in the woods.?

No major college player confines himself to 20 hours/ week during the season. This was a point of contention during the O'Bannon trial. Based on the evidence presented, the rule is laughable.

tenplay;842498732 said:

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I wasn't aware that the athletes are restricted to 20 hours/week for required football-related activities to make sure that they put enough time into academics. On paper it sounds like a good idea especially for Cal players with their more demanding classes. But Barry Alvarez of Wisconsin wants it abolished. His reasoning is in the attached article. What are your thoughts?

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/wisconsins-alvarez-abolish-called-20-hour-rule-211637629--spt.html

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Debating the 20 hour rule tugs on a thread that leads to the much larger issue of NCAA football's relationship to the NFL. It also leads to the issue of NCAA basketball's relationship to the NBA.

Alvarez has a point in saying there's no point to having an unenforceable rule. At the same time, abolishing the rule is really about continuing and strengthening the relationship where NCAA football functions as the minor leagues for the NFL.

Let's not kid ourselves that student-athletes would be better served by no rule at all. And let's also not kid ourselves that Alvarez is acting as a stalking horse for the university presidents and chancellors who couldn't possibly propose abolishing this rule without causing a controversy if not an uproar.

FiatSlug;842498797 said:

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Debating the 20 hour rule tugs on a thread that leads to the much larger issue of NCAA football's relationship to the NFL. It also leads to the issue of NCAA basketball's relationship to the NBA.

Alvarez has a point in saying there's no point to having an unenforceable rule. At the same time, abolishing the rule is really about continuing and strengthening the relationship where NCAA football functions as the minor leagues for the NFL.

Let's not kid ourselves that student-athletes would be better served by no rule at all. And let's also not kid ourselves that Alvarez is acting as a stalking horse for the university presidents and chancellors who couldn't possibly propose abolishing this rule without causing a controversy if not an uproar.

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I was thinking recently before the draft about all the analysis that is done on players. If you look at the list of "things that need fixing" for even elite college players, the list is huge. For example I was reading about one of the top receivers and the writer was saying he needs to adjust his hand position when he catches the ball. I was wondering why, if this is so important, didn't his college coaches fix this then realized that they only have a small amount of time to coach on the field, so they probably are only worried about making sure they understand plays and general techniques. You also see guys get a lot stronger when they are on a pro team. There is a good article by Matt Bowen about rookies and how they are almost never ready for the rookie camps and OTA's. My point here is that if the NCAA takes away the time limit, the college programs will quickly be changed to be more like a pro team, where football is a 7x24 thing for them to do (it's a job, not a hobby) and the college programs become even more of a minor league for the NFL.

Meh Alvarez is a putz. He should just lobby for limiting school work because that's the next logical step after killing the 20 hour rule.

So if schooling is killing the sport, then kill the distraction...or kill the sport.

tenplay;842498732 said:

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I wasn't aware that the athletes are restricted to 20 hours/week for required football-related activities to make sure that they put enough time into academics. On paper it sounds like a good idea especially for Cal players with their more demanding classes. But Barry Alvarez of Wisconsin wants it abolished. His reasoning is in the attached article. What are your thoughts?

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/wisconsins-alvarez-abolish-called-20-hour-rule-211637629--spt.html

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The 20 hours covers direct contact (coaches and staff). Of course the kids put in more (film, conditioning, self-practice sessions, etc...). I think the rule is there to protect the kids from an Alvarez-type coach that would demand significantly more time directly committed to football. For the vast majority of kids playing DI football, they really are student-athletes, not athlete-students. They need that protection because for virtually all of them "they are going professional in something other than football" and that degree is more important than the W-L record.

that rule would put more pressure on certain "professors" to grade inflate.

4 hours a day 5 days a week of mandated organized football practice is a totally reasonable rule.

And it is totally reasonable to expect highly paid AD's (such as Alvarez), NCAA and Conference executives to be able to enforce such a rule.

Players don't need extra mandated classes from the S&C coach to lift weights or run. The same goes for assistant coaches leading mandated daily classes on the study of film tapes. Provide the facilities, the resources, the initial training and student athletes should be able to do this extra athletic work and game studying on their own time as they see fit. Much like how real students at Cal and Wisconsin manage their free time to study at the Library.

The simple answer is to have these highly paid administrators do their jobs and enforce the rules. It's not that difficult to do or regulate. But what Alvarez is advising is a Race to the Bottom. Shame on this multi-millionaire state University administrator for daring to advocate such an argument.