Doosh alert article from The Athletic:
If Sanders proves to be successful at Colorado, obliterating rosters won’t be a one-off situation. It will become the new normal.
theathletic.com
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If Deion Sanders wins, scorched earth will become accepted strategy. That’s wrong.
There have been a number of fascinating storylines about Deion Sanders’ scorched-earth strategy at Colorado and upset of
TCU, not the least of which is that it has given everybody something to talk about at a time when opening weeks are generally dominated by ranked teams’ lopsided games against checkbook opponents.
But there is one topic worth addressing, and it pertains to the big picture of where college football might be going: If Sanders proves to be successful, is this actually a good thing for college football, or are you OK with rosters annually becoming as disposable as baby wipes? Because if he continues to win, this won’t be a one-off situation. This will become the new normal. An accepted abnormal.
Athletes are limited to a one-time transfer. But there is no limit to how many coaches can do this, or how often they can do this. Sanders theoretically could do it again, if this goes sideways in a year or two. It’s not like players have the protection of long-term contracts (yet). It’s not like college football teams have to deal with a salary cap (yet). It’s not college athletes have a union to protect them (yet).
You might think, “Oh, come on. No other coach will have the chutzpah or be empowered to do what Deion is doing.”
Really? Have you been paying attention?
This has been a dizzying and nauseating time in college athletics. School presidents had long ago proven themselves to be far more about revenue streams and media rights deals than academics. But they’ve mutated into some unrecognizable species with conference Armageddon. It’s Monopoly with 6-year-olds. University mission statements, written long ago in far more innocent times, now are less believable than anything crafted by the Grimms.
Some established football coaches, even those who’ve embraced the transfer portal to patch holes and improve their team, may not feel inclined to detonate their rosters to the extent Sanders did (86 new players! 57 transfers!). But some who believe their program is on the edge of spiraling might feel desperate enough to take that extreme leap — and they will be given the blessing to do so by their administration. Younger coaches seeking to climb the ranks quickly will follow Sanders’ blueprint. So will high-profile/celebrity-level former athletes who will convince themselves that they, too, can capitalize on their Q Scores and have success despite little or no coaching experience.
Sanders has been a human spotlight since his playing days at Florida State. He carried that into his pro careers in the NFL and major-league baseball. His celebrity status transcended the sports he competed in. Living and working in Atlanta, I had a close-up view of it when he played for the Falcons and Braves. It was similar to that of Michael Vick. It was similar to Fernando Valenzuela when I lived in Los Angeles. It’s similar now with Shohei Ohtani. Sanders was a polarizing figure as an athlete, but he commanded people’s attention like few I’ve ever seen. Young fans gravitated toward him. Young athletes still do. It’s one reason he was able to convince the nation’s No. 1 recruit, Travis Hunter, to come to Jackson State (and then follow him to Colorado).
Sanders made an HBCU program a mainstream media story. He made a moribund program from a Power 5 conference relevant in about five minutes. Other coaches will convince themselves they can do the same. Other athletic directors and presidents will let them do it. Because, money.
Are you good with that? This might just be the last surviving remnants of old-schoolness left in me thinking. But it seems like next-level absurdity. I fully endorse an athlete’s freedom of movement, and certainly the right to earn an income from their name. But as unstable as the college football landscape has become, it’s going to morph into a real-life cartoon if coaches are permitted to obliterate their rosters. And they will.
Think about all the players who might be at a program for two or three years and are then told to leave. To be clear, coaches have passive-aggressively run off athletes for years. “You want to stay? Fine. But you’re not playing next season. But, hey, your choice.” But it has never been done to this degree, never so publicly and brazenly. Even the spinning moral compasses of college football coaches had accepted limits. Sanders ended that.
In Sanders’ defense, he didn’t make the rules. He only exploited a situation that rules allowed for, even if many who love college football didn’t find it palatable.
There are positives worth pointing out. Sanders is a success story as an African American coach. College football needs that, as does the NFL. Winning can open the door for others to be given opportunities. Also, the Colorado story has resonated with sports fans. As a general rule, attention is a good thing.
If Sanders can make this work, he gives hope to struggling programs that otherwise believe there’s no path to success, that they can’t recruit and keep pace with other programs with greater resources. Everybody loves a shortcut.
But as much as tradition and so much of what makes college football great has been obliterated by conference changes, this seems so much worse. There needs to be a line somewhere. There needs to be some protection for players and some level of preservation of human decency. Because if Sanders wins, his scorched-earth strategy won’t be the exception. It will be the blueprint.