“What everybody’s starting to realize now is that, for 60-70 years, the NCAA had kept the playing field level in (almost) every regard, every measure,” Barnett noted. “(Those) leveling factors have been removed. And now, (university) presidents can’t hide, chancellors can’t hide, behind field-leveling rules.
“Now each school decides at what level they want to play at. Because it means changing your admission standards and especially, now, transfer standards. It means (determining whether to) pay kids and how much you want to pay them. So that every president, every school now has to decide, ‘OK, at what level do I want to play college football?’”