Maybe instead of telling these kids it is okay to just focus on football there should be a larger point to be more well rounded and have a desire to learn/better yourself because football never lasts forever. Instead people give them the excuse that if they don't succeed at school that is fine, just don't go. I would prefer the first option but that is just me.
Unfortunately when kids are "given" something, like a scholarship, they take it for granted and trash it when a lot of them are making similar money to NFL practice squad guys and more than the average graduate at their school (based on about $55,000 it takes to go to a place like CU).
To top it all off this comes from a spoiled, entitled kid like Rosen so it just sort of comes across as complaining rather than trying to start a conversation. Obviously I am admitting my personal bias with that so part of my interpretation of his comments is wrong, but still.
To start with I don't think it is fair to say that a kid is "given" a scholarship, very few people are so naturally talented that they don't have to work their butts off to earn that scholarship and then work their butts off to keep it.
The issue comes with how they see it and what they do with it. I have heard recruits and players talk about how HCMM puts an emphasis on getting a degree, can't remember much of that same sentiment coming out of kids about Bama or FSU. At some schools the pitch to recruits, every recruit, is that we can make you an NFL player, that is where the focus is.
We can be certain that a lot of kids who go to USC or Oregon look at how many draft picks they had in prior years but it does seem that the PAC12 in general does a better job of trying to give kids the opportunity to be student-athletes instead of just players.
Rosen can come across as an elitist punk but I think beyond the surface he is a pretty smart guy and he has taken the opportunities he has and worked hard to take advantage of them. The point might seem more appropriate coming from some poor kid from the ghetto but that doesn't mean that Rosen can't or shouldn't be making it. His background and position make it more significant because he doesn't have to be the one doing it.
As far as an alternate path to the NFL in some cases it may make sense. As we have discussed in other forums on this board not every kid is cut out for the traditional college path. A lot of good athletes never make it into college ball (and almost all of these don't make it into the pros) because they don't qualify academically.
I don't think the alternate pro league will make it, football is much to expensive to operate and make a profit without a strong market for it.
What I could see potentially happening which would benefit both the NFL and the kids is the forming of a kind of super JUCO league. A small number of JUCOs that play each other at a very high level of competition. Players could either RS and spend 3 years there or do a combination of two years at the school and spend a season working in a developmental gym like McChesneys sixzero to prepare for the draft and NFL camp.
Instead of taking classes toward a degree that they have no intention of completing and may not have the academic skill and desire to pass they could do their coursework in a trade which would give them a quality option should as it does for most, football not work out supporting them the rest of their lives.
