Contrast it with how talent flows in baseball
and professional football. Both NFL and
Major league baseball teams get to choose the best talent available from
colleges, high schools and elsewhere, based on their performance. The worst performing teams get to make the
first choices when it comes time for the annual ‘drafting’ of players. Eventually, the bad teams get better players
and the top teams don’t have early choices of recruits, unless they ‘trade’ for
them. Watch and see how the NFL’s
Detroit Lions, whose awful 2021 performance earns them top choices,
improve. Same thing for baseball’s
cellar dwellers. Eventually, they will rise to the top, or at least become
contenders.
Not so with college football. Rating agencies regularly rank the top
players in high school and prep school teams throughout the nation. Colleges know who they are. Some parents
actually move their ball-playing sons to different secondary schools to better
display their talents. This is common in places like Florida where they can get away with it. But unlike in the two major sports mentioned
above, MBL and the NFL, the worst-performing college programs don’t have the first choice. It’s just a matter of who can best recruit
the five-star and four-star rated high school players, all of whom dream of a
career in the NFL, giving them millionaire status, which explains parental
involvement.
It is that dream that drives them to the top teams in the five major conferences, and the best chances of being on TV week after week and making it to the NFL or even being in contention for the Heisman trophy, awarded to the top college football player each year. And new rules, allowing college football players to commercialize their names and make a profit from it do not help. A firm will pay for an endorsement of their product by someone who plays for Clemson, but not usually for a player from Western Kentucky University.
The
top talent goes to the schools that already have it, the Michigans, the Ohio
States, the Clemsons, the Oklahomas, the Alabamas, the Georgias, the Notre Dames, etc. The rest of the teams get the leftover high
school athletes and, however talented they may be, they end up playing for the
losers in these conference like Vanderbilt, Arizona, Boston College, or in less
prestigious conferences. The teams at
the bottom do not get the top rising talent.
Those already on top get them. And
that’s why they stay on top, year after year.
Oh, they try to blame the coaches and fire and hire them, but most coaches
know what to do to produce a winner, but to do that, they have to have
top-level recruits. Most teams do not.
There are about 64 really serious college programs
in the five major football conferences and about another dozen more in lesser
conferences. There are many hundreds of
high school athletes carrying five-star, four-star and three-star ratings for which
these colleges all compete in offering scholarships in the recruiting race.
In my opinion, the top ranked college teams in
these programs (the SEC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12 and the PAC) and a few, very few,
others should be limited in the number of these top prospects to whom they may
offer scholarships. The perennial losers,
the Vanderbilts, should have first crack at recruiting them, with the perennial
winners, like Alabama, ‘handicapped’ in the recruiting race. An example might be to limit conference
winners or runners-up to no five-star recruits at all and only two or three
four-star and three-star ones. Then and
only then will we see schools like Stanford, Maryland, Texas Tech and
Vanderbilt consistently fielding winning teams and playing in the major bowl
games determining the college national football champion. All it would take is
this change in the flow of talent to these teams.
If this doesn’t happen, college football will
continue to be no more than a collection of a few really good teams akin to
baseball’s Triple A level. The rest
won’t matter. Look at the attendance at
their games. And that is why college
football is going down the tube, unless, of course, you’re satisfied with the
Mid America and the Sunbelt Conferences.
And the same thing, really, holds true for college basketball but with many more teams and conferences involved, making it more complicated. Do you think that Duke, Gonzaga, UCLA and Baylor won't be among the top seeds in the NCAA March tourney this year and next year and the year after as well? Don’t bet on that!
And speaking of betting, the legalization in many States and online of wagering on college sports cannot be ignored. (There are a lot of money-hungry hoopsters out there who don't remember the scandals of the late 1950's and 1960's.)
JL
* * *
Advice for Democrats and Praise (?) for Mitch
Mitch McConnell just announced that the
Republicans will not have an issue-oriented platform for the 2022 Congressional
races. They will limit their campaign to just attacking Democrats. That is very smart because their position on
issues, if it were announced, would lose them support.
Opposing abortion, protecting the January 6
insurrectionists and those who instigated the attack, voting against measures
which would help people of color (particularly in voting), against measures that would reinforce women’s
rights and opposing measures to combat climate change (despite unprecedented
fires and floods) are not the ways to gain votes. Neither is fighting any
increase in health care benefits. So they will just continue attacking
Democrats with repeated lies, led by the King of Liars, the former president.
That is very smart strategy. Their base is ignorant and gullible enough to
feast on “Let’s Go Brandon” and such nonsense.
It goes over big with them. The
Big Lie about stolen elections in 2020, while totally fictitious, has had its
effect on the voting population, who increasingly show distrust of the election
process, in fact, of democracy. This is
what the Democrats are up against and Republicans love.
The Democrats should play the
same game and put most issues (except passing voting rights legislation) on the
back burner. They should devote their campaign to attacking Republicans who
have a documented record of consistently voting against measures which are in
the best interest of most Americans and particularly persons of color and
women.
Attacking almost all Republicans’
record of such voting should help mobilize the vast number of voters among
persons of color and women, absolutely essential to maintaining Democratic
control of both Houses of Congress in 2022.
|
And this goes for State legislative and
governorship races as well (where it all starts) Nothing else really matters. There is no other way to
save democracy in our country. Nancy,
Chuck, Joe …. Listen to me! Please! JL |
JL
* * *
 |
| US Embassy in Havana, no longer in use. |
Havana Syndrome Debated
Bari Weiss’ Substack blog “Common Sense” just
included an opinion piece on the Havana Syndrome, said to be affecting some of
our diplomatic employees which some contend is real and other say is not. It includes both sides. It’s long, but worth reading. Find it at:
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-attacks
JL
* * * * *
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