Is the “Year of Readiness” Proposal an Attack on the SEC?
By Scotty Nola
The sneakiest political maneuvers always sound wonderful. They are labeled in ways that make them seem high minded, selfless, and plainly for the public good.
Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney’s latest attempt to make the not Ohio State teams in his conference competitive is no different.
The proposal Delaney is circulating is called “A Year of Readiness” and on the surface it is being presented as a pro student athlete plan.
Give the players a year to acclimatize to school, get used to classes, start working on their degree. The saintly men who are forwarding the plan are even willing to make the sacrifice of paying for scholarships for an ineligible year.
How noble is that?
What they don’t talk about is which programs will be most affected by this. Not Big Ten schools, of course. You see, not that many freshmen play in the Big Ten.
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There’s a simple reason for this: lack of NFL talent at Big Ten schools.
They consistently recruit subpar athletes who need a redshirt year to develop. Since they don’t have nearly as many 3 and out NFL prospects they don’t need the freshman to play early.
You are probably starting to get a real clear picture right about now. Top flight recruits are more capable of playing as freshmen.
Who gets the most top recruits? The SEC does.
And schools that put players into the NFL early have more roster holes to fill and NEED freshmen contributors to fill the gap.
Who puts the most players in the NFL? That’s right, the SEC does.
LSU fans know this routine well. Last spring we put one of the largest groups of players ever drafted into the NFL in one year.
Last fall we had to play a lot of freshmen and still struggled with lack of depth. Without freshmen contributors Les Miles would have barely been able to field a team.
Oct 11, 2014; Gainesville, FL, USA; LSU Tigers safety Rickey Jefferson (29) running back Leonard Fournette (7) and defensive back Tre’Davious White (16) celebrate after they beat the Florida Gators at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. LSU Tigers defeated the Florida Gators 30-27. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
“A Year of Readiness” will remove a potent recruiting tool from SEC powerhouses, the possibility of playing right away. It will also gut the top SEC teams of depth.
There is no clear evidence that “A Year of Readiness” will benefit a single student athlete. They will still live in football dorms, eat in a special area, lift weights and go to practice with the team.
They won’t suddenly have time off to start studying more or otherwise enrich their student lives. The teams that need to play them, the top NFL producers, will be hamstrung by this proposal.
Since a majority of those teams are currently in the SEC it’s clear that this proposal is part of the ongoing off the field backlash against SEC success……