dave mcbride

Dog, they are a terrible, terrible organization.

They are a terrible organization. This is no longer an opinion.

UCLA had a bad season last year because their very good QB went down with an injury halfway through the season. It happens. They'll never win a national championship because frankly the donors and alumni really don't care that much about football there (trust me). A three- or two-loss season is the best they'll ever do. Anyway, this is turning into a crusade (e.g., impressionistic anecdotes about campus beauty to make your "side" look better plus the childish name calling). I'm out.

You do realize that this list *only* includes teams in last year's top 25 teams in the AP ranking, right?!? UCLA - as well as Northwestern, Duke, and UVA -- didn't finish in the top 25. Sheesh.

Nice. Btw, my wife alerted me to the original bleacher report piece, which espn cribbed from and sensationalized a bit (surprise, surprise). http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2722587-josh-rosen-qa-ucla-qb-on-injuries-ncaa-and-post-nfl-goal-to-own-the-world?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=programming-national

You're making me like him more with this link. But I'm with C. Biscuit - if Incognito (a guy who was a wretched human not long ago) blocks well and refrains from felonies, I'm on board.

10 on his wonderlic. Just sayin'. Travis Henry and CJ Spiller are the relevant Bills comparables w/regard to that specific score. moreover, unless it's catastrophic, ACL injuries are 9 month injuries now.

Be careful - you're setting the lowest of low bars here. Plenty of knuckle dragging mouth breathers have gone to Bama over the years. Moreover, you're wrong. Ragland got a 10, which is the high bar on your link: http://wonderlictestsample.com/nfl-wonderlic-scores/ . And Reuben Foster got a 9! Travis Henry got a 9 and Spiller a 10. Finally, whether it's 10th worst or 25th worst, 9s and 10s on the Wonderlic are truly horrible scores. It basically means you're functionally illiterate.

Let's see how he looks this year before jumping to conclusions. If he' turns it and becomes a helluva player, I frankly don't give a damn what he thinks about the college system. I just want to win, preferably with non-felons.

Um, Watson majored in communications, which is sociology by another name (I speak from authority - my daughter is majoring in it). In terms of rigor, there isn't a dime's worth of difference at a place like Clemson. In many places, sociology is exceptionally rigorous (given its powerful intellectual tradition), and more rigorous than communications.

I do think that Clemson gets a lot of guys who really aren't fit for college. (Cough cough ... CJ Spiller.) Rosen would definitely have been right about that if he said it (which he didn't). The same goes for FSU.

... And to lighten the mood here a little bit, I felt compelled to add this: http://deadspin.com/kitty-on-the-field-fights-cardinals-employee-inspires-1797702195

Alabama is a good school. Ironically given how this discussion has gone, the school owes a lot to the football program, which has been a key driver of its improvement. The program hands over incredible amounts of money to the school. Yes, some of that goes to Saban's incredibly high salary ($7 million), but the surplus is generally plowed back into the university's academic programs.

Good one! I forgot about him. He was a novelty back in the day. Good player.

Great stuff. Thanks!

It is for all intents and purposes a requirement. I can't think of one player in the NFL who didn't get there through the college system.

As a university (importantly, I'm including graduate programs), UCLA and Michigan are heads and shoulders above Vanderbilt; above Northwestern; and below Berkeley. And what I'm saying here is the conventional wisdom, for whatever that is worth. Vanderbilt is a phenomenal undergraduate institution and I don't mean to demean it at all. But if you have a PhD in, say, political science from Michigan, you are far more likely to get a job as a professor than if your PhD is from Vanderbilt. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/03/study-examines-trends-phd-programs-produce-political-science-professors I realize we are talking about undergrads here, of course.

Again, huh? Law is a classic academic pursuit that requires a fair amount of knowledge of history, political science, philosophy, and - if you do corporate law - at least some math. Football has nothing to do with anything remotely intellectual. They are not in the same universe. Football is not school. Law school is "school." Also: you're reiterating the shut-up-and-don't-ever-voice-dissent approach to the issue.

Huh??? Football has ZERO to do with academic learning. Football and, say, engineering or comparative literature are not in the same universe. If you want to be an engineer or historian, you better damn well go to college. And rightly so. You appear to be relying on a "that's the way it's always been done" argument punctuated with resentment towards people you believe are spoiled for offering a dissenting voice about what in my view is an essentially corrupt system.

Fair point, but I don't think it's right to jump on the rare person who does raise the issue. It is real and his argument is logical, even if it's also true that NFL players make a lot of money. The working conditions for being a football player encompass more than just the paying part of the career - they also include the apprenticeship path. It's particularly relevant when said apprenticeship is an ironclad requirement for eventual payment. Re 2: so you're saying it's not ok to point out problems because it has been that way forever? "That's the way it's always been done" is not an argument.

Tons of college football players thank god publicly and demonstratively after every freaking game and often credit their victories to God. I find it highly irritating, but whatever. I don't hold it against them and don't treat it as an attention grab. But more to the point, how is that not expressing one's opinion about religion?

Your quote: "If football is stopping him from pursuing his degree of choice, why doesn't he pursue an easier one while he is playing or stop playing? He could easily pursue whatever degree he wants when he's done playing football." Rosen never said that football is stopping him from pursuing the degree of his choice. Never. http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/20284353/josh-rosen-ucla-bruins-says-football-school-go-together-ponders-alabama-success-sat-requirement-raised He is talking about the broader system. College football is a star-building system. The league receives a large slew of ready-made stars every draft day.

So no one is ever supposed to complain about working conditions or career path requirements even if they don't make much sense. They should just shut up, never complain, and pretend that the big-time D1 college football system is the best system that there ever was.

Huh?? If someone is extremely talented at football but none too bright, they still should have a chance to apply their skills and be remunerated for it provided an organization that is willing to pay him. Or are you saying that a person who by every physical measure is a fit for professional football should forego that career path because he isn't good at college and instead ply his skills in a pizza parlor? Because that's the alternative if he doesn't go to college. No one can play in the NFL without going to college. That makes zero sense to me. That's not what he said AT ALL. Sheesh.

I dunno. I am more familiar with D1 college baseball, and they play upwards of 60 games per year and practice pretty intensely all fall and travel far and wide. It's tough to handle both, but obviously many do. I do think it's more demanding than holding a job and attending school, for what it's worth. Actually, if you want to play football professionally, you ARE forced to play football and go to college. There is no other option. That's not debatable.