The Associated Press obtained a letter sent from Pac-12 university presidents to their colleagues in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC pushing a greater sense of urgency in making sweeping changes to the NCAA model to give more autonomy to “Big Five” schools.
Spurred by Northwestern’s unionization vote, the Pac-12 presidents want to get out of in front of the concerns raised by Kain Colter and the NLRB. The letter, in part, reads:The complete list of proposals in the letter are in the AP story, but a few jumped out:
— Decrease the demands placed on the athlete in-season, correspondingly increase the time available for studies and campus life, by preventing the abuse of organized “voluntary” practices to circumvent the limit of 20 hours per week and more realistically assess the time away from campus and other commitments during the season.
— Similarly decrease time demands out of season by reducing out-of-season competition and practices, and by considering shorter seasons in specific sports.
— Further strengthen the Academic Progress Rate requirements for postseason play.
— Liberalize the current rules limiting the ability of student-athletes to transfer between institutions.
The first two there would seem to be designed to provide student-athletes with more time both in and out of season for studying, though perhaps those “voluntary” workouts are so ingrained in college football’s culture that curbing them would be difficult. The same goes for weight training, conditioning, film study, etc. -- unless someone is monitoring what a player does 24/7, it’ll be impossible to tell that player to not focus on football outside of practice.
In short: Players still may find a way to spend 40-60 hours a week on football, even if there’s a mandate against it.
Strengthening the APR requirements for postseason play could get interesting -- Oklahoma State became the first power conference school to lose practice time due to a poor APR. Programs that don’t place as much emphasis on academics may have to ... or they could find loopholes and ways to skate by to stay bowl eligible.
The last one would be a much-welcome change. However that liberalization of the transfer rules would manifest itself, it’d likely be for the better.
There’s more in the letter -- more money and longer guarantees for scholarships, extended medical care, allowing some form of agent contact -- that the Pac-12 presidents are pushing. They hope to receive responses by June 4 and continue to move quickly on these issues.