Which is a valid way to see things as well! But man, if in my lifetime I could see multiple national titles for OSU, those middle years of meh or worse wouldn’t seem as bad to me, since I would be able to have the hope that ‘this year could be the year that we win it’. Again, difference of perspective!
This conversation reminds me of Chuck Klosterman’s parlor game “Hypertheticals.”
You should pick it up if you like talking through “would you rather” situations.
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I would absolutely not make that trade. Sustained relevance is much more fun than sustained mediocrity with an outlier championship on a week to week and year to year basis (for me).
Yeah but what if it was this scenario… You win back to back championships here in 2020 and 2021… and then don’t win another one for 40 years.
We might actually see that with Florida.
It is possible (conceivable) to overtake OU for sustained superiority in the Big XII (or some new conference yet to be determined) from a forward-looking perspective. But if you are talking overall history, it would take more than my remaining lifetime of football-watching to overtake them from a college football history perspective. From that perspective, I agree with you.
Honestly, I would still take that because it still would put us ahead of where we are now (in my perspective). Again, looking at how we define success - going 40 years with decent to good football but no titles ever or two titles in two years and then ups and downs in terms of quality of football? Which do you value more? Personally, I’d opt for the one that would make Sooner fans soil themselves in rage as a bonus (‘You may have more titles than we do, but we won ours more recently - and in back to back years’ would be enough to cause aneurysms in some).
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So the governor of California signed that bill that allows college players to be paid off of their likeness… I have some thoughts on this and how it relates to OSU.
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there wasn’t any law protecting amatuerism in the US… This law seems unnecessary, as it doesn’t really do anything except state that college athletes can be paid by a school for using their name and likeness to promote the school. Ok? The schools don’t have to do it… And I doubt San Jose State will magically pass USC now if they start doing it. (not that SJSU could afford it in the first place)
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the NCAA can still rule athletes playing at schools that give a cash stipend to their athletes for name and likeness ineligible… Thus rendering this law more useless and punishing the athletes by not allowing them to record wins or participate in NCAA events.
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if we need to start paying athletes… Say goodbye to all of the college sports that aren’t football and basketball. The others simply won’t be able to keep up, as their budgets will be slashed in order to meet payroll.
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Oklahoma State won’t be able to keep up in a market where players are receiving compensation. We operate around 8th in the Big 12 in revenue… Probably pretty close to 60 in the P5 conferences… It just won’t make fiscal sense for us to stay in FBS if we have to enter a competitive pay environment.
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this is all moot because schools will just start using a generic model and number to advertise anything. Fans only care about the next on the front of the Jersey… Especially in college sports. If schools have to start paying to use their athletes to promote the sport, they’ll just stop using the athletes.
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Larry Coker was a terrible coach.
He was an awesome HS head coach and really good college positional coach and coordinator. That was his ceiling, just not the right guy to be HC/CEO of a major Div I university program.
@leecothran With all due respect (and I mean that sincerely, I don’t know you personally but you have a ton of great insight that I enjoy reading) I find myself on the other side of this debate. It doesn’t seem right to me that a kid can sign an autograph and then someone else can sell it on eBay but the athlete not see any money for it. And if you choose to bring up all the other benefits an athlete receives I will agree with you a 100% and still think they should be able to profit from their likeness.
But it seems to me that it’s a bit of the wrong debate, isn’t it? College football is a billion dollar industry and the NCAA isn’t equipped to regulate it. It makes sense to me that it should be split off and have different rules from all other sports. But, as my wife & daughter remind me often, I am wrong a lot. You mentioned above that paying players would leave the Pokes on the outside looking in, and you may be right. But it seems to me a model that separates CFB from the NCAA would potentially open up more areas for revenue. What do you think?
Trust me I don’t take anything on here personal! There’s a reason I put my full name as my username. I stand by my opinions… and I’m wrong a ton of the time too!
I agree that it’s scummy that athletes can’t profit off of their own image and I wish there was a way that it could happen without the bigger programs taking advantage of it and widening the gap between them and us… but I just don’t think there is.
I think the route of the future is for football to separate from the NCAA and to create a league system that has relegation. Have a top 16, half of them make the playoff, bottom 4 get pushed down to the next tier, which promotes their top 4.
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So let’s take football out of the equation. (And maybe for simplicity, take baseball and men’s basketball as those have - or will soon have routes to the pros directly from high school.) should we allow players to profit from their likeness? I’ve already said yes, but it gets tough thinking about logistics. Let’s pretend this site printed a shirt last year with a picture of Sam Show and the caption “Bat Flip U”. All 500 PFB+ subscribers buy one because we are all smart and that would be a bada$$ shirt. Making up numbers here: 500 shirts x $20 per = $10,000. Sam gets half, so a cool $5,000 for just being cool. Next year a Texas Tech super fan intimates that he’ll spend $20,000 on shirts and that gets around in recruiting… @leecothran you brought up promotion/relegation, and it makes me wonder, is there any way to compensate players that doesn’t lead to a premier league situation where the top 6 teams make SO MUCH MONEY that it is impossible for them to fail?
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I think there could be a way to moderate things, but it may sound unfair to the superstar players. Limit either:
- The amount of money a player can make from their likeness as an amateur (per year) or
- The number of avenues in which a player can make money from their likeness.
Number 2 would be, for example: video game licensing and promotions for the university = yes, memorabilia and external promotions = no.
Not saying this is a solution…I’m just brainstorming a bit.
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That’s a really interesting concept, I hadn’t even considered that. And yes, please brain storm away. More interesting than hot takes.
I just don’t see the need for ‘PAY ALL PLAYERS ALL THE TIME’ and ‘NEVER PAY PLAYERS AT ALL’ being the only two binary options. I think there’s a middle ground where players can be fairly compensated without destroying the sport and balance itself.
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I mean… the top 6 teams already do make so much money that it is impossible for them to fail.
And our primary in-state rival is one of those teams!
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Yeah I don’t think that not paying players is the only option… I just think that allowing a free for all on likeness is going to hurt OSU significantly.
I mean, let’s think about Oklahoma… it’s the only place where OSU gets any real coverage, and it’s at least half of what OU gets. Norman has the “mile of cars,” so each of those 10 or so dealerships decides to go in and use 20 athletes each from OU to promote their dealerships… that’s something that OSU is never going to get. I just firmly believe that it’s going to stack the deck against us.
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Agree. Which is why I liked my option 2 - limit the potential licensing to video games and university marketing only. Players still get to market themselves, but it doesn’t disproportionately weigh the scales against smaller programs.
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I mean whatever it takes to get the video game back sign me up!
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I’m reasonably sure that 80% of all NCAA football players wouldn’t give a crap about licensing AS LONG AS they could just do it for the game.
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