Bobby:
As the football and basketball coaches are on the road, and the baseball and softball staffs prepare for tournament time, the future of college sports continues churning behind the scenes.
Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! reported late last night that the four major conference are circulating a draft document to its members that would bind member institutions to new House Settlement rules surrounding NIL and render punishment absolute without legal recourse (i.e. a lawsuit).
And if a school has state laws that are different from the conference, the school in question could lose conference membership unless they abide by conference rules.
It’s a bold move by administrators at the conference level, not within the NCAA, to try to get their arms around college sports. The draft agreement would also elect a commissioner or CEO of college sports whose decisions about eligibility would be final and also without recourse.
This is exactly the kind of sweeping change that college sports needs, even if some of the proposed draft seems far-fetched or over-reaching. They conference commissioners simply are trying to go too far IMO. They’re trying to put the genie back in the bottle and it’s just not going to work ultimately.
Tennessee, for example, has state rules that preclude it from allowing any conference rule to regulate its public institutions.
Are we going to kick out Tennessee from college sports? Unlikely.
So the draft proposal, no matter how aggressive, has some issues.
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Many believe the House Settlement will be approved this week by the judge. That means the terms of it could go into effect as soon as June 1.
How will that effect recruiting as it relates to NIL?
We simply don’t know. Not yet at least. But it is something that we’ll be tracking.