Here’s the problem when you write about only one sport. When you try to use a different sport’s procedures, you show your ignorance.
You have to appreciate the NCAA men’s basketball rule that allows those who enter the NBA draft but don’t sign with an agent or sign a contract to return to school if they’re not drafted. Only now, the NCAA must go one step further with respect to football — the sport that fuels revenue streams for every sport on campus.
Those who apply for the NFL draft and don’t sign with an agent or sign a contract should be allowed to return to their teams as long as they aren’t selected on the first day of the draft. In other words, if a player is picked in Rounds 4 to 7 — or not at all — he can skulk back and work that much harder for respect or to prove everyone wrong or to turn doubters into believers or any other cliche-driven theme that ignores the fact he can’t run a 4.4 40.
Now to a point I actually agree with Hayes that college football underclassmen have a ridiculously short time to make up their mind irrevocably to go pro. What he forgets (or conveniently ignores for the sake of making a quick blush decent argument) are the issues of scholarship limitations and national signing day.
Coaches would, in many cases, have to leave scholarships unoffered for fear that a Junior might decide to come back or pull out prior to the draft. At the very least, the first day for signing the letter of intent would have to be pushed further out. That would also necessitate an early signing period — which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
I can picture some argument for an exception for players who come back as permitting the school to carry extra scholarships for the players who do come back. Of course that would just reward the bigger programs by essentially allowing them to offer extra scholarships. Then there would eventually be the Rick Neuheisel-esque coach who would persuade half his Junior class to declare (wink, wink) and then come back a month before the draft so he could offer 10 extra scholarships.
What really makes the argument by Hayes so clueless, though, is his failure to understand how much college basketball coaches hate the present system. They essentially want what college football has. A very small window to return. Maybe 3 weeks.
Why? For the same reason it ultimately benefits the college football coaches to have a small return window. They can go out and recruit the replacement. Screw the kids and “wanting what’s best for them,” they need certainties and to be sure they have the scholarship available.
Heck, last year some college basketball coaches tried to push a limit on the declaration period to 72 hours after the NCAA Tournament ended. Former Arizona State head coach Rob Evans summed up the feeling of these “molders of men,” like this:
“That would be great,” Arizona State coach Rob Evans said of the proposal. “We end up sitting there wondering if we can recruit. This idea would be much better for us.”
That’s why college football won’t change it’s system.
