Impact of Court Ruling on College Football Player Eligibility
Dan Sileo and Rich Cirminiello analyze a court decision on LSU player eligibility, its impact on College Football, and shifts stemming from NIL changes.
Video Transcript
Rich, I gotta ask you, man, right out of the gate here, I mean, obviously your takeaways on this case here, I mean, you know, a-a-and, and, a-a Tell me if I'm wrong here on this.
So if they do rule against him and they end up maybe extending this case, and they play a player this weekend against Clemson, could they be playing an illegal player and an ineligible player?
Could they be risking everything this coming- Yeah year if they play this player and the judge rules against them?
Yeah, and you're referring to LSU in the big game Saturday night against Clemson.
Yeah, I, I would be shocked, to be honest, Dan.
And, and by the way, good to be on with you today, talking college football.
We got a semi-slate beginning tonight of games.
Yeah, it, it, it's, it's bizarro world in college football.
I mean, it's kind of consistent with what we've seen over the past couple of years.
We're now in courts, to determine whether the Jack Pyburn, is, is one of the kids, for LSU, former Tampa Bay Buccaneer.
I, I mean, this is straight out of The Onion, the fact that we're having this conversation.
Never thought this would've been something we would talk about in terms of player eligibility.
K- kids that are on NFL rosters previously now, going back to school.
A lot of this is certainly tied to NIL money.
If there wasn't money involved and an opportunity to make six digits, in some cases, to go back to college, that wouldn't even be an opportunity that kids would be entertaining.
They'd be looking to become accountants or salesmen or whatever the case may be.
I, I don't know where this case is going to go, but it's gonna have an impact on the season ahead.
I applaud the conferences.
Big Ten, SEC, have, have come out and said there are gonna be ramifications if you do this.
I mean, we have to draw the line somewhere, and former NFL players playing on Saturdays is, is a, a hill that I'm willing to die on at this point.
How about what the judge is ruling, though, in Dallas on Thursday of last week when he said, "Hey, you're gonna have to come into court to prove to me that these kids are not eligible to be able to play.
Just because you say they're not eligible-" "that's not quite l- legal here."
I mean, do you think that they're gonna circumnavigate the courts or gonna try to?
Because really, if the real- realistically, Rich, what they did with that Brandon Shores be case, they, you know, they basically came out and they were lining up against Texas Tech.
They were doing everything.
Legally, they were wrong- Mm-hmm because the judge had ruled against them, but yet they put so much pressure.
And to your point, you think the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference are strong enough to put that kind of pressure on an institution where they're gonna say, "Hey, guess what?
I don't care what the court says.
This is where we're going and how we're gonna play football this fall"?
Yeah, I do, particularly those two Power Four conferences.
They have the greatest might of any conferences in the country by far.
Big Ten and SEC have said that coaches will be suspended, there will be massive ramifications, for schools that use players that were previously in the NFL.
And, and right now we live in a world where the NCAA has been completely neutered, so, I mean, they're, they, they have no impact in what's happening moving forward.
So it's gonna come down to the conference commissioners and those leagues to make these kinds of decisions.
And, and again, I You know, there's so many things, it's been this, this slippery slope that we've seen in all college athletics.
Y- we don't exist in a world with a Pac-12 any longer.
You know, Oregon and UCLA play in, in the Big Ten.
We have NIL money, which, which in theory I don't have a problem with, Dan.
I, I, I don't know where you stand on it.
Players getting paid I'm okay with, but having these consortiums, these, these large pay-for-play Texas Tech-type models, not really a fan of that when it comes to equity on the field.
So yeah, this is the next evolution.
I actually saw odds, come up yesterday or the day before.
There, there are books that are posting odds on who will be the first program to, to sue, for the loss of a game, bad call.
And, and again, like, this isn't something I'd ever thought we'd be talking about, but considering where we are right now, could we see that in the near future in college athletics?
Why not at this point?
