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Three Thoughts From The Weekend: Big-time football, point guards and more

Three Thoughts is a new feature GoldandBlack.com will run every Monday morning in-season.

The Big Ten
The Big Ten (Greg Pickel)

ON WHAT'S THE COME

Reading some stuff this weekend about conference realignment scenarios, I saw some national media floating the idea of the Big Ten and SEC, with their looming riches being what they are, maybe funding more than the traditional 85 scholarships. If national media are floating that idea, that means power-brokers are discussing it if not planning on it.

This would require a break from the NCAA for Power Football, because A) the NCAA couldn't possibly apply that change to the entirety of its membership. It would be a significant financial issue for those who aren't making primo TV money every year and an unacceptable competitive imbalance if the playing field wasn't at least even in this regard, at least on paper.

The NCAA's day of reckoning has come. That was true already before the world shook again during this realignment drama and with these media-rights deals coming down.

I asked the question last week of what these schools even need all this money for.

Well, if there's a split from the NCAA and the Big Ten and SEC — and whoever else may come along — can reimagine the terms of competition, maybe there are more scholarships, maybe there's money going straight to the athletes, and not just NIL money.

It can be the sort of stuff that Ohio State and Alabama, and to a lesser extent Purdue, will be able to afford to do that half the current NCAA wouldn't even be able to dream of. Power 5 needed its own rules years ago, and actually earned some leeway when legislative autonomy came along.

The time has probably come for it to go one step further.

Big-time football has outgrown the NCAA, which help no authority over the COVID season and now holds minimal authority over the NIL marketplace.

My guess is that before long, they become two different things.

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