Why I Won't Criticize Colorado

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While I mostly write about volleyball, I saw this story about other football coaches criticizing Coach Sanders at Colorado and the way it was all phrased bothered me so much that I just needed to write it all down :)

Check back next week for more volleyball info!

There is a lot of talk about how Colorado has SO MANY athletes on the transfer portal. I notice that that number is never compared to how many athletes from other schools are in the portal. I can't even find a comparison online anywhere, the information is so widely available. But that's just my first thought on the criticism. I was able to pull more of the quote from the Pitt football coach and I copied that quote from the article and posted the link fo the article below.

Pitt coach and his statements: Article from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette

“That's not the way it's meant to be," Narduzzi said. "That's not what the (transfer portal) rule intended to be. It was not to overhaul your roster. We'll see how it works out, but that, to me, looks bad on college football coaches across the country. The reflection is on one guy right now, but when you look at it overall — those kids that have moms and dads and brothers and sisters and goals in life — I don't know how many of those 70 that left really wanted to leave or they were kicked in the butt to get out."

The "Intent" of the rule

I hate this line of talk for so many reasons. First, the NCAA chooses not to comprehend the implementation of their rules and the affects it will have and how coaches and other admin will react to the rule. Second, college coaches are NO LONGER required to take a compliance (rule) test. Even when they did, they certainly weren't given a test on the "intent" of the rules and they certainly weren't given a test on the interpretation of the rules. For someone to say that it's not the "intent" of the rule is just nonsensical. If the intent of the "new head coach" rule was to "make space" for new players, then the NCAA should have put restrictions on what that looks like; 10% of the roster or no more than 5 athletes, just to use an example. My point is that they didn't do that. The rule is there. If he is breaking the rule, I'm sure by now someone at CU would mention something. Just because you don't like what someone is doing, doesn't mean they are breaking a rule.

For one more example about "intent", when the NCAA decided to start allowing NIL money for college athletes, the intent certainly was NOT to create off-shore accounts, I mean collectives, to generate millions of dollars to athletes every school year.

The "intent" of the transfer portal

No, the intent of the transfer portal was NOT to give college coaches the opportunity to overhaul their entire roster. But for the schools that are able to position by position, bring in better athletes, they are going to continue to do that. If it so happens that I bring in a better RB or WR and then that means that the #2 or even former #1 athlete on the depth chart goes into the portal, then so be it. Right. We can keep saying that we are doing things "better" than someone else, but it's honestly not any different. Coach Sanders is just doing what everyone is doing, but on a larger scale.

We are also told that athletes are going into the transfer portal JUST to find more NIL money somewhere else. Where they can get a better "deal". I'm sure that follows under the "intent" of the transfer portal, doesn't it?

My thoughts

Personally, do I like that Coach Sanders is basically cutting his entire roster? No, not really. Does that make him wrong? No, not really. The fact of the matter is when I took over a D1 program that finished 2nd from the bottom in conference the year before, I was asked by at least 6 college coaches during our preseason if I was cutting most of the roster. It's not as far fetched as people might think.

Colorado football is trying to win. Their head coach's job is to win. He is going to do what he thinks is best to win. That's why he was hired. We can not like that either, but it doesn't change the fact that the majority of college coaches lose their jobs because of their W-L record, and NOT for anything on the "student" side (as mentioned in the article above). The AD, boosters, President and off-shore accounts, I mean collectives (I need to stop doing that) are way more concerned about winning then they are about anything else. APR, graduation rate and all of that is important to them, sure, but at the college sports level, it all comes down to winning.

No one cared about Colorado football last year, now people are talking about them. If Coach Sanders can win in Colorado, then I think you will see a fairly big shift in how important "doing things the right way" becomes for other college coaches across the country. Then that sliding scale will start to shift in one direction. We will wait and see.

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