The NCAA, on Thursday, dealt Florida State with some hefty penalties related to NIL and recruiting.
Seems like the Seminoles were enticing recruits to Tallahassee with cash deals.
And that’s a no-no.
Or, it was about three years ago.
Here’s the rub with the NCAA attempting to flex their muscles: everybody does it.
FSU is just one of the first punishments in what is now the Wild Wild West of college football’s new era.
And for what?
Seems the situation originates from a meeting that was held between a Seminole booster and a potential transfer. The booster offered the recruit an NIL deal worth a total of $15,000 a month if he chose to come to Tallahassee.
According to the NCAA, that’s considered a play-for-pay arrangement.
The meeting was arranged by FSU assistant coach Alex Atkins, who was suspended for three games and hit with a show cause penalty for two years.
The Seminoles football program was placed on probation for two years with associated fines, lost five scholarship players and not permitted to associate with the booster and the collective for a year.
And to think, just a few years ago this was considered business as usual in major college athletics.
It was talked about, everyone who followed college sports knew about college athletics receiving money, but the NCAA was seldom heard from.
Until now.
When it’s permitted.
That’s the NCAA, in all its glory.
Former Florida State quarterback Danny Kanell, as expected, was not happy with the news.
“What. A. Joke,” Kanell wrote on X.
And I agree.
It might be natural to think this is karma for FSU.
13-0, getting snubbed by the College Football Playoff committee, and throwing a tantrum.
Suing the ACC over the Grant of Rights Agreement, that they signed, twice.
Making a joke about the prestigious Orange Bowl by bringing the practice squad to South Beach after 30 opt-outs.
Yep, it might be easy to say they brought this upon themselves.
But they didn’t.
The NCAA allowed it by opening the barn door to the transfer portal without any significant guardrails in place.
The instant eligibility transfer option, along with the name, image, and likeness incentive, gave every school in the country the same temptations.
You think FSU is the only school doing this?
This falls squarely on the NCAA.
The rules the NCAA has implemented regarding NIL are murky, at best.
How murky?
The rules regarding NIL are only interim, established to provide guidance to programs while the NIL is in the infancy stage.
Just this week, the NCAA updated new guidance policies.
Talk about making up the rules as you go along.
The plain facts about the current landscape of major college sports are simple: you can’t police what’s going on now.
The idea of punishing a school, in what is the infancy of the NIL era is, as Danny Kanell said, “a joke.”
And don’t forget about Michigan.
The NCAA hasn’t forgotten about the Wolverines and their signal-stealing scandal.
The FSU sanctions could help the NCAA justify lowering the boom on the Michigan football program.
The NCAA’s punishment against Florida State is like throwing darts at a dart board to select a school to go after.
Michigan fans beware.
You may be next.
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