PITTSBURGH — College football players now have the opportunity to earn big money. They also have free agency, if I'm not mistaken. But it's a big deal if they get cut?
Look, either you want this to be pro football, or you don't. The athletes need to make a choice.
Actually, they already did. And they were right in fighting for more of an economic stake in the game and more freedom of movement — the kind their coaches enjoyed. That train isn't slowing down. We could see a players union and a collective bargaining agreement and you name it in college football and basketball.
Athletes have earned these rights. They're the ones bringing in those billion-dollar television contracts. They have tilted the balance of power at least a little toward their side. Some of them can now rival the head coach in earning power. All of them have the cudgel of the transfer portal. If they don't like their current situation, they can leave and play right away somewhere else (and do so again after they graduate).
But here's the thing: You can't have the perks of pro sports without the penalties — and as new Colorado coach Deion Sanders just showed us, roster purging is one of them. You might get cut. You still get to keep your scholarship, which is not insignificant. But you might get cut.
Coach Prime wasn't the first to run off players. That's been happening forever. But that was before athletes were awarded their current rights, before NIL rules and the transfer portal. Sanders wasn't the first to take advantage of an NCAA rule that allows first-year head coaches to purge players, either (and, again, they get to keep their scholarship). He's just doing it on a much bigger scale.
Lincoln Riley cut 10 players when he arrived at USC last season. That didn't receive quite the attention Sanders is getting for essentially gutting Colorado's roster. He'll open the season with around 60 new players. He ran off dozens from a 1-11 team, and that has people ripping him.
One is Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi, who said Sanders' purge was "bad on college football coaches across the country."
I would argue that many, many other things have been "bad on college football coaches across the country" long before this. Things like abandoning your players right before bowl games, the way Narduzzi's former boss, Mark Dantonio, did at Cincinnati. The way so many coaches have done.
Hey, they were just working the system. I get it.
So is Deion, who, by the way, has Colorado on national television for its first two games, a first in program history. His methods weren't pretty. Narduzzi is right about that. It's harsh. That's pro sports for ya.
"That's not the way it's meant to be," Narduzzi told 247 Sports. "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."
It would certainly appear they were kicked in the butt to get out, and Sanders never tried to hide his intentions. Kind of like Chuck Noll all those years ago when he inherited a horrible Steelers team, Sanders told his players that many would not be around long.
"Facts are facts," Sanders said before Colorado's spring game. "Everybody in this room is probably not going to be in this room after (the spring game)."
As Narduzzi said, I'm sure all players have goals. And then a sixth-year graduate transfer like a Phil Jurkovec comes along. That's life, man. That's Jurkovec and Pitt working the system. I defend them.
Deion's just doing business — the business of pro sports. Either you want it to be pro football or you don't, and if you're a college football player, that choice has already been made.
Live with it.
