Mandel’s Mailbag: Is NCAA really to blame, what are college football’s ‘what if’ moments?

I passed on writing a mailbag last week because I had my hands full covering first the potential College Football Playoff expansion mess, then the bombshell Tennessee NIL ruling.

Now that I’ve caught my breath, we can discuss those issues and more while we wait for the inevitable next NCAA lawsuit.

Note: Submitted questions have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

In its statement after last week’s court ruling, the NCAA stated that member schools overwhelmingly supported the NIL rules. Does the NCAA still not realize that the antitrust problem is precisely that member schools have agreed to rules that restrict the NIL rights of players? Has anyone at the NCAA read the Alston decision? — Rob, Atlanta

I know you want me to answer by bashing the NCAA, but I have some sympathy for the NCAA in this department. As you know, the members set the rules, and the folks in Indianapolis are tasked with enforcing them. Two years ago, when it became apparent that certain schools were using NIL deals as recruiting inducements, many of those members were openly critical of the NCAA enforcement department for not being more aggressive in upholding its rulebook.

“I don’t think the NCAA is performing their role,” Colorado athletic director Rick George said in January 2022. “To allow the NIL to get out of hand like it’s gotten is not acceptable.”

“(NCAA) enforcement has to enforce,” Ohio State AD Gene Smith said a few months later. “The schools need to enforce as well.”

Well, fast forward two years, NCAA enforcement finally starts busting a few schools, and one of them, Tennessee, immediately fights back, gets the courts involved, and within three weeks, the NCAA is prohibited from doing anything at all.

Looking back, I wonder how differently things might have played out had the Alston decision — which did not directly address NIL but was still a stern rebuke of NCAA amateurism — come down two years earlier than it did. The Supreme Court ruling was June 21, 2021, just 10 days before various states’ NIL laws were set to take effect. Perhaps folks in the college sports bubble would have had more time to process just how drastically the tide was turning on them. Instead, they begrudgingly acquiesced to allowing athletes to make money while still restricting who could or couldn’t pay them.

Everyone involved in college athletics, including most fans, has spent their lives conditioned to believe there is something immoral about enticing recruits with money. But now, judges, politicians and other influential voices are saying, “No, actually, it was immoral that you ever tried to suppress these athletes’ earning abilities in the first place.”

If you’re a college administrator like George or Smith, you’re probably furious at Tennessee right now for upending the rules to avoid getting punished. But if not Tennessee, it would have been someone else.

Now that UMass and Army have found conferences to call home, how do you see UConn managing football given it doesn’t have the NBC safety net that Notre Dame has? — Andrew W., New York

You’ve got me. Any suggestions? From where I sit, Jim Mora is being handed a losing deck.

UConn is the rare, rare school that has opted to prioritize basketball over football in terms of its conference alignment. And it’s hard to argue the results. The men’s program was floundering during its years in the AAC. Since rejoining the Big East, Dan Hurley has won one national title and is contending for another. The Huskies are back where they once belonged in the national conversation. Mission accomplished.

But UConn football is out there on an island, playing a hodgepodge schedule that has a few Power 5 foes (this year: at Maryland, at Duke, Wake Forest and at Syracuse) and a bunch of yawners (Merrimack, FAU, Buffalo, Temple, Rice, Georgia State, at Syracuse and at UMass). In Mora’s first season, the Huskies went 6-6, earning an invite to the Myrtle Beach Bowl. I guess that’s something. But this is the same program that reached the 2010 Fiesta Bowl as a BCS-conference member. And many Huskies fans still hold out hope of returning to the power-conference level.

So UConn is stuck in football purgatory. Joining the MAC, as UMass did, is not desirable to the fan base, even if the MAC were open to taking the Huskies in football only. Which, if you can’t have the men’s and women’s basketball programs, what’s the point? And it’s not like joining the MAC would provide some sort of financial salvation. In 2022, the conference brought in just $35.7 million in revenue, total. That’s less than $3 million per school (and not all that revenue gets distributed to the schools). That’s barely a dent in the reported $35.8 million university subsidy UConn needed to meet its budget in 2023.

So despite the fact UConn and Notre Dame are the only remaining independents, it’s still probably UConn’s only feasible option that wouldn’t jeopardize basketball. The good news is, the school has booked at least 11 opponents each season through 2027. But with no conference championship to play for, and no realistic path to the CFP, it feels like a hollow existence. It frankly would make more sense to drop back down to FCS, where the Huskies memorably reached the playoff quarterfinals in 1998, but the fan base — most notably QB great Dan Orlovsky — would mutiny.

After this past weekend’s game where Duke’s Kyle Filipowski was injured by students rushing the court at Wake Forest, many college basketball coaches have called for it to be outlawed. Given that these are college students and probably not exercising their best judgment, is that just improbable wishful thinking? — Rob R., New York

So many media members have had so many over-the-top takes on that story this week that I’ve found myself feeling guilty that I have no real opinion on the matter. Are court/field-stormings dangerous? Absolutely. I’ve been caught in a few. At Ohio State once, I almost got pepper-sprayed by the police. At Oklahoma State once, I saw a young woman injure herself jumping from the stands down to the field. They’re undeniably fun, but also undeniably scary.

But I don’t know how you stop them.

Is it realistic that the police could arrest several thousand students at once, that schools will agree to forfeit games as a punishment or that we convince the fans to just wait politely for the teams to exit the court first? Nope. But that didn’t stop some otherwise smart, reasonable folks on television from making those suggestions.

My only contribution to the discourse is this: The big difference between pro venues (where no one dares run onto the field) and college venues is that most of the college venues are in smallish cities and rely heavily on local security officers in yellow jackets that you easily could mistake for an usher. It’s no surprise they serve no deterrent to a jubilant college kid. If you want to keep the court clear, you need actual police officers ringing the perimeter like you see in an NFL stadium.

But I don’t know that the schools, or the police forces, have the resources to do that.

College basketball gets great ratings in its postseason and is otherwise pretty much ignored. With the increasing basketballization of football’s postseason, is anyone concerned about that happening to football? — Dan M., Washington, DC

I’m not, but I’m sure plenty of people are. It’s the whole “Playoff will devalue the regular season” argument (which you invariably will find in the comments section below this story). But we can agree there are a lot of differences between the two sports, including but not limited to:

• The teams only play 12-13 games. A power-conference basketball team can go 19-14 and still make the NCAA Tournament, whereas most power-conference football teams will still need to finish at least 10-2 — an .833 winning percentage.

• Basketball is four months of games being played almost every single night of the week. Unless you have no job, family or hobbies, it is impossible to watch everything. Football is just 13 or 14 fall Saturdays — and they are awesome.

• The single biggest factor that devalued college basketball was one-and-done players. Fans barely have time to learn the freshman players’ names before they’re gone. Whereas every football fan knows about Caleb Williams, Michael Penix Jr., Bo Nix and Marvin Harrison Jr.

• It doesn’t help that college basketball is almost entirely detached from the NBA. Five of the top 10 players in Sam Veccine’s latest mock draft — including the top three — are either international or G-league players. Zach Edey, the one household name in the men’s game, barely cracks the first round.

Meanwhile, we’re watching a golden era for women’s hoops as Caitlin Clark, in particular, but also Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers and, probably soon, JuJu Watkins, are bigger stars than their men’s counterparts — because they play college ball for four-to-five years.

The greatest threat to college football’s season-long popularity would be if the NFL ever scrapped its three-year requirement to enter the draft, draining college football of all the star power. But there’s no sign whatsoever the NFL has any interest in doing that.

If you were “king of the NCAA” and could do anything, what would you do? — Rob W., Columbia, S.C.

I’d go on LinkedIn and find a job with more long-term stability.

Bill Connelly at ESPN ranked the 80 best QBs since 2000. I got down to Colt McCoy and remembered he was injured on the first possession of the national championship game. I thought Texas had a real shot in the game, but without McCoy, it vanished. What is your biggest “What if” moment in college football? — Jon, Salt Lake City

Gosh, there are too many to pick just one. Can I go three deep?

What if Rich Rodriguez took the Alabama job in 2006? It was all but a done deal until West Virginia boosters stepped up to keep him. Rich Rod is a great coach who would have done better in Tuscaloosa than he did at Michigan, but he would not have built a Nick Saban-level dynasty. Meanwhile, Saban would have been fired by the Dolphins eventually and landed a college job elsewhere — quite possibly Michigan when it opened a year later.

Does Michigan, not Alabama, become the sport’s preeminent program of the 2010s?

What if Oklahoma State doesn’t lose to Iowa State in 2011? Les Miles’ downfall at LSU began the night his undefeated team lost 21-0 to Alabama in the teams’ 2011 national championship rematch. But if not for the 5-5 Cyclones’ Friday night upset of the 10-0 Cowboys, it’s likely LSU-Oklahoma State in the title game, and LSU likely wins, because that’s what happens when an overachieving non-SEC team runs into a loaded SEC team.

Miles, who LSU stuck by amidst sexual misconduct allegations (we found out years later), wins a second national title, and Saban possibly finishes his Alabama tenure with one fewer ring. (Or two fewer, if the following happens.)

What if Aaron Murray’s last pass in the 2012 SEC Championship Game doesn’t get deflected? Georgia ran out of time 5 yards short against Alabama. If the Dawgs win, they likely go on to beat Notre Dame in the BCS championship game, forever changing Mark Richt’s legacy, but also making it less likely he gets fired three years later. Were that the case, does Georgia miss out on landing Kirby Smart, who goes on and turns South Carolina into a juggernaut instead?

I could list many, many more — including a host of coaching-hire Sliding Doors scenarios — but I’ll leave that for you guys to chime in.

With the 12-team Playoff starting this year, how soon do you foresee college football moving up its season one week to avoid the NFL Week 16 conflict, when it plays games the same Saturday as the CFP first round? — Andrew W., New York

It’s going to be difficult to avoid an NFL conflict entirely while holding a four-round Playoff in December and January. Better the first-round games than a later round. This year’s NFL schedule hasn’t been released, but last season there were only two games, Steelers-Bengals and Bills-Chargers, and one of those aired on Peacock.

But I’ve been saying for two years that the current Playoff schedule is problematic. The semifinals are buried on a random Thursday and Friday night in mid-January. And the national championship game coming two weeks later than before — Jan. 20 next season — could cause big problems. You’re asking the NFL prospects on those teams to delay starting their draft prep by two weeks, and transfer portal players will want to be enrolled at their new schools.

Moving the entire season up a week is a drastic but possibly necessary solution. Unless …

You mentioned conference championship games. If the Big Ten and SEC wind up strong-arming their way to a new format where the leagues get three or even four automatic berths — why hold a conference championship? It’s a sacred event in the SEC but not as much for the others. And even the SEC’s grand event might lose some luster pretty quickly if both teams are already Playoff-bound. If anything, those teams might prefer a week off.

If that happens, you can accomplish everything I just mentioned without changing the regular season. Everyone gets the first weekend of December off, first-round games the second weekend (currently Army-Navy), on-campus quarterfinals the third weekend, semis on New Year’s Day and title game where it is now. The NFL is too stubborn to back off that third Saturday entirely, but if I’m the CFP, I like my chances with a tripleheader that includes the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and ACC champions.

Rank hot dog toppings (and prove you have better taste than Andy Staples). — Tom W., Frog Level, Va.

There is zero chance I’m going to outclass Andy on any sort of food take, but here goes.

1. Mustard
2. Sauerkraut
3. Hot peppers
4. Onions
5. 9,999th: Ketchup

Washington State and Oregon State were dealt a bad hand, but they seem to have played it reasonably well. How likely do you think it is that they end up in a Power 4 conference, and do you see any future reality in which they are better off than the Big-12 contingent (Arizona, ASU, Colorado, Utah)? — Mark K.

I don’t know how they would end up better off than those schools because the Big 12 is probably their only possible salvation. And even that feels like a long shot.

As those schools found out first-hand last summer, the sports TV rights bubble that fueled realignment for so long has popped. The Big 12 was able to convince ESPN/Fox to pay pro-rata for the Four Corners, but asking for another $63.4 million per year for two schools those networks passed on once already could be a tall ask.

Perhaps they’d do it anyway, if, the next CFP contract makes it such that adding more schools ups your chances of earning more berths and the revenue cut that comes with them. To make that case, I’d strongly encourage the Beavers and/or Cougs to make a Playoff run this season or next to show proof of concept. Although that, too, may be nearly impossible given they’ll be playing a glorified Mountain West schedule but with no opportunity to earn a berth as that league’s champion.

First UConn, now Wazzu and Oregon State. I feel like a realignment Debbie Downer this week. I hope all three of you prove me wrong.

Peter King announced his retirement on Monday. I think that you two were at SI at the same time. Any great stories from your time working together? — Jonathan P.

We did not work closely together, what with us covering different sports, but everything everyone has said about Peter the past two days is true — incredibly kind to truly anyone who interacted with him. And not just media types. I remember being at a Rutgers game with fans coming up and asking for fantasy football advice. He was happy to oblige. And I have always been astounded by his work ethic. My college imitation of MMQB was probably one-fourth as long as his, despite my sport’s games ending 24 hours earlier.

But I particularly want to spotlight an important element of his legacy. Peter began writing MMQB on what was then CNNSI.com in 1997 — before three-fourths of sports writers even knew what the internet was. There were only a few major sports sites at the time (ESPN.com, CBS Sportsline, etc.,), and they were populated almost entirely by scores, stats and wire-service headlines. A writer of Peter’s magnitude producing original content for a “dot-com” was a tremendous credibility boost for the entire medium. I consider Peter and Bill Simmons to be the godfathers of internet sports writing.

Now, if only his bosses at the time had the foresight to charge $2.99 per month to read MMQB, rather than giving away the most important sports column on the Web for free for 20 years, perhaps Sports Illustrated would not currently be laying off all its writers while hosting lavish Super Bowl parties.

Congrats, Peter, on some very, very well-deserved rest.

(Photo: Mitchell Layton / Getty Images)