Mountaintop View 6-19-18

Today’s Tuesday links are focusing on the new rules passed by the NCAA last week. 3 of the articles are about the redshirt rule, one is about the transfer rule. Plus, a look at how bowl games are formed.

Transfer rules a step in the right direction.

The Athletic weighs in on the transfer rule, where players no longer need the coach to sign off on a transfer request. Gone are the days when certain schools are restricted just because. While a conference may decide to block in-conference transferring, coaches or program cannot. Now all transfers will go through a database and once a player is entered, it is pretty much fair game. The fear of course is that this basically leads to free agency or tampering where a player has a great year for a school and then all of a sudden transfers to a better school for better opportunities. Though there will be harsher tampering penalties, it is difficult to regulate. This is overall positive, but stay tuned for the potential drawback.

The Athletic discusses the redshirt rule.

In the other big news, the Athletic weighs in again. They bring credit to Todd Berry, who first proposed this rule in 2001 when he was the head coach at Army. As we know, things never work quickly. Berry made a stronger push in 2016 when he was named AFCA executive director and got more and more coaches on board with the idea. Gone are the days when true freshmen are thrust into the game due to an injury late in the season, losing a year of eligibility for a number of snaps. Gone are the days were a true freshmen shines in practice, but is overmatched in the first few games and ends up sitting on the bench with little stats to show for his first of four eligible years. Now the question becomes how coaches will use it in the upcoming season.

How the redshirt rule will help the Aztecs.

This outlines the normal benefits that everyone has been discussing, but highlights how many players played or redshirted from the 2017 class last fall. Rocky Long would like to take things a step further and just give everyone five years of eligibility no matter what (an idea former Boise State coach Chris Petersen said for years). Long went on to say they won’t play freshmen just because they can.

6 Ways the redshirt rule makes CFB fun.

The mothership weighs in on the rule as well. They list 6 reasons as to why this makes college football more fun, including hopefully reducing transfers, freshmen can go all out more, and people not playing out of position come November.

The long history of “too many bowl games”.

Too many bowl games has been a complaint all the way back to when there was just one bowl game. The Nebraska coach in 1915 thought it was too expensive to send his team to the Rose Bowl (the only bowl... and he was let go). In 1937, Minnesota’s coach thought the bowls were getting out of control (there were 4 or 5). The quote in 1938 was “2 or 3 are alright but too many can cheapen the sport.” In the 1940s, there was something called the Refrigerator Bowl and the much hyped Salad Bowl. Playoffs were being proposed as far back as the 40s as well. It’s a nice history lesson read.

On the horizon:

• Later today: Our first post in the new weekly The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.
• Coming Wednesday: A look at how MWC teams stack up in recruiting rankings.
• Friday: The MWC Roundtable looks at whether or not Boise State will play in a NY6 bowl.
• Friday: The next in our Friday Night Lights Series.