Clarett's about to change big time football
by Tony Basilio
Checking out Tennessee and South Carolina on Saturday it occurred to me that things are about to change forever in college football. The game will never be the same. Just as Curt Flood and Freeman McNeil before him, former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett is in the process of altering college football forever. The unholy alliance between the NFL and major college football is about to be exposed.
As a physically precocious, 18-year old freshman, Clarett led the Ohio State Buckeyes to a shocking victory in last year's national championship game. The Buckeyes came out of nowhere last season mowing down one foe after another with a classic ground game and hard-nosed defense that would have made Gen. Neyland proud. At the center of Ohio State's surprising run was true freshman Maurice Clarett, a well-developed 6-2, 230 pound man-child. Coming into this season, the Ohio State media guide was gushing about the most exciting and dominant running back to enter college football since perhaps Herschel Walker himself.
Here's how they describe Clarett: "a gifted football player who has the unique ability to energize the entire team...is blessed with tremendous patience and vision for a player so young...finished his rookie season with 1,237 yards and 16 touchdowns rushing even though he missed all of three games and parts of two others because of injuries...broke Robert Smith's OSU freshman rushing record of 1,126 yards with a 119-yard showing against Michigan...runs hard, runs with power and has breakaway speed...fights for, and gets, extra yards after he has been hit...studies the game intensely and is bent upon becoming the best running back who has ever played the game."
Like Walker, who unexpectedly left Georgia after his junior season for professional football in the fledgling USFL, Clarett is set on changing the face of college football forever. His sophomore season has not happened as he became entangled in a couple of legal messes and one major NCAA snafu. Washing their hands of him, as is customary when a member institution runs into trouble with the NCAA, Ohio State tersely announced back in week two of the season that Clarett had played his final game at OSU. This was the ultimate sophomore slump. Out of answers and options, Clarett arrived at an inevitable decision.
Canadian football didn't pay enough. Truth be told, the CFL would probably be a pay cut from his take-home last year as a freshman in Columbus. The NCAA subsequently blocked his transfer to another school. So what's the young man to do? NFL rules say that Clarett has to wait until completing at least his fifth semester in school before he can apply for the draft. Why? That's what Maurice Clarett wants to know, as he is suing the NFL for immediate entrance into next spring's draft.
The league says this rule is in place because it protects college athletes who aren't physically developed enough for the rigors of professional football. Their argument simply is window dressing. Here's the bottom line. The NFL conspires with college football to keep both entities strong through the power of collusion. The system, the way it is currently structured, restricts young people from the chance to make a living until the league says they are ready. It's not the free market built on talent that determines when an athlete is ready for the NFL, but the league.
The relationship between the NFL and college football is that of a self-perpetuating minor league. Each spring, the NFL comes onto college campuses in America to check out draft-eligible prospects. Colleges are glad to have them. The more draft picks the merrier. It only enhances that school's reputation. Go to a UT practice some days in the fall and you're bound to find some NFL scouts on hand checking on the product.
Funding a minor league system would cost the NFL a fortune. Major college football through its healthy television contracts nets a fortune. What a concept. All in the name of student body right. Therein lies the problem. Major college football has become a ruse. With hopes of NFL stardom and no designs on an education, players leave after their junior seasons in record numbers each year. Why not just open the floodgates? Let the kids go who want to test the waters, and play real college football with the rest. Don't tell me that true freshman Demetrius Summers from South Carolina couldn't compete in the NFL. That's not the point. The rub is that he should be given the opportunity.
Like Curt Flood and Freeman McNeil who altered baseball and football, respectively, by ushering in free agency, Maurice Clarett is about to change both college and pro football forever. Most agree that anti-trust laws indicate that he will win in a court of law. When he does, both college and pro football will be better for it.
October 2, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 40
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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