Jalen Hurd owes you nothing
It’s been a rough week for Tennessee football, which just lost its third game in a row, likely fell out of New Year’s Six bowl contention, and is now seeing its roster unravel. Star running back Jalen Hurd announced that he would transfer from the Volunteers and instead play a different position at another school — this despite Hurd being on track to be one of Tennessee’s greatest running backs of all time.
Hurd’s abrupt departure from Knoxville can probably be best described as puzzling. It’s rare for players to transfer midseason, especially players as good as Hurd, and it’s even weirder that he’s attempting to transfer to play another position at another school, when he could just leave for the NFL.
That said, it doesn’t matter if I’m puzzled by this decision, because I am not Jalen Hurd. He has given this some thought and decided this was the best decision for his future. That’s fine. But oh man, were some people not fine.
Man run by Jalen Hurd. pic.twitter.com/cIYIXikQZv
— Rocky Top News (@rockytop_news) September 28, 2016
Take this fella named Jon Crist, who writes for Saturday Down South. He wrote a scathing article, saying that Hurd is “everything wrong with college football,” calling Hurd a quitter and, of course, berating him for being a millennial. He even complained that Hurd, who has made millions for Tennessee but gotten nothing in return, was selfish for wanting to maximize his earning potential.
“He doesn’t want to win. He wants to be the focal point of the offense so he can ball out every Saturday. Hurd was surely the stud from Pop Warner through high school, so it’s probably beneath him to just be a cog in the wheel.”
It’s not just that guy who’s upset, either. Search Hurd’s name on Twitter or read the comments of any Tennessee message board, and a good half of the comments follow the same script: “You’re a quitter, and Tennessee deserves better.”
But Tennessee doesn’t deserve better, because Hurd owes the school absolutely nothing. Over the past two-plus years, this is what Hurd has done for the Volunteers:
- Signed with the Vols as a four-star recruit, becoming one of the key players in their resurgence back to relevance.
- Come close to being Tennessee’s all-time leading rusher.
- Been arguably the best player on the team that got Tennessee back to a bowl game.
- Helped make Tennessee millions of dollars without a penny in return.
College football fans often feel that they’re owed something by the players they cheer for — that somehow, by giving up many of their rights by signing with a school, players are also obligated to put the interests of that school, and its fans, over their own. You could argue that professional athletes have some fiduciary responsibility to the fans, since they’re being paid large sums of money to entertain. But a college athlete whose sole purpose to the school is to be a revenue-generator and free labor can be forgiven if he wants to find a better situation.
Essentially, fan bases see players as investments. They invest time and money into teams and expect results in return, even though the players aren’t seeing any of the benefit of that investment. Take the situation at Baylor. Boosters, some of whom invested millions of dollars into the program, were finding every excuse possible for players who committed sexual assault. As BuzzFeed’s Joel Anderson pointed out, these aren’t players that rich, white Texans would likely otherwise be helping:
Make Shawn Oakman, 5-10, 180 pounds and a black Waco local, and he’d still be in county jail awaiting trial sometime next year. If then.
— Joel D. Anderson 🆓 (@byjoelanderson) October 29, 2016
This is the power of college football: Players are investments, and they are to be protected at all costs. But once they back out of this fictional contract they signed with fans, they’re considered traitors.
Nothing about Jalen Hurd’s decision is morally wrong. Nothing about deciding to transfer schools in hopes of a better life can be described as “quitting.” The only way Hurd’s move can be troubling is if you believe Hurd owes the fans more entertainment, despite having already given them years of it without payment in return. That mindset is much more problematic than any transfer could be.
Should Ed Orgeron be LSU’s next coach?
When LSU chose to fire Les Miles four games into the season, its fans were undoubtedly looking for a big-name replacement, Houston’s Tom Herman chiefly among them. But in the three games since Miles’ firing, LSU looks like it might be on the verge of stumbling onto a pretty good option right at home: interim coach Ed Orgeron.
Orgeron is a caricature in college football. He’s known for his thick Cajun accent, his failures at Ole Miss, and his redemption but ultimate failure to get the full-time job at USC. Now he’s in his second interim gig, and it’s going better than any Tigers fans could have hoped for. In the three games since Miles was fired, LSU is 3-0, dominating Ole Miss and setting a school record for offense in Orgeron’s first game, a 42-7 win over Missouri.
Sure, the schedule has been easy, but it’s not who the Tigers have beaten, it’s how they’ve done it. After years of clamoring for an offense that better utilizes its talent, LSU fans are getting offensive firepower that does just that.
In the first four games, the offense averaged just 5.75 yards per play, even struggling with a bad Mississippi State defense. Since Orgeron took over, the Tigers are at 8.55 yards per play. That’s a whopping three more yards every time they snap the ball.
Yes, the hard part of the schedule is still to come. Beating Missouri, Southern Miss and Ole Miss is one thing. Beating Alabama, Arkansas, Florida and Texas A&M to end the season is quite another. It’s unlikely that LSU will go undefeated.
However, given how much improvement his team has shown, Orgeron has a legitimate claim to the LSU job. The Tigers are playing like one of the best teams in the country, and if they can win three, or maybe even two of the next four, Orgeron’s name will continue to be connected to the job.
Sure, Orgeron doesn’t have the name appeal of someone like Herman, but what he’s done so far has been nothing short of remarkable. Beat Alabama this week, or beat Florida and Texas A&M, and it’s hard to see why he should be denied a job that he’s already proven he can do well.
The Big 2 + 12
Michigan beat Michigan State this week for just the second time in the past nine years. Although Spartans fans will point to their recent success against the Wolverines as proof that they’re still on the same level, it was clear watching that game, and the rest of this season, that Michigan is on another level from most of the rest of the Big Ten, and that doesn’t figure to stop anytime soon.
Ever since coach Jim Harbaugh arrived last season, Michigan has continued to ascend back into a college football power, and the Wolverines have done it with just one of this full recruiting classes. Given how Harbaugh has been recruiting, it’s a wonder how anyone in the conference other than rival Ohio State can consistently beat the Wolverines. The gap between those two rivals and the rest of the conference is only beginning to widen.
Not only do Michigan and Ohio State have the two best coaches in the conference, they’re also far outpacing everyone else in recruiting. The Buckeyes have the top-ranked recruiting class in the class of 2017, according to 247Sports, while Michigan is 10th, and the 2017 class isn’t even wrapped up yet. Last year, OSU was fourth and UM was sixth, with the next closest Big Ten team (Michigan State) 17th.
Michigan and Ohio State have the best coaching AND the best talent in the Big Ten, and there’s no evidence they’re going to stop accumulating the best players in the conference any time soon. It’s hard to see anyone consistently keeping up.
The rest of the Big Ten still lags behind the SEC in recruiting, and the Big Ten West is never going to scare anyone. But even if the Big Ten isn’t the best conference in college football, it’s going to have two Playoff contenders every year. And the separation is only going to get wider.
