Football doesn’t live individuals. It’s a sport that thrives on the belief that no one is bigger than the team and anyone who steps out of line to draw attention to himself is being selfish. It’s a mantra we see repeated over and over in the NCAA and NFL anytime a player is outspoken on an issue (Colin Kaepernick, anyone?).
UCLA’s third-year quarterback Josh Rosen is the trendy choice for the No. 1 draft pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. Between now and then, it will be interesting to see how “anonymous scouts” and NFL executives treat Rosen. Because if his future interviews are anything like the one he recently did with Bleacher Report, he’s going to have a bit of a reputation, even if the things he’s saying have a lot of truth to them.
While Rosen opened the interview discussing his injury-plagued sophomore season and how his recovery is going, things really heat up with the topic shifts to the state of amateurism when it comes to student-athletes and the NCAA.
Look, football and school don’t go together. They just don’t. Trying to do both is like trying to do two full-time jobs. There are guys who have no business being in school, but they’re here because this is the path to the NFL. There’s no other way. Then there’s the other side that says raise the SAT eligibility requirements. OK, raise the SAT requirement at Alabama and see what kind of team they have. You lose athletes and then the product on the field suffers.
Rosen contends that the demands put on a student-athlete who plays football make it almost impossible to then give it all you can in the classroom as well, especially if you actually want to earn a degree and aren’t just playing college football because you have to in order to get to the NFL.
Human beings don’t belong in school with our schedules. No one in their right mind should have a football player’s schedule, and go to school. It’s not that some players shouldn’t be in school; it’s just that universities should help them more—instead of just finding ways to keep them eligible.
Any time any player puts into school will take away from the time they could put into football. They don’t realize that they’re getting screwed until it’s too late. You have a bunch of people at the universities who are supposed to help you out, and they’re more interested in helping you stay eligible. At some point, universities have to do more to prepare players for university life and help them succeed beyond football. There’s so much money being made in this sport. It’s a crime to not do everything you can to help the people who are making it for those who are spending it.
B/R’s Matt Hayes mentions that some football players, such as Clemson’s Deshaun Watson, graduate in three years, which seems to defy that assumption. Rosen counters by noting that all college degrees are not created equal.
If I wanted to graduate in three years, I’d just get a sociology degree. I want to get my MBA. I want to create my own business. When I’m finished with football, I want a seamless transition to life and work and what I’ve dreamed about doing all my life. I want to own the world. Every young person should be able to have that dream and the ability to access it. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Some Clemson fans have taken that as a shot at Watson and Clemson, but Rosen was simply illustrating a point based on college courseload, not specifically calling out the defending national champions.
Rosen also calls out the notion that you can’t seem to win when it comes to having aspirations. You can say that you want to get a good education so you can have a career after football, but even doing that can be misconstrued as a lack of passion for the sport.
I don’t know why [scouts] say things like that. Because I speak about things other than football? Come on. I want to play 15 years in the NFL. I want to be great. I want my team to be great, to win championships. Tom Brady might be able to play three or four more years. That’s ridiculous to even think about, and that’s the bar. I’ll play in the NFL as long as they’ll have me, as long as I’m physically able to play. Is that love of the game?
College football players, like most student-athletes these days, are held to ridiculous standards with counterintuitive demands and can’t-win expectations. Kudos to Rosen for saying publicly what so many players must be thinking.
