ITB Podcast: Bomani Jones Tackles College Football
Big, big show today as we get long time friend of the program Bomani Jones on to talk about his most recent article over at his new spot, SBNation. You may also know Bomani Jones from his stops on Around the Horn, which he does again this Friday. Bomani wrote a nice piece explaining why, with so much going wrong in the world of college football, a playoff to sate the fans is far from the first thing that should be on folks' agenda. The premise of this is fantastic as college football pundits and fans alike devote such a major portion of their energy and passion to complaining about the BCS and advocating for a playoff on a damn near daily basis.
Jones and I don't waste much time early as we get right to the heart of the matter; the NCAA can't even get universities to cover the full cost of scholarships for the athletes involved or insure the players future at a university but folks are worried about how many more games they can squeeze out of these guys for their own entertainment? The rhetoric has long been about the selfishness of the BCS, of school presidents, of the conferences and how they don't care about fans who "deserve" or "really want" a playoff. Simply put, what about the players?
Novel concept really, being concerned with the actual human beings doing all the work in this process. Bomani and I discuss why the players do seem to be lost in the shuffle, the utter hypocrisy of the schools involved, the disconnect between fans and the reality of college athletics and what can be done to close this gap. To go along with Jones' article I highly recommend the following; Tyler Branch in The Atlantic and all the Joe Nocera info you need from his stop on the podcast.
The second half of the podcast is one of the more chill yet informative and opinionated half hours on college football you'll get. Bomani and I meander through the college football world hitting a myriad of topics that all come up organically in a stroll through the landscape. Everything from Dana Holgorsen's bro-ness plus Jim Mora Jr. and Paul Chryst having new jobs longer than Kevin Sumlin and Larry Fedora to the unique awesomeness that is an Oregon official visit, Texas' high ceiling going forward and Texas A&M making Alabama an even better recruiting school.
Get this podcast in your earholes folks, it'll do you good. Oh and if you're going to be in the New York City area on February 8th, Bomani will be speaking at NYU.
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