This weekend should have been a glorious one for college football. There were amazing upsets with the #2, #3, #4, #6, #8, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, and #19 ranked teams losing. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that college football is broken. In what should be a celebration of the sport, I find myself disillusioned and increasingly disinterested in the results. There are three events that crystalize for me the problems of college football.

Since the beginning, college sports came of age outside the realm of traditional higher education governance (see my op-ed in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for more on this).

As a result, I’m not naive about the challenges that have been present for many years involving commercialization, bending admissions rules, and a win-at-all-cost mentality.

There have been three controversies that have demonstrated to me that college football is broken. Perhaps fundamentally so.

Academic scandal at North Carolina

Admittedly, as my alma mater, this one hurts perhaps more so than any other. There are plenty of problems (real and imagined) related to what happened inside North Carolina’s football program. Agents held inappropriate influence and there was a general lack of regard for NCAA regulations. Yet, the biggest problem is one of academics. Again, the short version, the chair of the African-American Studies department and a department staffer arranged independent study classes that required little or no work. Although it appears these classes weren’t put into place solely to benefit athletes, there is little doubt that athletes did benefit from them improving their GPA’s and helping maintain eligibility. We already cut so many academic corners to enable star athletes to play for our universities. Are we really willing to throw out academics completely? Sadly, I do believe there are those that would do this if it meant more successful Saturday afternoons.

Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston.

While North Carolina seemingly sacrificed academic integrity in part to support athletics, Florida State sacrificed the university’s soul. Winston, a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback who led FSU to the national championship, was involved in two separate sexual assault incidents. Both the university and police investigations had serious shortcomings. Police didn’t seek to interview him for two weeks and never obtained his DNA. Key evidence in the case simply disappeared. I wasn’t there so I don’t know what happened between Winston and these two women. However, there is certainly reason to believe a sexual assault occurred. Yet, Winston still suits up and represents the university. Are we really willing to throw out our criminal laws to support star athletes? I believe Florida State and the Tallahassee Police Department did exactly this to help the football program pursue championships.

Michigan keeps playing quarterback who had a concussion.

The final instance that leads me to conclude that college football is broken happened two weeks ago. What makes this case even more scary is that it wasn’t even a decision made to pursue a championship. It was a team on its way to a losing record, down 30-7 in the 4th quarter.

Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise if we are willing to sacrifice academics and criminal offenses to support football, but what Michigan did to their quarterback is unbelievable. The video of the shaken quarterback who had a concussion is unmistakeable. Everyone in the stadium knew it. The fans, the players, the officials, and the announcers. Michigan Coach Brady Hoke claims he didn’t know it. If this is true, Hoke is unfit to be the head coach of a Pop Warner team. He is certainly unfit to be the coach at Michigan. Football is a violent game. People get hurt playing it all the time. This has been true since the beginning of the sport. Yet, there is no excuse given what we know about head trauma to continue playing a player that likely had a concussion (later confirmed). Michigan demonstrated a complete disregard for the safety and health of their player.

College Football is Broken

We ignore academic integrity. We ignore criminal offenses. We ignore the victims of sexual assault. We ignore player safety.

This is a sport that is broken and in need of serious reform. Perhaps more reform than in the history of the sport.

Until this happens, excuse me if I’m not very interested in the results on Saturday. They just don’t seem very important for some reason.