Revisiting the skipping bowl games

WVUALLEN

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What if high school stars start missing the playoffs in fear they'll get hurt & take a chance on losing a scholarship offer?
 

writeon

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Could happen, but.....
1--Teammates are friends they grew up with, neighborhood kids.
2-At 17 and 18, they undoubtedly have dreams but often they seem far away.
 

MichiganHerd

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What if high school stars start missing the playoffs in fear they'll get hurt & take a chance on losing a scholarship offer?
I don't think that would happen in most places, due to peer pressure, but could occur in some of the football factories, like the IMG academy in Florida. Hell, I'm 100% certain had I done something like that back in the day, the offensive line would have kicked my ***, and the head coach would have told them to kick me harder.
 

WVUFanForever

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I think its a different beast.

If a kid got hurt his senior year, hopefully the college would still honor the scholarship or offer...plus he would have the options of a red-shirt or a medical red-shirt and still be productive playing four years of college football.

Not necessarily a whole lot lost in the big picture.

For a senior college athlete...you are talking about the potential loss of millions of dollars if an injury knocked him way down the draft order.
 

WVUALLEN

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I think its a different beast.

If a kid got hurt his senior year, hopefully the college would still honor the scholarship or offer...plus he would have the options of a red-shirt or a medical red-shirt and still be productive playing four years of college football.

Not necessarily a whole lot lost in the big picture.

For a senior college athlete...you are talking about the potential loss of millions of dollars if an injury knocked him way down the draft order.

That would depend on the injury.
 

WVUALLEN

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Could happen, but.....
1--Teammates are friends they grew up with, neighborhood kids.
2-At 17 and 18, they undoubtedly have dreams but often they seem far away.

Also you are talking playoffs and championship shot. Not a college holiday bowl game with no meaning except to some players and fans.
 

WVUALLEN

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I think its a different beast.

If a kid got hurt his senior year, hopefully the college would still honor the scholarship or offer...plus he would have the options of a red-shirt or a medical red-shirt and still be productive playing four years of college football.

Not necessarily a whole lot lost in the big picture.

For a senior college athlete...you are talking about the potential loss of millions of dollars if an injury knocked him way down the draft order.

Tennessee dropped Avon Cobourne after his senior year in High School ended with an ACL injury. Don Nehlen offered and stuck with him. Thank God he did.
 

3xWVUenginEER

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I think a better comparison is high school players skipping high school all star games. There was a Kennedy Award Winner (awarded to the most outstanding high school player in the State of WV and does anyone in WV know why it’s named Kennedy) some years back who skipped the North South All Star Game because he didn’t want to play in it cause he was going to WVU to play among other reasons. And let’s face it, a week in the dorms at WV Stare isn’t exactly everyone’s dream when it ends on Laidley Field before maybe 500 people in a game no one watches or cares about.

This young man got criticized by Sam Huff who that summer remembered he was from WV and decided to tell everyone how important the game was since Mariott was a sponsor (Sam owns a small single digit % of the one in Charleston but acts like he’s a hotel mogul). Crickets were the only organisms who listened to Huff that made noise. Well a few bullfrogs too. After that summer Huff remembered he was living in DC/Northern VA/MD and remembered how unimportant the North South Game is as he was never involved again.

I think players skipping all star games (not including US Army or the Under Armor type one) is happening. Do they even still have the Big 33? And honestly I can see it and agree with it. If you have a scholarship, that’s only one season guaranteed, why risk it on a high school all star game that’s not watched.

that’s my $0.02
 
Feb 15, 2005
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I don't know why this is considered so different than anything else in life. You can't skip everything because you have to play to produce tangible evidence of your capabilities. However, there are risks and benefits to everything and some things will fall more into the former than latter categories. Let's say you are an independent contractor and you are offered 2 jobs. Same amount of work and risk, but one pays 1/4 of the other. No one would be up in arms about declining the lower paying job. Yet when an athlete that can leverage athleticism into cash or a scholarship does the same, some folks get their panties in a wad. At least in college there is a scholarship exchange that means the athlete got something from the institution and has at least some obligation to them. High School is a different animal and the student has very little obligation to them.
 

westsiderSJHS77

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ESPN will take a big hit, since they bought several of them for content to broadcast.

That could have a trickle down effect on TV rights in the next few years. Smaller conferences may get left out (like the MAC for example) and some one will have to take their place playing Tuesday or Wednesday night games (like the AAC) just to get a small portion of the pie.
 

WVUALLEN

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Far too much money involved in college athletics today.

As far as bowls. The fat needs trimmed as there are too many of them. let's get back to the days of needing to win 7 or 8 games to make a bowl.
 
Oct 19, 2009
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That’s been happening in PA. Many high rated recruits have skipped the Big 33 Game since about 2015.

I think a better comparison is high school players skipping high school all star games. There was a Kennedy Award Winner (awarded to the most outstanding high school player in the State of WV and does anyone in WV know why it’s named Kennedy) some years back who skipped the North South All Star Game because he didn’t want to play in it cause he was going to WVU to play among other reasons. And let’s face it, a week in the dorms at WV Stare isn’t exactly everyone’s dream when it ends on Laidley Field before maybe 500 people in a game no one watches or cares about.

This young man got criticized by Sam Huff who that summer remembered he was from WV and decided to tell everyone how important the game was since Mariott was a sponsor (Sam owns a small single digit % of the one in Charleston but acts like he’s a hotel mogul). Crickets were the only organisms who listened to Huff that made noise. Well a few bullfrogs too. After that summer Huff remembered he was living in DC/Northern VA/MD and remembered how unimportant the North South Game is as he was never involved again.

I think players skipping all star games (not including US Army or the Under Armor type one) is happening. Do they even still have the Big 33? And honestly I can see it and agree with it. If you have a scholarship, that’s only one season guaranteed, why risk it on a high school all star game that’s not watched.

that’s my $0.02
 

3xWVUenginEER

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That’s been happening in PA. Many high rated recruits have skipped the Big 33 Game since about 2015.

is the big 33 still televised and remotely close to the event it used to be? Amazing fact from a few years and maybe still current is that every Super Bowl has had at least one player who participated in the big 33 game. That was an amazing fact about how much talent was playing in that game.