but I fear that he's going to go out on a limb and propose it and pass it before the NCAA in an effort to push them to adopt a similar rule across the board, just like he did with the 28 rule and the 25 rule.
I will be shocked if he doesn't go about it this way, and if you're keeping score, look out for USM if Slive does get this rule passed as an SEC only rule first prior to hoping to get it for the entire NCAA. USM would thrive if Ole Miss and MSU had to deal with a rule that had our requirements 0.5 GPA points higher than theirs.
I still don't like the rule personally, because I think we should be going the opposite way with college football, but if it's across the board for the NCAA, that's not as big of a deal.
If I were king of the college football world, my rule would be that schools can reserve 5 spots from each signing class for football for players that don't meet the minimum requirements of the NCAA. Those students could either enroll in a remedial program on scholarship or just simply be on campus solely for football without attending classes. The rest of the team has to meet the minimum requirements so that the majority of your team are actually students at the school. That way you don't close the doors to players who want to have a shot at the NFL and want to go the normal route (via major university team).
Honestly, I'd be fine if they eliminated all academic requirements and simply made players enroll at the university's own determined minimums or just sign papers to be athlete only. I've seen the farce that the student athlete has become, and as long as fans are heavily interested in college football (that's not changing anytime soon), then I don't see why we should pretend that we care about what they do in the classroom. If they want a degree, allow them that opportunity if they meet the minimum academic requirements. If they don't want that opportunity to pursue a degree and they want to use your school solely as a springboard to try to play in the pros, let them do that. As long as both parties are being used by each other equally, I'm fine with it.