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We like Dabo Swinney around here. We like his dancing and his positive attitude and all that. But the news that he's now making $5.1 million per year demands a look back at something he said a couple years ago:
We try to teach our guys, use football to create the opportunities. Take advantage of the platform and the brand and the marketing you have available to you. But as far as paying players, professionalizing college athletics, that's where you lose me. I'll go do something else, because there's enough entitlement in this world as it is.
Based only on the tampered market that is head coaching salaries in this amateur sport, Dabo's pay is fair. His teams have accomplished more to this point than those of Charlie Strong, Hugh Freeze, Kevin Sumlin and other coaches in his new neighborhood, nearly winning a national title last season and recording four straight top-15 years.
Buuut based on that thing he said about college athletes making money, it's not easy to stomach. "Professionalizing college athletics, that's where you lose me," said the man who now makes $5 million in college athletics. HBO's John Oliver and others called him out for it at the time, when Swinney was making a lowly $3.3 million.
He's also allowed to collect trademark royalties off a team slogan borne from one of his postgame hollerins (which is fine), something none of this players would be able to do with any of their own nicknames or sayings (which is not fine).
We still like Dabo. His players clearly like him. But he probably shouldn't ever say anything like that ever again.
Meanwhile, the NCAA now makes more than a billion a year in March Madness TV money alone.
Hey, does your team have a blue-chip QB commit for 2017 yet? Bud's timeline shows you're basically out of time already, if not.
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David Shaw confirms he wasn't calling the whole South dumb, in part by invoking a paraphrase of Beyoncé's "Formation," likely coincidentally, though we can dream:
It would be ridiculous to insinuate that that was the conversation, considering especially that my mother is from Alabama, my dad is from Louisiana.
Ah, yes, here's the Jim Harbaugh rant about the satellite camps vote. Noted.
Nike says these Clemson uniforms are new, and I will take Nike's word on that.
Bill C team of the day: Central Michigan, where things are happy and good!
Commit of the day: four-star RB Nathan Tilford to Arizona, which is sneaking its way toward a top-25 class.
How to make fun of Texas Tech fans, by a Texas Tech fan.
Be advised that Ohio State might pack 100,000 people into one place to watch a pretend football game on Saturday.
Draft stuff!
- A retired NFL DE tells you what Robert Nkemdiche can do on the field at the next level.
- You already know Ezekiel Elliott is the draft's best RB (and OC), but he's also the best fullback.
- Five Buckeyes, three Rebels and three Crimson Tide-ians lead the way on the list of players invited to attend the draft.
In response to Governor Kirby Smart's new state legislation, Podcast Ain't Played Nobody is now openly rooting for Mark Richt.
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