Alabama Football: What the NCAA really stands for

Alabama football fans can agree that the NCAA needs a power shift.

The NCAA has completely botched the handling of the college football season. Alabama football fans know it. SEC fans know it. Everyone knows it.

It has been five months since they canceled March Madness and spring sports, and we still have no finalized plan for the handling of the college football season. They have passed the buck to each individual conference, which is causing chaos in the ranks of the Power 5. The Big Ten and Pac-12 have postponed play until the spring, the other teams are planning to play, and some conferences won’t have a football season altogether.

This is not a debate on whether or not it is safe to have a college football season right now. Gather your own information and form your own opinions. This is strictly about the fact that the NCAA has failed to act, and it is impacting players the most.

Right now, college football players don’t know what the plan is. Will they get a scholarship this year? Will they get another year of eligibility? Are they allowed to transfer out of the Big Ten to teams like Alabama football? If so, can they play immediately? No one truly knows. These are questions that the NCAA should be able to answer.

More than ever, we need a unified voice. We need one plan for all universities to follow. This involves testing, quarantine protocols, and thresholds to meet in order to have a safe season.

This incompetence really shows what the NCAA really stands for. They stand for themselves. They’re willing to hop in with a hefty fine and suspension if a player gets a free tattoo, but they won’t help out an athlete through the most trying times in college football history.

Through all of this, they’ve managed to ignore the cries for a union by the Pac-12 and the Big Ten. Doing so lets them hold onto power and money, and that’s what they have been doing for decades. They sold the rights for video games to be made while the players in the game never got a dime. They’ve bottlenecked the players for far too long, and it is finally making its way to the headlines.

This won’t end with college football. College basketball will see a similar round of chaos later in the fall. Once the NCAA has a chance of losing their precious March Madness for a second straight year, they might finally act.

The NCAA stands for money and power. Not the universities. Not the conferences. Certainly not the players. While Alabama football and other teams around the country are waiting for action, they will continue to receive none.