Football Fridays: Financial Fracas at FAMU

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Happy FriTueday, folks.

I hope your weeks have kicked off to a good start. Perhaps not an onside kick, though @Nebraska.

These bust last few days of mine have hit me harder than Bobby Wagner getting a shot on a receiver running a lately thrown slant. Oof. On a positive note, I found out that a whole world exists outside of my laptop screen... Who woulda thunk it?

My 'Dores began their conquest on the plains of college football in dominant fashion, vanquishing the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors 63-10. Dare I say Natty SZN?

Elsewhere (and by elsewhere I mean 7,033 miles away in Ireland), Nebraska realized it had left its defense in the States en route to blowing a double digit lead to Northwestern. No reports on whether Coach Frost was allowed on the plane back to Lincoln. If not?

This past weekend was a nice order of chips and salsa to this coming's sizzling fajitas. Starting Thursday with the Backyard Brawl and Penn State at Purdue (don't laugh, the Boilermakers are legit this year), we're getting four straight days of college football. Hydrate accordingly.

Before we turn our full attention to Week 1, an off field story this week caught my eye. Florida A&M, an FCS (with schools such as Jackson State, North Dakota State, and Sam Houston State) HBCU in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, almost had to forfeit its scheduled matchup with North Carolina when it was announced that 26 Rattlers (roughly 1/3 of the team) were deemed ineligible or uncertified by the NCAA and would thus be unavailable for the contest. It seemed likely that the contest would be cancelled as FAMU players protested the situation's handling before they eventually voted to make the trip (despite the significant disadvantage and health risk). Since, the team has published a letter to school admins protesting the lack of attention to athletic needs from university staff prompting the issue in the first place.

To be very clear, the issues were not the fault of the players.

Many were ineligible due to not having adequate credits and classes after being incorrectly advised on their schedules by their university advisor. It was revealed that the school only has one academic compliance officer responsible for over 300 student athletes despite having no prior experience in athletic compliance. Key members of the team took classes over the summer under the guidance of this compliance officer which were actually insufficient under NCAA rules.

The lack of resources hasn't been limited to academics, either, as the school's financial aid office has failed to provide many players with the aid they were promised when deciding to play for FAMU, and the ticket allotment for players' families was suddenly cut from 4 to 2 just weeks before many had already planned and booked their trips to the opening game this past weekend.

The ineptitude of the administration has made the lives of Florida A&M's student athletes even more difficult, adding the uncertainty of academic and financial stress to the work already required of most athletes in training, recovery, and nutrition.

While athletic funding is generally provided through private donations rather than public spending, the explanation for this resource discrepancy lies in the funding the school receives from the state government.

Small athletic programs already fight to stay afloat and receive adequate funding, a challenge which will only grow with the many changes we are seeing in the sport. For example, had FAMU forfeited on Saturday, the consequences would have included not receiving the payout from North Carolina, not being refunded for travel expenses, and having to pay a cancellation penalty to the Tar Heels. These expenses would have equalled 1/10 of the school's entire athletic budget...

However, there are deeper challenges for FAMU, and it isn't just one school. HBCUs, often private though on publicly provided land, face an additional challenge in that they are severely underfunded relative to their public counterparts. FAMU actually ranks second on the list of most underfunded schools on a per-student basis in comparison to schools such as UF and FSU.

These discrepancies are defended as resulting from research output, but is it not the case that research becomes a whole helluva lot easier when you have superior facilities and infrastructure at your disposal? It's a self fulfilling prophecy in which "white" schools received better funding earlier in their histories creating massive disparities today. Alumni of these better-funded schools have gone on to accumulate more wealth and the ability to privately support projects like athletic facilities, too, so while UCF spends $125M on upgrading its football facilities, FAMU is unable to support more than one full time compliance officer.

This isn't a shot at UCF. Its boosters SHOULD be shelling out to invest in its cash cow of a football program, especially as it prepares to move to the Big 12. However, there is no excuse for the discrepancies in public funding for baseline academic programs. Do better, state legislatures.

Now, before the season truly kicks off this weekend, here are my 100% accurate, incorrigible conference champion(ship) predictions:

• ACC: Clemson over Miami

• Big Ten: Ohio State over NebraskaWisconsin

• Big 12: Oklahoma over Baylor

• Pac 12: Oregon over Utah

• SEC: Bama over UGA

Super excited to hear all of the kind and constructive feedback that CFB fans are so known for! But fr, would love to hear your thoughts. Who am I sleeping on? Which teams are overrated? What substance do you think I am snorting to be able to make predictions this crazy? Shoot me a reply here or on social!

This extends more generally. I'm a few editions in and would love to hear any thoughts and feedback on past editions.

What have you liked most?

What have you not been a fan of?

Where do you stand on pineapple on pizza?

I'm just an email away and am programmed to respond to any phone dings within 20 minutes.

Cheers to another day,

Trey