PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – The Jordan Addison free agency tour continues. He’s up for the highest bidder and two schools with the deepest pockets are reportedly his final two choices.
What is clear at this point is that Addison will not return to Pitt, where he won the Biletnikoff Award as the best receiver in Division 1. The former three-star recruit caught 100 passes for 1,593 yards and 17 touchdowns in 2021, having the best receiving season of anyone in FBS.
Pitt Head Coach Pat Narduzzi seemed confident that Addison would stay in 2022 for his final season before he can enter the NFL Draft. He went through Panthers Spring ball, but once he got away from the team the rumblings started. It began with USC, Addison apparently had a friend from Maryland who plays there. The Trojans also hired an offensive-minded head coach in Lincoln Riley who is looking to make a splash.
Then his old Pitt receivers coach Brennan Marian appeared in the mix in his new stop at the University of Texas. Marian even tweeted about it in something that would seem like tampering, but what rules are there anymore and who is going to enforce the ones that exist.
The one-time, immediate eligibility transfer portal has become a free agent auction. That is what the NCAA created and players are just taking advantage of it. I liken it to a child; if there is no discipline the kid is going to push the boundaries until they are finally stopped. Addison is looking out for himself.
There was talk at one point of allowing transfers to move without sitting out a season if their current program committed NCAA violations and faced discipline, or their head coach left. Addison did lose his offensive coordinator to Nebraska, his quarterback to the NFL Draft and his position coach to Texas. Does this equate?
The biggest problem with college football that few are equating—The National Football League.
The NFL doesn’t want to fund a minor-league system, they’ve used the colleges to prepare their star players. It’s a great system for the 32 billionaire owners: teenagers go to a college, the schools weed out who can play, meanwhile building name recognition on national television help feed the growth of the most popular league in the US. And it costs those billionaires nothing. Not one cent.
What the NFL doesn’t want is to water down its product with kids fresh out of high school overmatched by men. You will see the owners influence every politician they can so you never see high school athletes eligible for the NFL Draft. If it were to get close, the league would claim it’s for health reasons--that these caring owners don’t want the youth of America getting hurt.
The solution is a hybrid to what you have in college baseball. The NFL sets up a feeder league, a group of minor-league cities or a city with a huge complex to house the players. High school graduates who have no desire to attend college, but are exceptional football players, can go here or be drafted here. They learn their craft from coaches paid by the NFL to prepare them for their vocation. It also keeps colleges from wasting space for those with no desire to attend.
Any high school graduate can still get a college scholarship to play in the FBS. Those students would be required to make a three-year commitment, as is currently constructed. Those players can benefit from NIL, but must sit out a year if transferring unless the head coach of their current school leaves or the school is faced with NCAA violations prohibiting postseason play.
There is no system that will make all happy. However, what is going on with Jordan Addison will happen more and more going forward. It’s blatant free agency with no rules and it all has little to do with amateurism or being a student-athlete.