Lack of leadership making college football target of some, says Brando

While the kangeroo court in Indianapolis desperately clings to having some kind of control over college sports it has become crystal clear they are like a ship in the dark with no compass.

Mark Emmert, the current ringmaster, is making millions every year and the only thing he’s proven is he couldn’t organize a kindergarten birthday party without forming a committee first.

Especially when it comes to football, something the NCAA really doesn’t control at the big time level. That’s done by the five conference commissioners who can’t agree on much.

“I have personal relationships with all the commissioners in college football,” Fox Sports’ Tim Brando told Derek Ruscin and Zach Arns (Ruscin & Zach) last week on ESPN Arkansas. “I know they are well-meaning, but to get together and decide in unison to do something, to do this point … it’s never happened.”

Thus is the problem. Emmert doesn’t lead. He forms committees so others can make a decision.

Even Paul Finebaum last week on ESPN called for Emmert to be replaced.

“Mark Emmert is a complete failure,” Finebaum said.

It could be argued that Finebaum should have figured out over a decade ago the NCAA doesn’t control college football but that’s not surprising, either.

College football needs somebody in charge. Where is that sport’s Roy Kramer or Mike Slive these days?

“It’s never happened in the 150-year span of college football,” Brando said. “This is no longer something to joke about … this is something that needs to be done.”

The Big 10 and Pac 12 last week announced conference-only schedules for the coming season. While that may be alternative, it did leave a lot of other conferences scrambling.

“The way college football is set up — it’s leadership infrastructure — has always been about take care of your own,” Brando said. “The Big 10 did what it felt it needed to do to take care of their own.”

In the process they showed they may have kinda had a knee-jerk reaction.

“The Iowa-Iowa State game is a bus ride and that game’s not gonna take place now,” Brando said. “Really? Yet we’re going have Nebraska play at Rutgers? Help me.”

Sorry, Timmy B, but there is no help, although he would clearly like to see Oliver Luck as the commissioner of college football. He’s about the only one qualified that might actually take the job of dealing with the NCAA.

“Whatever the plan is, these guys need to roll it out now,” Brando said. “Otherwise, those holier-than-thou’s that like to take their shots and love to talk about the exploitation of players not getting paid, the mob is there. They are ready to take down college football.”

College football should not shut down. There is statistically no data that shows a single player’s death or one getting seriously ill. Don’t talk to me about spreading it to other people.

Everybody keeps looking at positive test results and that’s probably not going away, even with a vaccine that will help further cut the low mortality rate even further. That’s what the national medical equivalent of weathermen have said.

While a lot of is not known, there is clear data the virus doesn’t have much effect on players, coaches or the people around it. We would have heard about any deaths … guaranteed. If anybody had gotten seriously ill we would have heard about that through social media or somewhere.

There are some in the media that sound at times like they really don’t want college football. Some want to present the picture they care more about people than the individual does.

“The media outside the realm of sports wants everything to be shut down,” Brando said. “There is a segment of sports media that has a particular lean to the left and, to a certain extent, they are going to be affected by what they read.

“They see college football as something that can be — and should be — attacked right now. There’s really no defense mechanism for it.”

Which is where the whole reason that the NCAA is letting the entire sport run around in complete chaos and confusion.

“They haven’t had jurisdiction over college football since 1984,” Brando said.

Television got control then and the NCAA has looked like someone running around in the Arkansas summers with a flyswatter trying to nail flies.

“These clowns going after college football that are outside the realm of sports media don’t know jack about squat about college sports,” Brando said. “But they want it shut down because there’s not a bat phone ringing from the commissioner like it would be from the NFL or the NBA.”

Like a lot of things going on in the world today, it comes down to leadership. In the case of college football, it’s the lack of coordinated leadership.

“If you have no leadership, then you’re easily attacked,” Brando said. “College football has been shown to not have universal leadership so they have no defense mechanism. No public relations aid to help them fight off that kind of attack.”

Which is why college football needs somebody to say something definitive. Even the conference commissioners qualify everything as a wait-and-see approach.

“It’s only gonna get worse between now and whatever they roll out,” Brando said.

All of that is why common sense and actually looking at ALL the data is going to have to happen at some point soon.

The science says the players and coaches are safe.