A message to Penn State Football fans: Stop criticizing opt outs

Back in October, following the loss at Iowa, I wrote about some things that I felt needed to be addressed to some ‘fans’ of Penn State Football. I feel the need to bring out the pen, again.

October’s column can be found here. It seems as though it is time to write another important message to Penn State Football — and let’s be honest, all college football fans.

With the total for opt-outs by Nittany Lions for the Outback Bowl reaching five as of Tuesday, what seems like a majority of the Penn State Football fanbase has expressed their discontent towards the decisions that these young men have made.

It is perfectly fine to wish that you could see these players suit up in a Penn State Football uniform one final time, but to not respect and understand their decision is ignorant.

Obviously, in a perfect world, the players could play an entire game with a 100% guarantee that it will be injury-free, but as the great Yogi Berra once said, “if the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be”.

One of the most common arguments is that the school has invested so much into the players, and has given them the platform to showcase their abilities, that they owe the school by finishing their career by participating in the bowl game.

The truth is, these athletes give much more to the university than the university does for them. Period. Full stop.

According to USA Today, Penn State Football’s total annual revenue from athletics is $165,077,390, while their expenses total $157,908,311. That math works out to a profit of $7,169,079.

Nobody likes losing money.

A school would not give out free tuition to athletes, if the total amount of revenue created by those athletes did not out-weigh the combined sum of all of their tuitions. That is why the sports that are most profitable (football and basketball), give out scholarships to a higher percentage of their rosters than sports that don’t bring in as much revenue, such as baseball.

The skills and athleticism of these players is what attracts fans to travel from hours away and pay hundreds of dollars on tickets, parking passes, merchandise, etc.

Not to mention the 3-5 years’ worth of physical damage that players do to their body, risking serious injuries that could be life-changing, every time they take the field, all while the school profits off of their abilities. Ever heard of Adam Taliaferro?

That doesn’t even include what these players do for the economies of the towns where their universities are located. With their talents attracting hundreds of thousands of people annually to travel to a small college town in Pennsylvania, purchasing gas at local gas stations, eating at local restaurants, shopping at local stores, and staying in local hotels.

And before you say that players are now paid to play, they are not.

Thanks to NIL, players can make money off of their name, image, and likeness from businesses that are not affiliated with the school, so the school does not pay them to play.

“The schools provide the platform for them to make money off of their name, image, and likeness”

There are high school athletes making money off of NIL, it doesn’t take a massive university to benefit financially off of your popularity if you are talented enough. (Yes, it certainly helps though).

Another common argument is that the players let their teammates down by “quitting on them” and not playing in the bowl game. You mean the same teammates commenting positive things and reposting their announcements on social media in support and happiness for their teammate?

On Jahan Dotson‘s Instagram announcement of his decision:

“Love you brother” – Joey Porter Jr

“Proud of you 5” – Jesse Luketa

“All love 5” – Liam Clifford

On Jaquan Brisker’s Instagram announcement:

“Money time!!” – Daequan Hardy

And a heart emoji from Jonathan Sutherland

There were many others who commented similar things, including most members of the current team, former teammates, Penn State wrestlers, Penn State basketball players, current recruits, and even fellow Big Ten athletes from other schools.

What about the coaches?

https://twitter.com/coachseider/status/1475601660919660556?s=20

That seems pretty supportive to me.

Then there is someone who goes by the name of Dr Beeper on Twitter, who replied to a post about Dotson and Brisker by saying “Talking about how they are going to quit on their team? F**k them”.

So the teammates and coaches are supportive, but these ‘fans’ are not.

Moving on…

“It is a selfish move to not play in the bowl game”

Well, one could argue that it is also selfish of a fan, who doesn’t even personally know the player, to ask someone in their early twenties to risk millions of dollars and a childhood dream for a glorified consolation game.

On Facebook, many people who were *let’s see, how should I put this*, born a long time before these players were saying how selfish and entitled this younger generation apparently is.

Who raised this younger generation?

When I commented that question on a Facebook post complaining about this younger generation opting out of bowl games, a fine gentleman responded; “sure as f**k not real f*****g parents!!! Let’s go Brandon!”

How nice of him to be cheering on Brandon Smith as he chases his childhood dream!

Another thing that seemed to rub people the wrong way was the timing of these announcements.

Everyone is complaining that Dotson, Brisker, and Ebiketie supposedly waited until they got to Tampa before opting out so that they could “get a free vacation”

Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but they actually aren’t in Tampa with the team.

On Monday, Dotson posted a picture on his Instagram story of him training with a private trainer, not in Tampa. And on Tuesday, Ebiketie retweeted this, following a workout:

Gibson Performance Training is located in Maryland by the way, Ebiketie’s home state.

Just because the announcements were made public on Monday and Tuesday, does not mean that is when the decisions were made and when the staff was notified.

More than likely, James Franklin asked the players to wait as long as possible to make the announcement public, so that Arkansas was unsure of who to prepare for. The reason the announcements weren’t made any later is because, once the team arrived in Tampa and began bowl festivities on Monday with media and cameras following them around, it would have been hard to hide the fact that the three of them were not with the team, and the news would have surfaced sooner rather than later.

I also commented a summarized version of that on a Facebook post complaining about the timing of the announcements, and I got a reply saying:

"THANK YOU, because one idiot told me (his mom), that Jahan was in Tampa"

Yes, that’s right. I got a reply from Dotson’s mother saying that someone tried to tell her that she didn’t know that her own son was in Tampa with the team, even though he is not.

I thanked her for doing a great job of raising Jahan, who has and will continue to represent Penn State University well, both on and off the field, despite what some angry ‘fans’ on social media might think.

The final common argument is, “former stars have played in their final bowl games in the past, why can’t these guys?”

Well, like it or not, times are changing, and it’s not just Penn State. And while many of these players have been lucky as to not get injured in their bowl, others have not been so fortunate.

Former Michigan tight end Jake Butt was one of the best tight ends in the country in 2016 and was a potential first round draft pick, that was until he tore his ACL in the Orange Bowl. He fell to the third round, which isn’t too bad, but he was never the same after the injury, and re-injured the knee multiple times in the future, and was forced to retire from football after playing in just 8 career NFL games.

On the Woodward Sports Show on YouTube, Butt said that while he does not regret playing in the Orange Bowl because he “learned a lot and grew a lot emotionally” through his “trials and tribulations”, he says when a guy is staring down the barrel of millions of dollars guaranteed, he can’t knock them for wanting to take care of their future.

He answered the question of “why play the regular season” by saying that the regular season is a body of work to increase draft status, but for the little amount that a player may be able to improve their stock in a single bowl game, the risks far outweigh the rewards.

He also mentions that, if you wait until after the bowl game to begin prepping for the combine, you miss out on over a month of prep, compared to what you would have if you began training in early December, to which he concluded that statement by saying “people aren’t understanding that”.

For bowl prep practices, many stars, even returning stars, get limited reps until the final week of practice when opponent-specific preparations begin. The practices prior to that are treated like more of a mini-camp, where underclassmen and backups get a lot of reps to accelerate their development, so guys like Dotson, Brisker, and Ebiketie would not get many reps to improve their game during those weeks of bowl prep.

*I am going to pause for a second, and say that if you have read this far and plan on commenting on this column either in the comments at the bottom of this page or wherever the link to this might be posted, please begin your comment by telling me who your all-time favorite Penn State Football player is, so that I know you read the whole thing.

Now to finish up…

Jake Butt also mentioned situations where eight-million dollar coaches are leaving for new programs at a moment’s notice and not giving their players their time of day, such as Brian Kelly leaving Notre Dame when they still had a shot at the College Football Playoff, had Alabama and/or Michigan lost on championship Saturday.

He concluded his monologue about bowl game opt outs by saying; “we’re holding these 18-22 year old young men to a higher standard than we are the eight-million dollar coach, don’t give me that, let these guys make the best decision for themselves.”