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Corn Flakes: Heisman, Crowdfunding And Why Lawyers Suck

By Jon Johnston
Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

The Heisman Trophy was awarded over the weekend. It went to Derrick Henry of Alabama. Christian McAffrey of Stanford was second, and Deshaun Watson of Clemson finished third.

There were complaints that only three candidates were invited to the ceremony, but when you look at the voting you get why; Baker Mayfield was a distant fourth. Still, it wouldn't have hurt to have more actual players highlighted would it?

There's a lot of cynicism surrounding the Heisman. It's a great award if one of your guys is a candidate, and a joke award if they're not. It has not helped that ESPN has taken the award and done with it as they have everything else, pounded it into the ground, then pounded more and more and more until that's left is dirt and pebbles.

Did you try to watch the award ceremony? I flipped over there for about five minutes to watch Chris Fowler speaking, then realized it was an hour and a half long, gave up, and went back to volleyball on ESPNU.

Note that 15 percent of voters sent in their vote before the conference championship weekend. There are 870 media voters for the Heisman. Why?

Twitter, as you can expect, was alive with comments about the ceremony.

I'm figuring Nebraska fans tuned in to see what Mike Rozier was wearing. Rozier could make it easier on us if he'd just send out something on social media.

As far as the winner goes, I admit my bias. I can't stand Alabama. I think Henry is a fine running back, but I'd rather the award have gone to McAffrey, who did everything for Stanford this season.

But in reality....

Whatever, Mr Rational Guy on twitter. Who needs you?

There's another organization promoting crowdfunding for college athletes. UBooster sees itself as the future:

"UBooster is the world’s premier platform for supporting college athletes. Through UBooster, fans Boost funds to demonstrate their support of the choices made by high school athletes. All the funds go to a trust fund (known as a UFund) for the athletes, which they can access at the end of their NCAA eligibility.

If you're wondering, "Is this illegal in the eyes of the NCAA?", well, yes, it.. mostly is. The NCAA dealt with the subject of crowdfunding college athletes in a column on November 6, 2014 after a site named FanPay tried the same thing.

I was tempted to quote most of that article, but I was worried about your short attention span, so I've tried to limit it to the most relevant component to make my point about the subject.

The previous questions were all about why crowdfunding cannot be used, but then you run into Question No. 9 and you think that this might be okay.

Question No. 9: Is a student-athlete permitted to set up his or her own profile on a crowdfunding website to solicit funds to pay for expenses associated with competition and practice for an outside team?

Answer: Yes. This is permissible because a student-athlete who participates in a sport as a member of a team may receive actual and necessary expenses for competition and practice held in preparation for such competition from an outside sponsor other than an agent or a representative of an institution's athletics interests. A student-athlete who participates as an individual in a sport may receive actual and necessary expenses associated with an athletics event and practice immediately preceding the event, from an outside sponsor other than an agent or a representative of an institution's athletics interests.

TL;DR - it's complicated.

Can it be used?

Yes, apparently, as long as the site doesn't use the athlete's name, image, or likeness, and as long as the athlete doesn't acknowledge the money ahead of time, and as long as... as long as lawyers all get together and bill the shit out of the NCAA and then someone else somewhere pays them to attack the NCAA on these grounds.

Bottom line:

Schools will want NO association with sites like Fanpay or UBooster. It's not because they want to suck all of the money out of the athletes that they can (well, that's not the main reason), it's because if they're caught up in this they will get their athletes ruled ineligible, their teams barred from postseason competition, and all the other sanctions that the NCAA can throw at them.

You might think that's not much, but getting an individual athlete ruled ineligible really sucks because then you have to get more lawyers to file more briefs and bill more hours and wait for more rulings and everything involves lawyers and when everything involves lawyers IT SUCKS ALWAYS because they don't care if it takes all that time while your life slowly dwindles away.....

Here's a nice photo David took over the weekend as Nebraska picked up a nice win against Rhode Island.

Gallery: Huskers knock off Rhode Island David McGee

And now for random links:

Peak Pace - We Have Reached the Top - CFB Matrix
The era of increased plays per minute, after seven years of consecutive pace of play rate jumps, is coming to an end in 2015.

Wrestling upsets No. 4 Nebraska - On the Banks
If you're a top ten or so team, is it really an upset? After getting hit hard by No. 2 Iowa, Rutgers bounces back.

UCLA matchup means plenty to Newby
Nebraska running back Terrell Newby doesn’t have to say much to know that the coming bowl game with UCLA means something to him. Just look at the Los Angeles native’s left bicep, which is covered by a big "LA" script and several palm trees, to know that playing the Bruins means a bit more.

Maryland wrestling falls to top-five Nebraska, 30-9 - Testudo Times
The Terps took only two of ten matches from the Cornhuskers in their Big Ten home opener.

Penn State Hires Fordham Head Coach Joe Moorhead as Offensive Coordinator - Off Tackle Empire
Meet Joe Moorhead, the architect of Penn State's future offense.

Getting to know new Offensive Coordinator Drew Mehringer - On the Banks
3 days after hiring his first assistant coach, special team coordinator Vince Okruch, Rutgers head coach Chris Ash has hired Drew Mehringer as the offensive coordinator. Mehringer will come to The Banks following a one-year stint at Houston as the WR coach and recruiting coordinator. At Rutgers, he will of course be the offensive coordinator and will also coach the quarterbacks.

Georgia set to tap Pitt's Chaney for OC job? - Dawg Sports
No official word yet, but multiple outlets are reporting this morning that Kirby Smart has tapped Pitt offensive coordinator Jim Chaney to run the Bulldog offense. Chaney previously worked at...

SEC Coaches and Basing Pay on Incentives, Not Salary - For Whom the Cowbell Tolls
A way to pay coaches for their performance.

College football coach buys his seniors suits for their first... | www.ajc.com
The money for the suits came from funds donated to the program.

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