WSU prez: NCAA requires reform, not replacement

• Heather Dinich, ESPN Elder WriterFeb 29, 2024, 05:00 PM ET

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  • College football reporter
  • Signed up with ESPN.com in 2007
  • Graduate of Indiana University

As the favored structure of future NCAA governance stays debatable in college athletics, Washington State president Kirk Schulz on Thursday emphasized a requirement for the national company and urged others to have patience as brand-new management efforts to navigate its member schools through a crucial and transformative time.

“It’s easy to throw hand grenades at the NCAA,” Schulz said on a Pac-12 media videoconference. “Schools do, presidents do, great deals of people do. However at the end of the day, we need a company that puts on champions, that does do some guidelines setting and handles enforcement. If you get rid of the NCAA– whatever that looks like– think what? You’ve got ta stand a separate organization that’s going to have those exact same functions and will have a few of the same aggravations.

“As quickly as anyone has to do enforcement, believe me– the school that is being investigated isn’t going to feel good about that,” he said. “I think the concept that we’re going to begin seeing a lot of conferences or schools break away from the NCAA and start their own grouping– whatever that is– I think at some point you simply re-create the NCAA. Why not reform what’s there rather than let’s go re-create something?”

Schulz’s remarks came one day after a high-ranking university official told ESPN there are some presidents and chancellors in the SEC and Big Ten who feel “extremely highly” about pulling away from the NCAA.

“That’s an option that’s on the table,” the source said. “… It would be irresponsible on our part if we weren’t looking at a new governing process. There’s so much uncertainty happening worldwide of college sports. Do we want to continue this, or is there a better way of doing things? Yes, those conversations are out there.”

Those discussions connect into the ongoing conversations about the future of the College Football Playoff, as its management is considering what the format ought to appear like starting in 2026. The CFP will have a 12-team playoff starting this season and next, but the future is a blank slate. The CFP’s management committee is presently concentrated on a 14-team format. Before the presidents and chancellors can agree to a brand-new TV handle ESPN for the next eight years, they require to decide what the format will be, how groups will qualify for it and whether they are all working together under the NCAA umbrella.Schulz, who represents the Pac-12 on the CFP’s board of supervisors, said his discussions with fellow university presidents over the past couple of months have actually reflected a basic gratitude for brand-new NCAA president Charlie Baker.

“Whether individuals like all of the proposals coming out or not, you’ve got to praise the management there is stating, ‘Hey, we acknowledge people want to see something various out of the NCAA, and we’re going to respond to that,'” Schulz said. “It’s prematurely not to provide Charlie the chance to continue to assist lead and modify what the NCAA does and how it works with schools.”

New Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould, who now represents the conference on the CFP management committee, said the commissioners are “lined up” in their desire to establish a plan that has “adaptability.”

“I think none people would have ever anticipated the quantity of modification that is going on right now,” she said in her introductory news conference. “The other day looks various than today. And who understands what the headline is going to be tomorrow. So our task collectively as the management of the CFP is to make certain that, whatever prepare it is, that we have a plan that is versatile and active to the changing times that we’re in. And that is one of the conversations that I want to make sure we continue to have in that room.”