David Shaw addresses evolution of college sports, how to move forward

Stanford Cardinal head football coach David Shaw is revered as one of the more intellectual coaches among his peers. And that was on full display during his recent appearance on the Paul Finebaum Show. During his segment, Shaw addressed the evolution of college sports in the new NIL landscape and how things should move forward.

“I’ve been on a lot of NCAA committees, and I feel very comfortable saying this; we would be in so much a better place right now if the NCAA adopted and embraced name, image, and likeness five to seven years ago,” said Shaw. “I think it would be more controlled, it would be much easier for everybody, but that didn’t happen.

“So, I think we’re in a difficult spot right now, but there’s a lot of positives that are coming from it. From our student-athletes that are playing, going out, and engaging with the public and using their name, image, and likeness to not just earned money but build relationships and help themselves in the future. So that’s really exciting.”

Before the birth of NIL in the Supreme Court case Alston v. NCAA, the college sports governing power had an opportunity to get ahead of the curve and representation for college athletes. Throughout the years, there have been many instances where players attempted to benefit from any of the three categories but were met with harsh and stiff punishment, such as USC Trojans running back Reggie Bush. Because of Bush’s violation of the rules, he had to vacate his 2005 Heisman Trophy award; along with the school forfeiting its 2004 and 2005 BCS National Championships.

Now that NIL is here, the NCAA has yet to put hard rules in play to balance out the recruiting field. This has led to arguments and debates among coaches, both publicly and privately, and an influx of player movement. And Shaw understands this to be an issue with how things are currently structured in the system.

“What’s not exciting is the bastardization of these rules. And I’m not going to say outright cheating, but since there really isn’t a grey area when you look at the rules; the fact that you kind of get away with some things right now has created this grey area that is not doing right by the student-athletes. That is circumventing fair play and, in some ways common sense. So that’s got us into this tumultuous time right now because — what should we do? What shouldn’t we do? Oh, they’re doing that. I guess we should try to do that too. It’s putting a lot of kids in positions to where they’re having a tough time.”

With all the news you hear about player movement and allegations of pay for play, Stanford has not had much of an issue in the NIL world. And that is because of what the university has to offer on an academic level. Players heading to Stanford go there more times than not on what it has to offer outside of its sports — a fact that is not lost on the Cardinal headman.

“It’s kind of why I love being at Stanford because it really is not affecting us. Because of what we have in our degree, what we have in our Stanford experience, and in our alumni network. That is balancing out some of the, well, do I take cash to go play there, or do I go to Stanford and get a degree where I’m gonna make more than that down the road anyway?”