UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen had everyone up in arms on Tuesday by making some good points about school and football
One of the individual players everyone will have their eyes on this college football season is UCLA Bruins quarterback Josh Rosen. Rosen, heading into his junior season, is looking to have the Heisman season that everyone has been waiting on since he arrived on campus in Westwood following a campaign last year that was shortened by an injury suffered in October against Arizona State. That journey will begin on Sep. 3 when he and the Bruins take on the Texas A&M Aggies of the SEC, but Rosen already has people staunchly focused on him for some recent comments he made.
Rosen recently participated in a Q&A session with the folks over at Bleacher Report, and during this interview, Rosen made some comments regarding school and football that has everyone talking here in early August. Basically, Rosen said what everyone already knows — that being academics and football at the highest level of college is far from the perfect marriage.
“Look, football and school don’t go together. They just don’t,” Rosen told Bleacher Report. “Trying to do both is like trying to do two full-time jobs. There are guys who have no business being in school, but they’re here because this is the path to the NFL. There’s no other way. Then there’s the other side that says raise the SAT eligibility requirements. OK, raise the SAT requirement at Alabama and see what kind of team they have. You lose athletes and then the product on the field suffers.”
Firstly, contrary to popular belief on Tuesday, Rosen was not specifically targeting Alabama with this quote. The UCLA signal-caller was not using the Crimson Tide for trolling purposes. He was merely using the biggest juggernaut in college football of the last decade to shed some light on something that’s clearly an issue in college football.
Secondly, Rosen made some good points here. The “student-athlete” model is clearly flawed and has been for years now. Asking these young men to carry football programs that bring in millions of dollars to their respective institutions on a regular basis while getting a top-notch college education is simply wanting too much. It really is trying to juggle two full-time jobs, as Rosen perfectly stated during his interview.
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This is an issue that obviously won’t be changing anytime soon, especially in the college football realm, but it’s refreshing to have one of the biggest stars in the game more or less just state the obvious.