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Matthew Brown: I feel safe in writing this

matthew brown, the union-recorder, milledgeville, ga.
·5 min read

Aug. 11—Breaking fake news:

Angelos Productions fired director James Cameron and will re-issue a new version of "Titanic" where the massive ocean liner narrowly averts the iceberg and ends with a splash of a Rose and Jack wedding.

Also, the same company fired director Oliver Stone and will re-issue a new version of "JFK" where the 'magic bullet' falls harmlessly to the ground well short of the passing motorcade.

----As far as I know ... and I feel pretty safe in saying it ... the Peach Belt Conference does not have a lucrative television deal. You can even take the word 'lucrative' out of that last statement and be accurate.

As far as I know ... and I feel pretty safe in saying it ... Georgia College & State University isn't looking to take Bobcat athletics to any other conference, nice and content with the status of the Peach Belt Conference in NCAA Division II.

The Director of Athletics, Wendall Staton, confirmed my feelings last Friday when introducing three new members to the GCSU coaching faculty. He admitted that we will read a lot of news about the problems felt in the NCAA. To be specific, there are problems galore in NCAA Division I. Staton basically said, down here in Milledgeville, Georgia, we don't have those problems while staging intercollegiate athletics.

Still, in June of 2022, I asked Staton about such issues on record. I had a good idea what the answers would be, but asked anyway for the sake of anybody who can't see beyond the Division I landscape or thinks such issues would trickle down to Division II. Let me republish his answer about name, image and likeness (NIL):

"It's not a major component of the Division II landscape," said Staton. "It is something. We do have legislation for that, and everybody's trying to work through all this. But it's mostly for the Power 5. We continue to read about it every day.

"I'm all for name, image, likeness. I think originally when people talked about signing an autograph, being able to charge for that. It always seemed, it's your name, you ought to be able to do that.

"I'd like to think we have as good a balance as there is. I do feel like we have the right balance of academics, athletics, community engagement. I'm very pleased for that for Division II."

We aren't supposed to use the term 'student-athlete' anymore according to the commentators with the largest audiences. I feel pretty safe saying it ... at Georgia College & State University and Georgia Military College you will see student-athletes in action. That's both on the home team and the visitors.

But it's not all peaches and cream in the PBC. It originally flew under my radar, but one Peach Belt member did leave the conference in June.

Young Harris College, last November, announced it would go to Conference Carolinas, and it has. But, according to a PBC web site report, a two-year written notice of withdrawal is required. Young Harris only gave one year's notice, and so you have this familiar term: exit fee. It comes out to double the new member initiation fee, or $240,000. This policy was approved by the board of directors in the summer of 2020.

A lawsuit was reportedly filed by the PBC on YHC in late January to recoup this fee. No other follow-up can be found.

Ask Florida State about exit fees. If there's $120 million lying around, why would they use it to get out of the Atlantic Coast Conference? That can more than make up for any deficiencies they feel their media deal creates. But then, if enough schools — Clemson, North Carolina, Virginia, don't forget Miami — pay this to the ACC, the conference could really build itself into something attractive for ... Florida State, Clemson, the Canes, and even Stanford.

Numbers don't really mean anything in big-time college sports anymore. Not just the numbers in the names of conferences (Big 12 only had 10 for a long time; Big Ten's had more than that for three decades).

The Stanford head football coach, Troy Taylor, says they expect to play "Power 5" football. But what will 'Power 5' mean in a year's time? One day, there may only be five conferences in Division I. I was trying to find references to it in the rules for the expanded 12-team Playoff. There isn't any.

One comment about the expansion said it guaranteed at least one 'Group of 5' champion would be among the 12. That's because six conference champions get a spot. Again, will there only be five or six one day?

Division II schools also know that transfers happen all the time. But raise your hand if you remember the latest transfer by one quarterback named J.T. Daniels? I had to look it up when I asked myself if he was still playing in college.

If Daniels takes a snap for the Rice University Owls this fall (they open with the UT Longhorns Sept. 2, 3:30 p.m., on FOX), it will be for his fourth Division I team (Southern California, Georgia, West Virginia before that). That has to be a record for any position at this level. Name another high profile player with that on the back of his card in the modern era. You have to read a fiction novel with a character kicked out of one school after another to find any kind of comparison.

Daniels did this on his own. Imagine, going from winning the Heisman Trophy, starting a national championship game and going No. 1 overall in the 2022 NFL Draft (all projections of course) to the 5-8 LendingTree Bowl runners-up.

(If at all possible, give pet adoption a try through the Animal Rescue Foundation in Milledgeville. Donations of any kind are also in great need. ARF is a little red building at 711 S. Wilkinson St., and more information is available on animalrescuefoundation.org.)