Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (KRT) – No one needs to be told, for example, why a 12-8 team is able to sit atop the Big Ten standings.
Quality within college basketball has been slipping for years, mostly because the best players opt out early for the National Basketball Association.
And now, with Maurice Clarett ruling, there are those who fear that college football will undergo a similar dilution of talent.
But that will never happen. Except in extremely rare instances, those floodgates will remain closed.
Just because a judge ordered last week that players less than three years removed from high school can make themselves available for the National Football League draft doesn’t mean that youngsters will begin taking indiscriminate leaps to professional rosters.
The ruling, which is subject to appeal, is likely to have little effect on the quality or migration patterns within football.
In theory, there is nothing wrong with a ruling that allows gifted individuals to seek employment at the highest level.
Basketball and soccer players, actors, golfers, musicians, gymnasts and dancers may turn professional based on ability, often regardless of age and experience.
Kobe Bryant and LeBron James may have made the successful transition from high school to the NBA, but football is quite another beast.
There may be an 18-year-old somewhere on this planet able to withstand the physical and mental beating he would receive in the violent, brutal world of the NFL, but 99.9 percent of those who think they could make it would just get hurt and kicked to the curb.
Clarett? After playing only one year at Ohio State, the running back who failed to demonstrate the mental toughness to even stay in school could end up as an appetizer on the training-table menu.
In each of the games he played at Ohio State, Clarett faced maybe one defender each Saturday who hit like all 11 would deliver extreme-prejudice shots on any given Sunday. Washington linebacker LeVar Arrington wasn’t kidding when he said that NFL veterans would tee off on Clarett if he decides to turn pro.
They’re mad because the ruling undercuts their collective-bargaining agreement, and on that account they have a right to take exception.
Meanwhile, Pittsburgh receiver Larry Fitzgerald, who announced Monday that he would not return for his junior year, is doing the right thing by declaring for the draft.
Fitzgerald qualified under the old rule because he is three years out of high school. He has enough experience to prepare his body and mind for the rigors to come. And given the fact that he probably should have won the Heisman Trophy, Fitzgerald also has enough talent.
Yet for all the NFL lawyers who are lining up to argue against whether the ruling violates antitrust statutes and for all the so-called experts who wonder if the judge’s decision will create chaos, there’s really only one down side, and it’s a big one.
If a freshman such as Clarett tires of the schoolwork or runs afoul of the law, he now has the easy-out option to leave. Same for a high school kid who deludes himself that he is ready for the NFL.
And whom are they kidding? Except in the most extreme cases, the NFL will not draft them. And where are they then except out on the street?
Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer, who otherwise has his interests to protect, was right when he said virtually all young players will need at least some college before they are ready for the NFL. The Clarett ruling, then, will mean little in the greater scheme.
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2004, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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