Penn State Stipend a Start, but Doesn't Address College Football's Biggest Issue

For years, the NCAA maintained that it did not create a marketplace for athletic competition. Even if the Association truly believes that, its membership is starting to show otherwise.

Providing full cost of attendance could be the hand that lifts back the curtain. 

In January, Power Five conferences passed their first major piece of legislation in the voting-autonomy era by providing full cost of attendance based on a federally created guideline. Where things get interesting is that the amount of relief given can vary greatly from school to school. 

David Jones of PennLive.com reported Monday that Penn State could offer athletes a stipend of $4,788 for 2015-16 based on past figures cited by CollegeData.com. That would place the Nittany Lions atop the Big Ten for such an amount. 

Jones later wrote that, in comparison to other Big Ten schools, the stipend could be "potentially a significant recruiting tool." 

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The questions are: How much effect will the inevitable lobbying of ADs on behalf of their coaches have on university financial officers to lift the stipend figure as high as they can? And will those schools with powerful athletic coaches succeed in tilting the field in their favor by raising the stipend to significantly higher levels than their rivals?

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In contrast, Ohio State ranks a mere 8th in the Big Ten, currently designating a mere $2,454 of tuition cost to incidental expenses - barely half of PSU's amount. You would expect Urban Meyer, Thad Matta and their messenger, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, to have a say in doubling that number or more by July when schools must designate any changes. Same with Jim Harbaugh and John Beilein at Michigan whose incidental expenses amount is currently designated as a relative pittance - $2,054, 12th in the conference.

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Unless every Power Five school doles out a set stipend—say, $3,500, for example—a marketplace for competition has been established. In theory, programs could (and, eventually, probably will) get into bidding wars over COA numbers for recruiting advantages. According to Big Ten associate commissioner for compliance Chad Hawley, the conference is gladly taking a hands-off approach to the stipend number. 

Basically, go wild. 

"Going into this, we're acknowledging that there is a disparity from one place to another," Hawley told Jones. "And we would be naive to say that, at some point, it's not going to make its way into the recruiting conversation."

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press

It should be noted that whatever a school can pay to close the gap between an athletic scholarship and the actual cost of attendance is a great start. Whether it's $1,000 or $4,000, every little bit helps with expenses like food and travel. This falls under the umbrella of general student-athlete well-being, and it's long overdue. 

However, it's only part of the change that college football needs. It further exposes that sport's biggest problem remains in a legal battle: compensation for name/image/likeness (NIL) rights. That falls under the umbrella of what football players have earned and are entitled to under the law. 

In August, federal judge Claudia Wilken ruled in the Ed O'Bannon class-action lawsuit that the NCAA violated antitrust laws by essentially limiting what players can receive in exchange for their services.

Provided the ruling survives an appeal from the NCAA, benefits could be put in place by 2016-17, per Steve Berkowitz of USA Today. If schools establish a trust fund to pay athletes once their eligibility expires or they leave school, Wilken ruled the payout can be no less than $5,000 a year. 

Whether it's cost of attendance or NIL rights, there are marketplaces in college athletics. This is no longer undeniable by anyone. The NCAA will fight that notion, but eventually, it has to come to terms with it. 

The NCAA's stubbornness will be seen as corruption, but that's too broad of a statement. Do know that there are plenty of people working within the NCAA who care greatly about student-athletes. Certainly, the Association has merited criticism in the past, but putting it on blast has become almost too recreational. 

For example: When Baylor walk-on running back Silas Nacita announced recently that he had been ruled ineligible for essentially not wanting to be homeless, the crosshairs immediately focused on the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis, and the safety was turned off. University of Miami professor Alicia Jessop discussed the situation surrounding the NCAA and Nacita:

The NCAA later tweeted that it had not declared Nacita ineligible, and there are several key details that have gone unanswered in the story. Still, the NCAA took the initial heat because of pre-existing narratives. 

The NCAA and president Mark Emmert aren't automatically wrong all of the time. However, they are wrong when it comes to not wanting to shell out dollars for football players. That's not one man's opinion, either; they were legally determined to be in the wrong. 

Until players receive what they have earned, the cost-of-attendance stipend still won't be a fair trade. 

Ben Kercheval is a lead writer for college football. All quotes cited unless obtained firsthand.