(Editor's note: This is the sixth and final installment of a multi-part series by MTN Sports on the current state of college athletics. For Part 1, click here. For Part 2, click here. For Part 3, click here. For Part 4, click here. For Part 5, click here.)
MISSOULA — College administrators expected a resolution in the House v. NCAA case weeks ago.
The settlement’s approval was supposed to provide financial clarity in college athletics by June 6 and officially begin the revenue-sharing era, which will allow schools to directly pay their athletes, this summer. Instead, that deadline has been extended to June 27 as Judge Claudia Wilken continues to deliberate on her final decision.
So, the college sports landscape remains the same as it did in April.
Montana State men’s basketball coach Matt Logie then called the current state of college athletics “fluid,” and Montana Lady Griz coach Nate Harris said “it's weird. It’s not ideal.”
“One of my former colleagues, (Kansas State coach) Chris Klieman, called it a disaster,” added Montana State football coach Brent Vigen, who worked alongside Klieman when both were assistants at North Dakota State.
And Griz football coach Bobby Hauck didn't pull any punches.
“This new world is such a (expletive) show,” he said. “Who knows? I mean, nobody has answers. I’ve been around a while and I have some thoughts, but there are no answers right now. It’s a (expletive) show.”
The chaos in which college sports — specifically football and basketball — are engulfed has been percolating for decades but finally boiled over in 2020. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, student-athletes were granted another year of athletic eligibility and academic standards were lowered.
At the same time or shortly after, transfer restrictions were lifted and student-athletes began profiting off their name, image and likeness. In short, many of the previously placed guardrails that allowed the NCAA to continue the amateurism charade with college athletes were dismantled in just a couple years.
“It’s a runaway train, so it’s not being handled,” Hauck said. “You can’t operate an entity without any structure or organization, and we have none of that. It’s professional football without any kind of structure or anything like that.”
Of course, most changes have been made with only one thing in mind: money. College football is a multi-billion-dollar business and is the second-most popular sports league in the country, behind only the gargantuan NFL.
Men’s basketball lags far behind in terms of revenue generated, but its March Madness tournament is the NCAA’s cash cow. The women’s NCAA tournament has seen rapid growth in recent years, as well.
“So much of it is driven by football, but then you have the obviously weird disparity of universities and conferences tend to ... make money off of football, whereas the NCAA as a whole makes its money off their men’s and women’s basketball tournaments,” Harris said. “There’s just so many different pieces in play and who makes money here, and it’s become big business.”
The good news for Montana and Montana State fans is that their community and booster support positions the Bobcats and Grizzlies to weather whatever changes are ahead — within reason, of course. All bets are off if the SEC and Big Ten break away from the NCAA to form their own football division and then take greater control of championship governance, including in the selection process for the men’s and women’s national basketball tournaments.
But that’s a potential doomsday scenario, which would only further the chasm between the haves and have-nots, that has not yet arrived. Until it does, successful FCS football and mid-major basketball programs seem destined to act as farm systems for high-major programs.
“I don’t want to make it a recruiting pitch that we’re going to develop guys and get you to the next place, by any means,” Vigen said. “But if that’s the reality in some kid’s eyes and he chooses to come here and has this be a launching pad, let’s recognize the time that he had here and what he meant to this program versus just being pissed about all of a sudden him leaving and what’s going to be on the other side.”
Vigen, who is entering his fifth season as the Bobcat football coach, guided his team to the FCS national championship game last season. The year prior, Hauck took the Griz to the title game.
The Montana men and Montana State women both won Big Sky Conference basketball championships in March and played in their national tournaments. UM men’s coach Travis DeCuire and MSU women’s coach Tricia Binford have both coached multiple times in March Madness.
Logie in his first season at Montana State won the Big Sky and took the Bobcats to the NCAA tournament.
“Everything starts with leadership, right? So, if you have great leadership and you have a vision to kind of get out in front of things, I think you’ve got a great opportunity to be successful,” said Binford, who signed a new four-year contract with Montana State earlier this year. “And we have a tremendous community. We have all the resources right here in our backyard — we've got a winning atmosphere, we’ve got a community base that is going to come support all the different programs.”
Of the six coaches of the revenue-generating programs at MSU and UM, only Harris hasn’t won the Big Sky — but he’s been the Lady Griz head coach for just a few months after initially arriving as an assistant in 2021.
“It’s interesting to really kind of consider as much as it’s changed in the time that I got to Missoula to now, if it changes that much again, it’ll be almost unrecognizable compared to what it was in 2021," Harris said.
“It’s very interesting, but I’m thankful to be in Montana. I think that we are ... in a unique spot in terms of figuring out a path through it.”
