I claim no actual knowledge of the rules or policies, but my guess is that VT can't, or doesn't want to, punish players with physical activity outside of the normally scheduled practices and meetings. So no 6am mandatory workouts for 5 players who messed up somehow some day previous while the rest of the team sleeps or goes about their day. HOWEVER, in the regularly scheduled events, the coaches do make players do extra physical workouts as a form of punishment. Example: Zohn making WRs do push-ups each time he noticed they didn't properly block in previous game film while reviewing during a WRs meeting.
In my opinion, I totally agree with Whit on squashing the fining of student-athletes from their stipend money. The stipends, I believe, are meant to help pay for expenses that a normal student would have the opportunity to account for. By taking away that money, you may be preventing that student-athlete from buying groceries or school supplies they need. Now, many will argue that the stipends will mostly go to gaming consoles, TVs, bling, etc. But to me, that's a problem of implementation, not a problem of purpose.
I am not in agreement with Whit on stopping the fining against bowl money/gifts. Everything a player receives from a bowl game is exactly that: a gift. If we don't go to a bowl game, the players don't get anything. It's a reward for a successful regular season. If a player misses practices or meetings during bowl preparation time, then by all means start taking away their gifts. Now Whit has really tightened down on what options the coaches have to re-enforce the contract that the student-athletes have with the university: come play a sport and represent our university and we will provide you with a free, first-class education plus expenses.
PS: I wonder if Whit shutting down ALL fining systems includes the punishment that if you miss curfew at a bowl game you have to ride the bus back to Blacksburg instead of flying?
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What you said. You don't take away money being given for the purpose of balancing things out a bit for the players. I absolutely agree that what these student athletes do with their stipends is their business, and their business alone. It is presumptuous to make assumptions, but worse to presume it is any of our affair.
Also wholeheartedly agree with your opinion regarding bowl money/gifts, including the bus ride home. That's a horse of a different color.
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I think what we are trying to prevent is a negative recruiting aspect from other colleges saying "Well look Tech will take your money but we don't do that here" also again it's about the expenses of going to college even the bowl games you're in a strange city and you have extra expenses. The amount seems so small what's the point then it just encourages the boosters to slip a guy an extra 50 because he lost his bowl money
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I can understand that. So many questions, so few answers! For example:
How many schools, before this incident, knew that VT took away bowl money/gifts as punishment, didn't do it themselves, and used it against us in recruiting?
How many recruits have shied away from VT, or flipped from VT, as a result of hearing VT did the bowl game stuff?
How often did it even happen? I have heard a few instances of the riding the bus back penalty, but nothing ever money/gift related.
Someone inside the program told me that the players only receive money on the bowl trip for meals not provided as a team and for mileage when not travelling with the team (e.g. from their home). So AFAIK they aren't getting say $100 (speaking solely in terms of cash; I believe they do get gift cards that I seem to remember some players using on needy families/children?) and the coaches are like "Go nuts at Best Buy!" or something like that.
Anyways, I would hope that the players we are recruiting hard are ones who would understand the difference between being told "VT will take your bowl money/gifts from you just willy-nilly." and our coaches saying "You follow the rules and show up on time and work hard, you won't have anything taken from you and you will get to enjoy all the perks of being a student-athlete." If a recruit is thinking "Man, if I screw up then VT is going to take my money...I better go to X where they won't take anything," then I would argue they probably wouldn't have been a good fit for VT anyways.
Finally, I also really hope that none of our VT boosters would ever try to pay one of our players (unless there is a circumstance where it is allowed by NCAA rules) and further that none of our players would be stupid enough to take it. And I am using the term "stupid" lightly here...I understand throughout history there have been many cases where personal/family poverty outweigh rules or thinking correctly. But hopefully VT has a good system in place to make sure that kind of desperation doesn't happen.
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Thanks Andy, Seems like a targeted question that was answered truthfully but not clearly. Overblown by click-bait media. As Whit said "with everything we've got going on in the media today, especially in Roanoke, I wouldn't say this is a huge deal comparatively"
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That's funny! I once tripped and fell down in the New River while retrieving a golf ball. In December, while wading across from the as yet not Pete Dyed golf course to do some duck hunting. To say my teeth chattered the rest of the day would be an understatement. My buddy later found a broken walker at the dump, put camo tape on it and presented it to me the next time we went duck hunting. Some things are hard to live down.
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So am I the only one that read the headline as Whit shutdown football practice and not the practice of fines?? I read the headline and was like WTF?!?! But then read the article and was like "OOOhhhhhhh....the practice of fines...."
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Does the bowl stipend fine refer to sending players home on Greyhound? They weren't at the bowl trip for the entire time so why should they get paided a stipend for the length of the entire trip?
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Good on Whit for getting on top of things, and good on AB for taking the time to do, y'know, actual journalism and not just run with 2 or 3 quotes - lookin' at you, Mike and Mike.
Also, can we all just put this behind us and agree that we've found the next great TKP meme picture?
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If you want a guy to hire you as the next HC at Virginia Tech, having him clean up your mess isn't a great way to do it.
Chris Coleman on TSL had a nice piece on it where he described the VT Football system as operating above the VT Athletics system over the years. Whit will check them.
The more I see of Whit, the more I like him.
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Props to Cinci for helping take the focus off us on this. While Whit completely squashes this thing before it gets going, the Cinci AD went on record to say he supports the thought of fining kids for issues.
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Cincinnati's Tommy Tuberville said he will consider withholding some cost of attendance money for off the field shortcomings/violations.— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) August 27, 2015
Cincy players who fail to meet academic requirements or violate team rules or athletic department policies could be subject.— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) August 27, 2015
Cincinnati athletics director Mike Bohn: "It's not a fine. It's not a threat. It's a tool." Bohn says it's an "accountability measure."— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) August 27, 2015
But yeah, guys, it's totally Bud's idea.
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Is it? Might actually be right when you consider the orange outline.
Interesting note I learned following Hokie20 on Twitter, the VT logos on the helmets are different this year than the past, as they're making them conform to our university standard where the gap between the V and the leg on the T is the same width as that spoke itself. In the past, that gap has always been too narrow.
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I can't find a pic of it, but I want to say in the early-mid 90's we had interlocking VT's at center court in Cassell. The gap was the width of the T, so they fit perfectly.
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Yep, and it was used like this through our Big East days, until we changed Cassell design with ACC admittance in 2004.
Looked like this:
By the way, based on this Google Image search I found the site by the guy who designed that center court logo and how to properly draw the VT: About the VT Logo
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The crazy part is that VT likely cant do it under the current P5 rules, since in January the P5 voted to redefine a full ride as inclusive of the COA stipend, and you have to offer a full scholarship to play football, thus you need to offer a full COA stipend to stay in the P5.
But it is completely option for the G5, so Cinci can offer as much or as little as they think they can "afford". So Cinci could get away with adjustments semester to semester for a player's COA stipend accomplishing the same thing as a fine.
Just another point of how much the COA/Scholarship shift by the P5 has turned it into the Wild West, without even going into the individual school's COA values.
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Been witholding my thoughts on this issue. Now that there's some semblance of closure, I'll say this.
Fuck the media.
Fuck the clickbait era.
Fuck the media being driven by generating ratings to increase ad revenue.
Fuck our short attention spans.
Fuck valuing entertainment over understanding.
Fuck our knee-jerk response being rage rather than discretion.
Fuck the lack of appreciation for nuance and context.
Fuck gotcha anything.
Fuck any culture where an honest man giving an honest answer turns into this.
/endrant
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Whit "might" be for player accountability when comes to academics? Reavis was just held accountable for god knows what and was expelled. I think players need to be held accountable for THEIR own good.
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I didn't say nor mean to imply he did. My point is he should be for player accountability to help the kids make better decisions. Reavis was just an example of poor choices that resulted in expulsion. Hopefully it will end up being a learning moment for the rest of the guys.
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Just talked to a friend from Mich St, says he knows for a fact MSU has had a fine system in place for a while now. Apparently this is a much more frequent practice than originally thought.
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The only reason it's news now is because of the whole Cost of Attendance situation and whether they can reduce the amount they receive.that it's the off-season and we don't have last week's game to talk about and next week's to look forward to.
FTFY
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It is an issue IMO. It's not fair that you can take take away benefits when a student athlete makes a mistake, but if they go above and beyond what's expected of them (whether it's level of play or off the field stuff like helping in the community) their reward remains unchanged.
Not trying to make this a player's rights convo, but the sport can't maintain amateurism but fine players at the same time.
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Who is to say that they don't get rewards? Nowhere has that been covered. You don't know if they receive grace allowances that cover a mistake for community service and others items. Again, don't screw up and it's not an issue for you. There has to be consequences for negative actions.
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Well, if they are abiding by NCAA rules, no player should be getting additional monetary, performance based rewards, for on or off the field activities. Do you think Kendall Fuller got paid to read a book at the local elementary school? Do you think our players who recently played football with a bunch of kids got paid to do so? Do you think Dadi got paid extra for his 5000 sacks against pitt in 2013?
There has to be consequences for negative actions.
I agree, but if you want monetary consequences for negative actions, then you need to also offer monetary rewards for positive actions. The NCAA has made it clear that the latter is not allowed.
I'm all for discipline, but you don't need to withhold players' money. Make them do community service, make them write lines on a chalk board, find something. It is 100% unfair for a body that preaches amateurism to charge its employees for mistakes.
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but if you want monetary consequences for negative actions, then you need to also offer monetary rewards for positive actions.
Virginia State Police has taken hundreds from me in speeding ticket fines. Never once have they recompensed me for being courteous when it wasn't required of me.
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That's a ridiculous comparison. Our coaches are not and should not be police; their job is far more intricate. Other reasons why your comparison is invalid:
You are able to explore and market yourself on the free market, college football players are not.
You are putting other lives at risk by speeding, college football players are not putting other lives in danger by not attending class, or skipping a team meal.
You aren't making a voluntary choice to be a citizen of the US (yes, you could leave, but it's not like the US was recruiting you, like college students are recruited).
Local government often has a legitimate need for this money. Our football team does not.
If you pay athletes based on performance, you're allowed to fine them based on detrimental performance. There are so many other wise to punish a player, why would you take money from them? If their transgression is that serious, kick them off the team.
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Wow, this is absolutely the most overblown issue I have heard of in a long time. I couldn't even take this seriously if they actually did fine a player for disciplinary reasons.
I think it is a much bigger issue that someone wrote and article calling Bud an A-hole. That guy is the real loser in all of this.
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College football is not a minor-league NFL system. Fining players is something that they do in the NFL. Implicitly states that you were getting paid to play football. You are not getting paid to play football, you are getting a chance at an education via a scholarship in exchange for your athletic ability and keeping good academic standing at the University. If a player skips class and doesn't make the grades then they will be ruled ineligible and lose the scholarship and have to withdraw from the University if they can't afford to pay the bill on their own and gain readmittance. The players did in fact "Come here to play school". The players will be held accountable for their own actions by basis of staying eligible if you don't want the opportunity someone else will .
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Comments
Thanks Andy, this really answered my concerns.
Well then.
Can't make them run, can't withhold part of their bowl stipends. What can you do?
Who says you can't make them run?
Bud said in the interview that some coaches had gotten in trouble for 6am conditioning stints- thus why they were "looking" into fines.
I claim no actual knowledge of the rules or policies, but my guess is that VT can't, or doesn't want to, punish players with physical activity outside of the normally scheduled practices and meetings. So no 6am mandatory workouts for 5 players who messed up somehow some day previous while the rest of the team sleeps or goes about their day. HOWEVER, in the regularly scheduled events, the coaches do make players do extra physical workouts as a form of punishment. Example: Zohn making WRs do push-ups each time he noticed they didn't properly block in previous game film while reviewing during a WRs meeting.
In my opinion, I totally agree with Whit on squashing the fining of student-athletes from their stipend money. The stipends, I believe, are meant to help pay for expenses that a normal student would have the opportunity to account for. By taking away that money, you may be preventing that student-athlete from buying groceries or school supplies they need. Now, many will argue that the stipends will mostly go to gaming consoles, TVs, bling, etc. But to me, that's a problem of implementation, not a problem of purpose.
I am not in agreement with Whit on stopping the fining against bowl money/gifts. Everything a player receives from a bowl game is exactly that: a gift. If we don't go to a bowl game, the players don't get anything. It's a reward for a successful regular season. If a player misses practices or meetings during bowl preparation time, then by all means start taking away their gifts. Now Whit has really tightened down on what options the coaches have to re-enforce the contract that the student-athletes have with the university: come play a sport and represent our university and we will provide you with a free, first-class education plus expenses.
PS: I wonder if Whit shutting down ALL fining systems includes the punishment that if you miss curfew at a bowl game you have to ride the bus back to Blacksburg instead of flying?
What you said. You don't take away money being given for the purpose of balancing things out a bit for the players. I absolutely agree that what these student athletes do with their stipends is their business, and their business alone. It is presumptuous to make assumptions, but worse to presume it is any of our affair.
Also wholeheartedly agree with your opinion regarding bowl money/gifts, including the bus ride home. That's a horse of a different color.
I think what we are trying to prevent is a negative recruiting aspect from other colleges saying "Well look Tech will take your money but we don't do that here" also again it's about the expenses of going to college even the bowl games you're in a strange city and you have extra expenses. The amount seems so small what's the point then it just encourages the boosters to slip a guy an extra 50 because he lost his bowl money
I can understand that. So many questions, so few answers! For example:
Someone inside the program told me that the players only receive money on the bowl trip for meals not provided as a team and for mileage when not travelling with the team (e.g. from their home). So AFAIK they aren't getting say $100 (speaking solely in terms of cash; I believe they do get gift cards that I seem to remember some players using on needy families/children?) and the coaches are like "Go nuts at Best Buy!" or something like that.
Anyways, I would hope that the players we are recruiting hard are ones who would understand the difference between being told "VT will take your bowl money/gifts from you just willy-nilly." and our coaches saying "You follow the rules and show up on time and work hard, you won't have anything taken from you and you will get to enjoy all the perks of being a student-athlete." If a recruit is thinking "Man, if I screw up then VT is going to take my money...I better go to X where they won't take anything," then I would argue they probably wouldn't have been a good fit for VT anyways.
Finally, I also really hope that none of our VT boosters would ever try to pay one of our players (unless there is a circumstance where it is allowed by NCAA rules) and further that none of our players would be stupid enough to take it. And I am using the term "stupid" lightly here...I understand throughout history there have been many cases where personal/family poverty outweigh rules or thinking correctly. But hopefully VT has a good system in place to make sure that kind of desperation doesn't happen.
Thanks Andy, Seems like a targeted question that was answered truthfully but not clearly. Overblown by click-bait media. As Whit said "with everything we've got going on in the media today, especially in Roanoke, I wouldn't say this is a huge deal comparatively"
Whit: And I think Bud got out over his skis a little bit on that one.
That's funny! I once tripped and fell down in the New River while retrieving a golf ball. In December, while wading across from the as yet not Pete Dyed golf course to do some duck hunting. To say my teeth chattered the rest of the day would be an understatement. My buddy later found a broken walker at the dump, put camo tape on it and presented it to me the next time we went duck hunting. Some things are hard to live down.
oh man I have some great stories from duck hunting. None of them involved water though. Or real ducks. There was this snarky dog though...
First time I did that I forgot to let go of the rope. Probably drank half of the North Landing River that day
And here's Whit:
That's one of the single greatest things I've ever seen in my life. I want this to be real.
So am I the only one that read the headline as Whit shutdown football practice and not the practice of fines?? I read the headline and was like WTF?!?! But then read the article and was like "OOOhhhhhhh....the practice of fines...."
You are not alone.
I am here with you...
Yes, he earned a click from me too just for that misleading choice of words.
This is exactly it.
Does the bowl stipend fine refer to sending players home on Greyhound? They weren't at the bowl trip for the entire time so why should they get paided a stipend for the length of the entire trip?
Good on Whit for getting on top of things, and good on AB for taking the time to do, y'know, actual journalism and not just run with 2 or 3 quotes - lookin' at you, Mike and Mike.
Also, can we all just put this behind us and agree that we've found the next great TKP meme picture?
Disapproving Whit disapproves.
Disapproving Whit is correct. This was ill-conceived, given the current environment.
Whit and McKayla are not impressed
Oh, the College Football offseason media machine. They needed something to talk about aside from Dalvin Cook and Sark.
If you want a guy to hire you as the next HC at Virginia Tech, having him clean up your mess isn't a great way to do it.
Chris Coleman on TSL had a nice piece on it where he described the VT Football system as operating above the VT Athletics system over the years. Whit will check them.
The more I see of Whit, the more I like him.
By the way...
Props to Cinci for helping take the focus off us on this. While Whit completely squashes this thing before it gets going, the Cinci AD went on record to say he supports the thought of fining kids for issues.
Yep.
But yeah, guys, it's totally Bud's idea.
The proportions on that VT are all wrong! Way too skinny.
Is it? Might actually be right when you consider the orange outline.
Interesting note I learned following Hokie20 on Twitter, the VT logos on the helmets are different this year than the past, as they're making them conform to our university standard where the gap between the V and the leg on the T is the same width as that spoke itself. In the past, that gap has always been too narrow.
Interesting.
It may be some kind of optical illusion, but to me that photo makes the T look too big, where as it looked fine before.
I'm really hoping they didn't break something by trying to fix something that wasn't broken.
Edit: I'll reserve judgment until I see it on the helmets. The logo looked fine before.
Actually the helmet logos were broken and didn't match our official. That will be fixed and should look better.
Compare this:
To this:
It's a subtle difference, and one that is being fixed this year.
I can't find a pic of it, but I want to say in the early-mid 90's we had interlocking VT's at center court in Cassell. The gap was the width of the T, so they fit perfectly.
Yep, and it was used like this through our Big East days, until we changed Cassell design with ACC admittance in 2004.
Looked like this:
By the way, based on this Google Image search I found the site by the guy who designed that center court logo and how to properly draw the VT: About the VT Logo
Than you!
(That logo might look pretty sweet on a set of cornhole boards...)
Also, a whole lot of broken links on this page. Tech must have dropped his filebox sometime in the last 19 years...
The crazy part is that VT likely cant do it under the current P5 rules, since in January the P5 voted to redefine a full ride as inclusive of the COA stipend, and you have to offer a full scholarship to play football, thus you need to offer a full COA stipend to stay in the P5.
But it is completely option for the G5, so Cinci can offer as much or as little as they think they can "afford". So Cinci could get away with adjustments semester to semester for a player's COA stipend accomplishing the same thing as a fine.
Just another point of how much the COA/Scholarship shift by the P5 has turned it into the Wild West, without even going into the individual school's COA values.
Been witholding my thoughts on this issue. Now that there's some semblance of closure, I'll say this.
Fuck the media.
Fuck the clickbait era.
Fuck the media being driven by generating ratings to increase ad revenue.
Fuck our short attention spans.
Fuck valuing entertainment over understanding.
Fuck our knee-jerk response being rage rather than discretion.
Fuck the lack of appreciation for nuance and context.
Fuck gotcha anything.
Fuck any culture where an honest man giving an honest answer turns into this.
/endrant
But tell me how you really feel.
Lost interest after your fourth fuck. You do go on and on, huh? What were you talking about?
Dated a girl like that once.
Whit "might" be for player accountability when comes to academics? Reavis was just held accountable for god knows what and was expelled. I think players need to be held accountable for THEIR own good.
Whit had nothing to do with Reavis' dismissal. That was handled outside the Athletic Department.
I didn't say nor mean to imply he did. My point is he should be for player accountability to help the kids make better decisions. Reavis was just an example of poor choices that resulted in expulsion. Hopefully it will end up being a learning moment for the rest of the guys.
Just talked to a friend from Mich St, says he knows for a fact MSU has had a fine system in place for a while now. Apparently this is a much more frequent practice than originally thought.
The only reason it's news now is because of the whole Cost of Attendance situation and whether they can reduce the amount they receive.
FTFY
It is an issue IMO. It's not fair that you can take take away benefits when a student athlete makes a mistake, but if they go above and beyond what's expected of them (whether it's level of play or off the field stuff like helping in the community) their reward remains unchanged.
Not trying to make this a player's rights convo, but the sport can't maintain amateurism but fine players at the same time.
Who is to say that they don't get rewards? Nowhere has that been covered. You don't know if they receive grace allowances that cover a mistake for community service and others items. Again, don't screw up and it's not an issue for you. There has to be consequences for negative actions.
Well, if they are abiding by NCAA rules, no player should be getting additional monetary, performance based rewards, for on or off the field activities. Do you think Kendall Fuller got paid to read a book at the local elementary school? Do you think our players who recently played football with a bunch of kids got paid to do so? Do you think Dadi got paid extra for his 5000 sacks against pitt in 2013?
I agree, but if you want monetary consequences for negative actions, then you need to also offer monetary rewards for positive actions. The NCAA has made it clear that the latter is not allowed.
I'm all for discipline, but you don't need to withhold players' money. Make them do community service, make them write lines on a chalk board, find something. It is 100% unfair for a body that preaches amateurism to charge its employees for mistakes.
Virginia State Police has taken hundreds from me in speeding ticket fines. Never once have they recompensed me for being courteous when it wasn't required of me.
That's a ridiculous comparison. Our coaches are not and should not be police; their job is far more intricate. Other reasons why your comparison is invalid:
If you pay athletes based on performance, you're allowed to fine them based on detrimental performance. There are so many other wise to punish a player, why would you take money from them? If their transgression is that serious, kick them off the team.
Which begs the question, how are they paying fines if the NCAA doesn't allow them to get paid at all in the first place?
Bowl per-diem was the old way from the sounds of it.
bar1990 nailed it.. this is only big news for the people it doesn't affect.
I would bet 90% of colleges have some sort of fine system in place. I know the school I work for does.
It's only coming out because Bud got asked a ? and answered it in a honest fashion.
Wow, this is absolutely the most overblown issue I have heard of in a long time. I couldn't even take this seriously if they actually did fine a player for disciplinary reasons.
I think it is a much bigger issue that someone wrote and article calling Bud an A-hole. That guy is the real loser in all of this.
How I felt when I saw that article
Unfortunately, and to my chagrin, the levies story is on the front page of today's Richmond Times. Thanks to you, Mike Barber.
College football is not a minor-league NFL system. Fining players is something that they do in the NFL. Implicitly states that you were getting paid to play football. You are not getting paid to play football, you are getting a chance at an education via a scholarship in exchange for your athletic ability and keeping good academic standing at the University. If a player skips class and doesn't make the grades then they will be ruled ineligible and lose the scholarship and have to withdraw from the University if they can't afford to pay the bill on their own and gain readmittance. The players did in fact "Come here to play school". The players will be held accountable for their own actions by basis of staying eligible if you don't want the opportunity someone else will .
This is more comparable to a parent withholding a child's allowance as punishment. Said child still has all needs, but disposable income is held back.