I'm not a pay-for-play guy, but anyone who knows me well knows that I advocate that elite college athletes whose jerseys are being sold at retail, get a piece of the pie.
For years, the NCAA has turned a blind eye to the fact that its member institutions give the Nikes , Adidases and Under Armours of the world specific numbers that match up to their best players. The schools know the reality of the situation, which is that numbers that correspond to the stars will sell better than a generic No. 1.
And just because the NCAA forbids the selling of the jerseys with the names on the back doesn't mean you can cut the player out of the equation. Everyone knows what's going on.
The solution is to take the eight percent royalty off the gross jersey price and give four percent of it to the school and four percent of it to the player. These replica jerseys retail for about $60. The gross price is about half that -- at about $30. So if Florida sells 15,000 Tim Tebow jerseys (for the NCAA's tracking purposes that's No. 15), Tebow will get four percent of the total or $18,000. If you want to put it in escrow, go ahead.
So without further ado, here's a list of top college football teams and the players whose jerseys are available in the school's official stores this year. I maintain that all these athletes should be getting cut a check at the end of the football season.
Georgia -- Matthew Stafford, Knowshon Moreno
Ohio State -- Chris Wells, Brian Robiskie, James Laurinaitis
Florida -- Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin
USC -- Ray Maualuga
Missouri -- Jeremy Macklin, Chase Daniel
West Virginia -- Pat White, Noel Devine
Clemson -- James Davis, C.J. Spiller, Cullen Harper
Texas -- Colt McCoy
Texas Tech -- Michael Crabtree, Graham Harrell, Shannon Woods
Wisconsin -- Allen Evridge, P.J. Hill, Travis Beckum
Kansas -- Todd Reesing
South Florida -- Matt Grothe, George Selvie, Mike Ford
Alabama -- John Parker Wilson
Auburn -- Brad Lester, Kodi Burns, Ben Tate, Andre Wadley
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