Ol' Ball Coach offers to be the Pay Window

USC coach Steve Spurrier is willing to spend money and name names.

He set the SEC meetings all atwitter by proposing that football players receive $300 a game for expenses. Here's Atlanta's version.

That's $3,600 a player for 12 regular-season games. For an entire squad -- 8X8...carry the three... salt and pepper to taste -- the price tag comes to about $300,000.

To which the Gamecock coach says, Chicken feed!

Not only did Spurrier propose picking up the bill himself -- he says he and other coaches at big football schools can easily afford it -- he waved around a piece of paper that purportedly held the names of other SEC coaches who support his idea. Among the signees: Messrs. Saban, Muschamp, Petrino and Miles.

That immediately put those who did not sign on on the clear defensive. Witness coach Mark Richt's blatant Wallenda to appease all sides.

Some athletic directors immediately poo-poo'd Spurrier's proposal. But we have not heard the last of this. The Big Dog conference in college sports has broached the question that has been ignored too long by caretakers of "amateur" athletics.

As the Ol' Songwriter once put it, You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

MG