By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

On the surface there are a litany of reasons why it’s good to be a collegiate athlete.

A free education, notoriety on a nationwide level depending on the school you go to, and of course the mere fact that you are able to continue to play the game that you loved growing up while a majority of us are forced to watch in envy.

That certainly doesn’t mean those moments come without a great deal of sacrifice though. The 6 AM practices and a nominal amount of freedom are all part of that price, and on a whole I think it’s pretty fair.

Where things start to get a little dicey with me is when it comes to transfers, especially here of late.

First off, the amount of transfers that happen on a yearly basis have gotten completely out of hand. Players tend to change schools like Taylor Swift changes boyfriends, only the player’s heartache doesn’t result in millions of dollars, normally.

Transfers happen though and that’s fine. My real problem with them is the fact that in most cases the player not only has to sit out a year, but in recent years there has been increase in schools blocking an inter-conference transfer.

One of the arguments I’ve heard in favor of that line of thought is that schools from the same conference may be able to continue to recruit a player easier than a school out of the conference. That’s all fine and good except one of college football’s biggest events of the year, Signing Day, is predicated on teams continually recruiting players after they have verbally committed to another school.

You what though, I’m probably stepping way out of line with what I just said. I’m sure any player that has ever changed their mind during that period did so solely by themselves after having some great epiphany, as opposed to having another coach in their ear about how better off they would be coming to their particular school. A coach would never dream of doing that, right?

The whole reason why is I’m on this mini tirade is I could not have been happier when the SEC decided to allow Maurice Smith to transfer from Alabama to Georgia, after Nick Saban had tried so desperately to make sure it didn’t happen.

I know nothing about Smith and whether or not he’s a good fit for Georgia, and honestly, I couldn’t care less. I’m just glad Smith is getting an opportunity to play for the school he wants to, when he’s seemingly done everything right.

Personally, the fact that he just happens to be going from Alabama to Georgia is just icing on the cake. I wrote a few months ago about the ridiculousness of Kirby Smart not allowing a player to transfer to Miami while also spewing the same inter-conference rhetoric that Saban has been lately.

If Smart truly believes in the “code” that he was preaching in the spring then I feel bad for Kirby when he has to tell Smith that he can’t accept him into the Georgia program. You know, because of the cherished code and all.

Obviously I’m picking on Saban and Smart here, but I know they are not the only coaches who live by the true “code” of college football: Do as I say and not as I do.

It’s just nice when the whole hypocrisy of the thing comes back to smack you right the face. And if that smack happens to come from a former player, well there are worse things I can think of.