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Mississippi ambulance providers fear a collapse of emergency medical services is on the horizon, partly as a result of hospitals discontinuing services and, in some cases, closing. 

The crisis has caused a decline in worker availability for ambulance providers and an increase in emergency service wait times, those in the field say. And with the rise of medical costs and stagnant reimbursement rates, finances are also a challenge.  

“Everything is working together and is causing this downward spiral of the whole system,” Clyde Deschamp, emergency medical service director for Mississippi Health Care Alliance, an organization aimed at coordinating medical activities within the state’s EMS districts, said. “It’s one big cycle.”

Hospital closures across the state are not only jeopardizing residents’ access to medical care but increasing interfacility transports – the transport of patients between two health care facilities. 

Emergency services personnel are transporting patients longer distances due to rural hospitals no longer offering as many services. Patients now have to travel farther to get the care they need.

He said to make matters worse, once the ambulance arrives at the receiving hospital, the crew may be required to wait up to six hours in the emergency room due to bed shortages before transferring care to the hospital. 

This “wall time” – the length of time emergency medical technicians and paramedics are waiting with patients before admission – prevents ambulance crews from responding to additional 911 calls, sometimes leaving a county area undercovered and residents with no assistance.

“Some of the more complicated transports won’t take just one paramedic but two. So, the problem with being stuck on the wall now is you have two people stuck waiting instead of one,” Deschamp said.

Despite the demand for workers, fewer people are pursuing this career.

According to a recent National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians report, most agencies nationwide reported increasing turnover rates on average from 8% in 2019 to 11% in 2022. 

In addition, the report found from 2019 to 2022, nearly 66% of agencies experienced a decrease in job applications.

Deschamp said existing paramedics have stepped up as much as they can to fill staffing gaps, making it common for paramedics to work 80-plus hours per week. 

“Unfortunately, resource management – no matter how good – simply cannot compensate for a lack of paramedics to staff ambulances and a growing demand for interfacility transports,” Deschamp told Mississippi Today. “Regrettably, the situation may get worse before it gets better.”

Gregory M. Cole, EMS advisory committee member to the Mississippi Board of Health and former chief compliance officer at Covington County Hospital, said working with limited resources to provide service in an adverse environment “is killing the morale of EMS workers.”

Cole said paramedics are burning out.  

“They are exhausted,” Cole explained. “If you take a man or woman that has worked a 16-hour shift after running 12 calls, then at midnight have them take a patient six hours away. That is not safe for the patient nor is it healthy for the crew.”

At Covington County Ambulance Service, there are currently 70 employed medics and nine ambulances covering Covington, Simpson and Magee County, a roughly 1,010-square-mile area.

The ambulance service received a total of 10,000 calls last year – 90% were non-emergency and less than 10% were emergency calls. Non-emergencies included sprains and noise complaints, while emergencies included falls, motor vehicle accidents and respiratory disorders.

The number of hospital-to-hospital transfers this year for Covington County Ambulance Service as of Sept. 7 was 1,214, an increase from 714 in 2021 and 1,261 in 2022.  

The rate of patient transfers spiked for two reasons, said Todd Jones, director of EMS at Covington County Hospital. The first is staff shortages at the hospitals it serves; the second is the service added Magee General Hospital and Simpson General Hospital. 

In addition, the reimbursement model for EMS services is a problem, Cole said.  

Cole told Mississippi Today that EMS is reimbursed at a bundled rate – it is paid an overall sum for treating a patient instead of an individualized amount for different patients.  

He explained that even if he spends 12 hours taking care of a patient and $1,300 worth of medication to treat them, he is still provided one amount by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). And it usually doesn’t cover the expenses to provide emergency medical services, he said. 

Cole said the uninsured, underinsured and private insurances cover only a portion of cost.  

“This is equivalent to someone going into Walmart, getting $100 worth of groceries, deciding to only pay for $25 of it but still walking out with the rest of the groceries,” Cole explained. “Walmart wouldn’t allow you to do that, but somehow it’s okay to do that in ambulance services.”

Cole said without adequate reimbursement, EMS providers cannot stay response ready, attract the amount of workers they want and retain employees.

David Grayson, president of Mississippians for Emergency Medical Services, the state’s largest trade organization for ambulance personnel in Mississippi, said health insurers reimbursement rates vary by insurance type.

Nationwide, almost half of EMS patients are covered by Medicare, according to a 2008 American Ambulance Association study. The study found Medicare reimbursement rates for ambulance services are six percent less than the national average cost per ambulance transport.

In addition, uninsured patients make up an average of 14 percent of ambulance transports. Ambulance services experience almost double the uncompensated care burden as US hospitals and physicians, the study said.

Twenty to 40 percent of EMS patients are covered by Medicaid, which pays   “universally low” rates.

“The concern I have is, if our reimbursements continue to stay flat or have a slow increase while our costs are obviously going up at a steeper level, then there’s going to come a time where ambulances are not going to be available,” Grayson told Mississippi Today. 

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Gov. Tate Reeves, in his first term as governor, used at least $31,000 in taxpayer funds to take trips on Mississippi’s state airplane to political events that don’t appear to directly involve state business, according to a review of flight records and the governor’s social media posts.

The trips in question range from taking the plane to attend partisan gatherings hosted by groups that have donated more than $1 million to Reeves’ campaigns to overlapping state business with campaign fundraising efforts.

The state’s Office of Air Transport Services allows the governor, other statewide officials and agency leaders to use the airplane for official state business. The purpose of the state aircraft is for a state employee to conduct business on behalf of Mississippi or to benefit the state, according to a policy listed on the Department of Finance and Administration’s website. 

While that loosely worded policy does not define official business or include examples of what type of travel is prohibited, the use of the state plane has long been scrutinized by elected officials and the press.

Before he was elected governor, Reeves was among those who raised questions about expensive taxpayer-funded trips. In a 2013 hearing, when Reeves was lieutenant governor and chairman of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, he highlighted questionable state plane trips to publicly question a policy at the time that gave state agency heads more flexibility in how tax dollars were spent.

“What we are now trying to determine is, has that flexibility been good for the taxpayers or has it been not so good for the taxpayers?” Reeves said at the time.

Since he was elected governor, however, Reeves used the plane for trips that could fall under similar scrutiny. As governor, not only does he have first dibs for plane usage, but he also leads the agency, DFA, that manages the use of the state aircraft.

Mississippi Today analyzed thousands of pages of flight records, obtained through a public records request, that span from January 2020, when Reeves took office as governor, through June 2023.

Several trips, most of which have not previously been reported, raise questions about how the governor has used the taxpayer-owned plane, the rules surrounding the usage of the plane, and whether the governor used the aircraft for political purposes.

Communications officials at DFA did not respond to specific questions from Mississippi Today on whether the agency has an independent process to review if the governor is using the aircraft for official business. 

Corey Custer, deputy chief of staff to Reeves, defended the trips in a Wednesday statement to Mississippi Today, saying they were “absolutely appropriate uses of the governor’s time and resources.”

“These (trips) are important to advancing the interests of our state and implementing a conservative agenda that has helped make Mississippi stronger than ever before,” Custer said. “Mississippians want somebody who will fight to defend their way of life and advance principled policy ideas, and that’s what Governor Reeves will continue to do.”

Reeves flies to CPAC

In August 2022, Reeves used the state plane to travel to the Conservative Political Action Conference, an openly partisan organization that lobbies for conservative causes.

Pilots flew the plane without any passengers from Jackson to Hattiesburg on Aug. 4, 2022, where they picked up Reeves, one of his daughters and Custer, the governor’s communications staffer. The three ate catered food aboard the aircraft and traveled from Hattiesburg to Dallas for the CPAC conference. They stayed in Dallas overnight and returned to Jackson the next day at a cost of $4,554 in taxpayer funds.

At the conference, the governor blistered Democrats, who had control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, for how they handled the nation’s economy. 

“Inflation is at a 40-year high, and everybody’s paying more,” Reeves said at the event. 

But before Reeves decried liberals making average citizens pay more for goods and services, he had used taxpayer dollars to attend at least three partisan events within the previous few months.

Flights to Republican Governors Association events 

The governor appears to have used the plane three separate times on May 25, 2021; Aug. 10, 2021; and May 23, 2022; to attend Republican Governors Association events around the country, costing taxpayers a total of $13,245. 

His August 2021 trip occurred when hospitals around the state were struggling with an influx of COVID-19 cases. Lee McCall, a Neshoba County hospital administrator, publicly pleaded for the governor’s help to deal with the surge in cases. 

“Hospitals and healthcare workers need you to help us,” McCall wrote about Reeves. “Where are you?”

Reeves’ office told the Clarion Ledger at the time that he flew to Chicago on a commercial flight, and prior to the conference, he was out of the state for a personal trip with his family. 

While he may have used a commercial flight to travel to Chicago, the location of the RGA conference, taxpayers still paid $5,692 for the aircraft to travel from Jackson to Chicago to pick up Reeves and his family from the conference before returning them back to the state. 

Unlike the bipartisan National Governors Association where policy is often discussed, the main description leading the homepage of the RGA’s website says, “The RGA helps elect Republican governorships throughout the nation.”

The RGA has also been one of Reeves’ biggest contributors. The organization dumped over $1.8 million into his 2019 campaign for governor, and it is widely expected to write more large checks to his campaign during the current election cycle.

Reeves did not promote the May 2021 and May 2022 RGA conferences on any of his social media accounts, and there do not appear to be any records available to independently confirm if the RGA events were the sole reason for the governor’s trip.

However, the RGA notes in a press release on its website that several governors were speaking to a radio host on May 27, 2021, as part of its “spring policy conference” in Nashville, the same time that Reeves was also there.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster also noted on his 2022 public schedule he was attending an RGA conference on May 24 through May 26, confirming that there was an RGA conference when Reeves used the state plane to travel there. 

Reeves flies to national anti-abortion group events

Reeves used the airplane on the public’s dime on Feb. 14, 2022, and Oct. 4, 2022, to attend events for the Susan B. Anthony List, a nonprofit organization that combines “politics with policy” by working to advance pro-life laws through “direct lobbying and grassroots campaigns.”

Custer accompanied the governor on the Valentine’s Day trip to Charleston, South Carolina, which cost taxpayers $4,807. The plane records list a “speaking engagement” as the reason for the flight. 

The governor promoted his appearance at the February event on social media, saying it was great “meeting and praying with so many of our allies at the Susan B. Anthony List Pro-Life Leaders Summit.” 

“Together, we’re going to save millions of babies and ensure expecting mothers receive the quality care that they deserve,” Reeves wrote.

The governor’s campaign that same weekend also recorded spending $305 of his own donations on “travel expenses” to pay for a hotel room at Kiawah Island Golf Resort, the location of the SBA conference. But the hotel later refunded the room to the campaign, according to his campaign’s filings with the Secretary of State’s office.

It’s unclear why his campaign, at least initially, paid for a hotel room at the conference or why the hotel refunded the payment. Reeves’ office did not address questions seeking to clarify the use of campaign funds.

The governor also used the plane on Oct. 4, 2022, to travel to another SBA List event in Dallas for a “speaking engagement,” which cost taxpayers $3,415. The governor, again, touted the trip on social media. 

SBA’s PAC donated $2,500 to the governor’s campaign on Oct. 13, 2022, and the organization has endorsed his bid for reelection. The Mississippi Republican Party has publicly touted that endorsement.

Reeves flies to Florida for Fox News town hall

On April 29, 2021, Reeves chartered the state plane to travel to Orlando, Florida, where he participated in a “Red State Trailblazers Town Hall” with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

A Reeves aide accompanied the governor on the Orlando trip for a cost of $5,060, where catered food was also provided to the two.

Reeves joined Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts for the town hall with Ingraham to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic and other political issues.

During one portion of the interview, Ingraham played a clip of President Joe Biden’s 2021 State of the Union speech, where he called on Congress to address systemic racism in the country. The Fox News host asked Reeves to respond.

Reeves said he did not believe systemic racism exists in America. As evidence, he touted that while the nation was dealing with a wave of protests over police brutality after the murder of George Floyd, Mississippi experienced no violent protests. He attributed this to Mississippians’ pro-law enforcement sentiments.

“We’re not trying to defund the police like the far left, we’re actually investing in our police because we know we’re indebted to them for keeping our communities safe,” Reeves said. 

It’s common for public officials, including the governor, to give interviews to news outlets. But during his governorship, Reeves has commonly granted interviews to national news outlets like NBC, CNN, CBS and ABC via Zoom.

In-state plane trips paired with campaign fundraisers

The first-term governor also appears to have used the state plane at least 10 times to mix fundraising events with official state business, according to a review of social media posts, plane records and campaign finance reports.

While not explicitly prohibited in DFA policy, the governor’s travel habits reveal how closely his official duties have been linked with political fundraising.

For example, Reeves’ office on Oct. 5, 2022, requested to use the plane on Oct. 12-13 of that year for a “speaking engagement” on the Coast. 

The governor, accompanied by a staffer, departed Jackson at 1:45 p.m. on Oct. 12 and arrived in Kiln at 2:35 p.m. The governor on Facebook wrote that he participated in a ribbon cutting for the RESTORE Dock in Hancock County. 

While the ribbon cutting was official state business, his campaign account that day reported raking in around 24 donations from people who live in Gulf Coast towns, totaling $21,000 in contributions that day alone. 

Reeves and the staffer departed Kiln and returned to Jackson the next morning on Oct. 13. The total trip cost taxpayers $1,391.

Another instance where the governor might have overlapped fundraising events with official state business happened on May 16, 2022, when pilots traveled to Olive Branch in DeSoto County to bring Reeves back to Jackson.

The governor wrote on Facebook that he was touring the Ardagh Metal Packaging plant in Olive Branch, but his campaign finance reports show that around 34 people in north Mississippi donated around $37,500 to his campaign that same day. 

Flight records show Reeves’ office on May 2 requested to use the flight to travel to north Mississippi for “speaking engagements.” The plane left Jackson without any passengers at 5 p.m. and returned to Jackson with the governor and an aide at 7:30 p.m., at a cost of $1,771. 

Mississippi Today found at least eight other instances where the governor might have used the plane to travel to places for state business, and fresh campaign donations were recorded near those same places on those same dates.

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Former Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Parker of Mississippi endorsed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley on Wednesday, giving credence to Presley’s plan to attract conservative voters to his campaign.

“Brandon worked across party lines to deliver broadband, and as governor, he will work in a bipartisan way to tackle corruption and solve our state’s hospital crisis,” Parker said in a statement. “Brandon Presley is pro-life, he’s a good man, and he’ll always look out for Mississippi.” 

While Parker’s announcement will boost Presley’s hopes of attracting GOP support for his statewide race in the deeply conservative Magnolia State, the announcement isn’t completely surprising.

The Jones County native identified as a Republican since 1995. But before he sported a GOP label, Parker was a Democrat in Congress for six years, and he endorsed President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign for the White House.

Still, Presley celebrated the endorsement in a Thursday press release by calling it an “honor” and used it as evidence that he was building a coalition of Democrats, conservatives and independents. 

“Congressman Parker knows that our hospitals and the health of 220,000 working Mississippians is at stake, and that’s why I’m proud he has my back in this race,” Presley said in a statement. 

Parker’s announcement was packaged into a video with three other Republicans endorsing the Democratic nominee and turning the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon,” a vulgar code conservatives use to slam President Biden, into a supportive chant for Presley. 

“He cut taxes and balanced budgets when he was mayor,” Republican Tupelo City Councilman Buddy Palmer said of Presley in the video. 

Presley is competing against incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in the Nov. 7 general election. While Presley often boasts of the support he receives from conservatives, several current lawmakers and Republican officials have endorsed Reeves’ reelection campaign, according to a previous news release from the governor’s campaign.

The post Former Republican congressman endorses Democrat Brandon Presley for governor appeared first on Mississippi Today.

HATTIESBURG – Runners laced up their shoes and made a splash for a cause during the 2023 inaugural Rodney Richardson Water Run at Town Square Park in Hattiesburg on Saturday. The event, organized by Ainsley Richardson, the executive director of Ddembe Ministries, aimed to make a positive impact on the lives of vulnerable children, widows and women affected by HIV in Jinja, Uganda.

The race wasn’t just about competition: it symbolized hope, unity, and community power, bringing the Hub City residents together for lasting change and empowerment in Uganda. 

The event featured water soaker stations, a whimsical bubble station and a water spray finale provided by the Hattiesburg Fire Department. Visitors also had the opportunity to explore the Ddembe Shop, where they could support widows by purchasing artistic treasures that celebrated Uganda’s rich culture and provided sustainable income opportunities.

This inaugural 5K race was also a heartfelt tribute to the late Rodney Richardson, a local business leader and cofounder of Ddembe Ministries.

The post Photos: 2023 inaugural Rodney Richardson Water Run appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A new proposal would seek to more than double the number of Mississippians who are eligible for state financial aid by expanding one of the state’s undergraduate financial aid programs. 

Under the as-yet-unnamed proposal, the award amounts of the Mississippi Tuition Assistance Grant – known as MTAG – would be increased to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of college, according to a presentation at the Postsecondary Education Financial Assistance Board on Monday. 

The requirement to maintain a 2.5 GPA and a minimum score of 15 on the ACT would be eliminated. So would a provision that excludes students who are eligible for the federal Pell Grant. Right now, the maximum award under MTAG is up to $1,000 a year for college juniors and seniors, but the proposal would double or possibly even triple that depending on a student’s income. 

All told, this would mean an estimated 37,800 Mississippians, including part-time, adult students who have long been excluded from receiving state money for college, would now be eligible for state financial aid. Right now, about 29,000 students receive state financial aid. 

The goal would be to align MTAG, which hasn’t been updated since it was created in 1995, with other efforts to develop the state’s workforce by increasing the number of Mississippians with college degrees, said Jennifer Rogers, the director of the Office of Student Financial Aid. 

As the number of high school graduates is set to decrease in Mississippi, Rogers said policy initiatives seeking to develop the state’s economy need to focus on adults who want to go back to college but can’t afford to on their own. 

“This truly comes down to an economic development issue,” Rogers said. “How can we position the most people to have the best opportunity in the workforce in Mississippi? We’re not going to do that by just focusing on the traditional high school graduates that we’ve been focusing on since 1995.” 

One thing makes this proposal different from many others that have tried but failed to get off the ground: No students would lose access to state financial aid if it became law. 

“We wanted to first do no harm,” said Scott Waller, the president and CEO of the Mississippi Economic Council. “So anyone who is currently on the grant system receiving financial aid would continue to do so, and more importantly would continue to do so whatever the rate currently is.” 

Past proposals have sought to limit, or shift, the amount of need-based state financial aid that is available for low-income students through the Higher Education Legislative Plan for Needy Students, or HELP grant, but that proved politically unpopular last session. 

HELP is the state’s most expensive financial aid program, but also one of its most effective. It pays for all four years of college for students from families making less than $39,500. 

“Obviously there doesn’t appear to be an appetite for wanting to make any changes to HELP,” said Jim McHale, the president and CEO of the Woodward Hines Education Foundation, which last year convened a taskforce of public officials who met in “confidence” to “explore how Mississippi’s student financial aid investments can be best leveraged to meet the economic development needs of the State.”

McHale said the new proposal comes out of a meeting the taskforce had this past August. He is hoping to use the fall to get feedback from key legislators and policymakers before introducing a final proposal closer to the session. 

Toren Ballard, a K-12 policy expert with Mississippi First, said, because the new proposal does not create any “losers,” the biggest obstacle will be convincing lawmakers the cost is worth it. 

“During the last session, you had people angry about HELP being cut, you had some people angry about rich kids losing access to MTAG and you still had to justify a higher overall price tag,” Ballard said. “You had all three of those things working against you. Now the only thing working against this plan is just the price tag, because no one is losing out.” 

It’ll take an estimated $31 million to fund the increased award amounts to newly eligible students, according to the Monday presentation. 

But the taskforce — armed with a Woodward Hines Education Foundation-supported study that shows the state could gain hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue and decreased social spending if it increases the number of Mississippians with postsecondary credentials — is planning to ask lawmakers to take the long view. 

“It’ll ultimately grow our economy and in the long term pay for itself,” Waller said.

Jason Dean, the executive director of the Mississippi Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, said the investment in state financial aid is a form of “workforce development,” which is also “the message of the day.” Dean is a member of the taskforce and sits on the post-secondary board. 

“Here’s the Jedi mind trick,” he said. “We’ve got to align our language to the language they’re espousing specifically around workforce training.” 

MEC and Accelerate Mississippi, the state’s office of workforce development, conducted a statewide listening tour last year to create a strategic plan to increase the number of college graduates among working-aged Mississippians as part of the “Ascent to 55%” initiative. 

“We’re never going to tell Mississippians not to go to college, not to attend community college and not to try to strive for educational attainment,” said Ryan Miller, Accelerate Mississippi’s executive director. “In fact it’s going to be the opposite.” 

So far, key leaders in the state’s higher education system seem to be on board. 

At the postsecondary board meeting Monday, Mark Keenum, a board member and the president of Mississippi State University whose thoughts on state financial aid have helped shape prior proposals, said he had heard from MEC leadership. 

“This is a high priority for the business community in the state to provide more funding for financial aid to increase our educational attainment for our state workforce, and I like it,” Keenum said. “I like it a lot.” 

Tyrone Jackson, a board member and the president of Mississippi Delta Community College, didn’t voice an opinion on the proposal but confirmed with Rogers that it would not result in students losing financial aid.

Though the taskforce is not proposing any changes to HELP, Rogers told the post-secondary board on Monday that the state financial aid office plans to separately request largely administrative changes to the grant. 

That would entail opening up HELP’s code section, which could result in more substantive amendments during the legislative session. 

“I fully understand the danger of opening a code section when you don’t have to,” she said.

Editor’s note: The Woodward Hines Education Foundation is a Mississippi Today donor.

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From a big night of high school football on Friday night, through the Saints victory over the Carolina Panthers on Monday night, there was plenty to cuss and discuss on a huge football weekend. And guess what? The Saints are 2-0 for the first time in 10 years and the Ole Miss Rebels are 3-0 headed to Alabama.

Stream all episodes here.

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This may surprise you: On two of the past three weekends I have attended a high school game on Friday night and a college game on Saturday. And I am going to get right to the point.

The high school games were by far more enjoyable and entertaining.

Here’s why: 

There were a certain continuity and flow to the Friday night games. There weren’t nearly as many stoppages. And the stoppages weren’t nearly as long. 

The high school players weren’t as big or as gifted or as fast. But the games were better.

That’s because the college games kept being interrupted by these men wearing a red cap and carrying a stick with a clock on it. We’ll call them TV commercial enforcers, who would step out onto the field three or four times a quarter and essentially stop the game for three minutes that seemed more like 10. This happened so that TV could show several different commercials selling everything from cars, to beer, to soft drinks, to insurance. You name it.

Meanwhile, in the stands, people baked or broiled. Or, in my case, stewed.

The average Division I college football game lasts three hours, 22 minutes. Some stretch to four hours and longer. Meanwhile, Millsaps and Sewanee played a two-hour, 37-minute, 27-21 game last Saturday. The difference? No TV timeouts.

You don’t notice it so much when you are at home, watching on TV, and use the three minutes to go fix a snack, or go get another beer, or go use the restroom. You sure as heck notice it when the restrooms are 50 yards and long lines away and the beer costs $10. 

And we wonder why there are huge gaps where people used to sit in the stands at stadiums these days. And we wonder why fans leave the stadium in droves beginning about halftime. We wonder why the student sections are often nearly empty in the fourth quarter. Boredom is a terrible thing.

Here’s the deal: In Division I college games these days, there are three TV timeouts in the first and third quarters, and four TV timeouts in the second and fourth quarters. They average about three minutes each. That’s an awful lot of dead time. These timeouts are known officially as “media timeouts.” Trust me, they are TV timeouts. Sports writers despise them. 

This won’t change soon. In college football these days, it is all about feeding the beast, and all the beast will eat is money. In Mississippi, the head coach at Ole Miss makes $9 million a year, or approximately 74 times as much as the state’s governor. Heck, the defensive coordinator at Ole Miss makes 16 times the annual salary of the governor. (No jokes about which one is more drastically overpaid.)

And that’s just the start. There are 61 employees listed in the Ole Miss football directory. Besides the 10 full-time coaches allowed by the NCAA, there are a lead analyst, three senior analysts and six more analysts. That’s a lot of analyzing. The head football strength and conditioning coach has four full-time assistants.

There are recruiters, lots of them, and assistant recruiters. And no, I am not picking on Ole Miss. This is everywhere at college football’s top level. The Georgia football employee directory lists a “head performance chef.”

What’s more, these programs at college football’s highest level are in a never-ending facilities race. They are in a never-ending struggle to keep up with their conference mates. 

And now we have name, image and likeness (NIL), which has raised the stakes still again. What used to be recruiting has become more like purchasing. College quarterbacks at the highest level have become millionaires. The left tackles who protect their blind side can’t be that far behind. Ohio State wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., quite possibly the best player in college football, reportedly makes $1.3 million for his various NIL deals in this, his junior season. Somebody’s got to pay.

That somebody is TV. The SEC distributed $50 million to each of its member schools for the 2021-22 fiscal year. Most of that is TV money, which is why the guy with the red hat and the clock takes the field for three minutes at a time, 14 times a game, while thousands in the stands twiddle their thumbs.

This is coming from a guy who has spent, quite literally, a lifetime going to the games – games that used to last little over two hours and now often stretch to nearly twice that long. Too long. Too much dead time.

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