Gosselin: Pay For Play In College? It's Here For Players Who Realize It (Opinion)

Safety Jordan Kovacs will leave the University of Michigan as one of the most respected players in the school’s illustrious football history. He will leave as a four-year starter, one of the school’s all-time tacklers and a team captain.

Kovacs also will depart with a six-figure debt to the university.

Kovacs enrolled at Michigan as a walk-on from Toledo, Ohio, in 2008. He spent his first year on campus as a full-time student, nursing a knee injury, then became a starter for the Wolverines in his second year in 2009. At the end of that scholastic year, Michigan awarded him a football scholarship.

But his debt clock ran for two years before that scholarship arrived. Kovacs needed to take out student loans to pay the annual $50,000 it costs an out-or-stater for room, board and tuition at Michigan.

For all those in the chorus singing that popular tune that colleges should pay their football players — I maintain they already are.