Josh Rosen has an idea for how to fix college athletics

Josh Rosen is one of many people who have spoken out against the problems that exist with the current NCAA system, but he is one of the few who have proposed some actual ideas on how those issues might be resolved.

Rosen has been working with Tye Gonser, a partner at a Southern California business law firm called Weinberg Gonser LLP, and USC law student and former baseball player Bryan Bitzer on a system they believe could help college athletes get paid while also promoting education. They put together an essay on the topic entitled “The Modernization of College Athletics as an Incentive for Graduation,” and they shared it exclusively with Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports.

Under the plan Rosen, Gonser and Bitzer proposed, student athletes would be able to profit from a number of revenue opportunities throughout their college careers, such as name, image and likeness, jerseys and apparel, video games and other areas. However, the money would be placed into an account that students are only entitled to if they graduate.

“I’m not against the NCAA,” Rosen said. “I do strongly believe in the student-athlete experience, and I don’t think the free market is the way to go. I also don’t want a system that was created in the 1950s to stay the way it was. I want it to be like the iPhone, constantly updating to stay current with the times.

“I want this idea to get people talking. I want this to sort of be the WD-40 that unlocks the stuck gears of how to compensate student-athletes.”

Rosen and his colleagues understand their system would have obstacles, and they tried to address one of the biggest ones with the forming of an independent entity they refer to as the “Clearinghouse.” That non-profit organization would be responsible for playing the role of middle man between players and potential endorsers to help erase the need for agent involvement.

“It’s an idea, and I think it’s a cool one,” Rosen said. “We need to find a way where we can mutually push in the same direction. This can legitimately help both sides, the college side and the student-athlete side.”

Rosen has been taking shots at the NCAA over money for years, but you have to respect him going through the effort to propose an actual idea. That’s more than most people who bash the system can say for themselves.