The college football season is over and so is the NFL’s regular season. That can mean just two things – it’s time to fire coaches and have student athletes decide to go pro.

As far as firing coaches, the jobs are performance based. If you win enough games, you get to keep your job. How many you have to win depends on the past success of the program. With two losses for the Crimson Tide, I’m sure some prankster has already put a for sale sign in front of Nick Sabin’s house. Over in Starkville, Dan Mullen is still the man with a 7-6 record.

That brings us to part two. Wednesday afternoon Johnny Manziel announced he was willing to give up his last two years of college to go pro. Johnny Football is among a record crowd of 80 underclassmen who are ready to leave college for the fame and money of the National Football League. Manziel will likely go in the first round and is predicted to be in the Top 10 picks.

Years ago, you essentially had to be a college junior to leave early. Every now and then, someone would give up their final year of eligibility. Even then, you had to declare it a hardship. You had to say your family was in dire economic straits and without a professional paycheck to help, the family would be destitute. Now days, it’s less about supporting the family back home and more about a big signing bonus to support a lifestyle of pro sports fame.

The problem is kids coming out early, for the most part, aren’t mature enough to handle the fame or the sudden influx of cash. When they have blown through all the money (and it goes fast) or a sudden injury ends the gravy train, what are they left with? A bad knee and a high school diploma, that’s what. Remember, they left college early and never bothered to go back and finish that degree.

I could go off on a tangent and talk about athletes coddled from high school on becoming immature adults who have never had to face the consequences of their actions, but I will save that rant for another time.

A college is not just a farm team for the pros. People attend college to get an education, well at least most do. I think professional athletes should not be the exceptions.

At this point, you can’t stop kids from leaving college early, but you could make it worth their while to get their degree. I think the NFL and all professional sports should adopt a rule saying athletes can only be paid the league minimum without a degree. That would mean Manziel could only make $420,000 next year. That’s hardly peanuts, but it would make him want to go back to College Station during the summer to work on that business degree. That sheepskin would make holding the pigskin worth several million dollars per year.

Would that be oppressive to players? I don’t think so. Even if they chose not to go back to school, they would still get raises just by staying on the game. Under the NFL’s last collective bargaining agreement, starting next year, a second-year player will get at least $495,000. That’s a $75,000 raise. That same amount would be added each year. If they come back for a fifth year, it gets bumped up to $730,000

And with all this money comes responsibility – fiscal responsibility. Professional athletes should be forced to take classes on how to deal with sudden wealth. For a kid who has never had a proverbial pot, it is hard to fully grasp the piles of money that seem endless. Too many young stars are duped into questionable investments or simply throw their wealth away on wine, women and song only to realize too late it is all gone.

A portion of the fiscal responsibility classes should also be on how to save. Not just professional athletes but many young people I know have no concept of saving for tomorrow. Maybe it’s a result of the instant gratification culture we live in. Too many folks are never taught anything about money as kids. If they want money, they ask the parents who hand them some. It’s like a personal ATM that never runs dry. (Of course, the parents have been fretting and saving for years to make sure they can provide.)

But then you run into the problem of kids going off to college with no idea of how to budget money to make it last two weeks or a month.

The old saying says the earth is not ours, we are only getting it ready for our grandchildren. Let’s hope they are prepared.

William Moore is the Senior Editor at Gulf Coast Newspapers.