College football players need a union. The upper echelons make millions, and the students get a free ride and traumatic brain injuries. Hardly a fair deal.
In D1 the priority is Sports, Academics. I played in D3 where the priority is Academics, Sports. We calculated we spent at least 800 hours per season on the sport. About 3000 hours over 4 years. D1 sports is more like 2000+ hours per season (aka a full job). Imagine how well you'd do at a full time uni if you were working 8 hours a day in construction at the same time. And that's if the school prioritizes you playing sports.
Personally I think they should be allowed to get a education benefit that grants them one free year of classes for every year of sports played for use at any time in their lives post sports. That way when they end the sports dream they can get the education they paid for by working.
That is an uncharitable overgeneralization. There are 345 D1 schools. Many, if not most, do not have that prioritization.
I talked to the coaches for a few D1 schools, even ones who weren't known to be good at sports and heavy on academics like Northwestern (at the time) had a little talk with prospective players about the balance between the two. They recommended you do not attempt any difficult majors while playing football as the conflict between the two would be too difficult to manage.
That is directly putting sports above academics. And that was for practice squad kids.
Yes there may be schools that are better at it, but scholarships change the equation.
I've talked to many many people who played college sports at all levels, this may not be statistical but this was well over 100 people.