"Doctors get to bury their mistakes. I have to feed mine for four years."
Coach Bryant's quote may not be so applicable in the future. The "automatic" renewal of football scholarships is soon to be outdated. Football is the only sport where the scholarships are expected to be renewed no matter how poorly the student-athlete is performing on the field. All others are performance-based and are subject to be removed unless a certain standard is maintained. The pressure placed on coaches to get results and maintain an unspecified level of success will force the coaches to continuously evaluate the level of talent they have to work with and to make the necessary changes to that talent to make sure that the team performs up to the level required. College football is about to become much more of a business as far as the players are concerned.
If we get to that point, then I think that we need to just end the charade of collegiate football. If there is a substantial continued demand for football as a spectator sport in the areas where college football existed, then some professional system will meet that demand.
If we have a kid that received a football scholarship and is putting forth his best effort on the field and in the classroom, I'd be ashamed to be associated with a program that would take away his chance to finish his college education just because the staff decides that they overestimated his ability and/or he isn't delivering what they thought he would. If the student-athlete isn't putting forth the effort, is getting in trouble or isn't able to handle the academic requirements, then I don't see a problem with not renewing their scholarship because they aren't holding up their end of the agreement that they made when they accepted the scholarship. However, as long as we maintain that the purpose of collegiate athletics is to give an opportunity for a college education to athletes, then the primary driver of scholarship eligibility should be academic performance and adherence to NCAA and university regulations.