College football free agency is coming. The portal window is opening back up for the spring in less than four weeks. And fans are happy, yet upset at the same time.
The transfer portal has brought some of the greatest changes we have seen in college football over the last five years, with the addition of NIL, a lack of legislation, research, and a bit of restriction over this, and you’ve got a recipe for chaos to occur.
This brings me to our topic for the day: NIL has absolutely killed the college football landscape, not just on the field wise, but also internally, in the locker room. If you are a top 25 recruit coming out of high school, OR if you are a top target in the transfer portal, there’s an automatic guarantee that you will be making at least six figures. And once you’ve got your money, and depending on the athlete’s performance on the field, they may want more money.
If the boosters can come up with more cash, or any other sources not really NCAA approved, then the athlete stays. If not, the transfer portal is where he’s headed, and y’all act like players haven’t been paid before NIL was even a thing, pay-for-play has been going on since the 1940s-50s. The only problem is, if people/coaches were ever caught in the act of this, it would cost them their jobs, the schools reputation and many more consequences.
Jerry Tarkanien, the Hall of Fame basketball coach of the famous UNLV Runnin’ Rebels had to duck and dodge the attempts of the NCAA that accused him of pay-for-play scandals, which was obvious he did it, he wouldn't have had mob connections in Las Vegas to help him if this wasn't the case not only to feed the cash flow to the athletes, but also to avoid the NCAAs wrath. With NIL, this is essentially no different.
Except we are taking control of the money from the school to a 17-21 year old kid. This is a terrible decision that has driven college football close to the pro level of free agency. It's going to be a while before the powers that be in the NCAA and beyond that change needs to be made and restrictions need to be put in place for the portal and for NIL deals.