Have the transfer portal and NIL ruined your enjoyment of college football?

A few years ago, I was chatting with an acquaintance about college football. He’s an alum of one of the sport’s traditional powers. His team's season had gone extremely well, so I asked him what he thought. He responded that he wanted the defensive coordinator fired after the first quarter of the first game. The final score of that game was 66-14.—his team won.

Pretty intense, right?

A year later, I asked him the same question. He said he didn’t follow it as closely anymore, which surprised me. I asked how do you go from one extreme to the other. He said the transfer portal and NIL had turned him off. He still liked the games but the changes surrounding the sport were too much for him. And he’s not the only one who feels this way—far from it. I’ve heard this same complaint from fans and alumni of many schools.

If you aren’t familiar with these changes here’s a quick tutorial:

The transfer portal is basically a list for athletes who want to transfer from one school to another. Transferring has always occurred, but the portal makes it easier—some say too easy. So far this year, more than three thousand football players have entered the transfer portal—and there is still a week to go before it closes. I told you it may be too easy.

NIL is a little tougher to describe. It means Name, Image, Likeness. It’s the way athletes can now get paid for their services. It was meant to give the athletes a small stipend but it has grown to where we now have bidding on players in the millions of dollars. I always thought athletes should get more than a scholarship and room/board, especially since the schools and coaches were making big bucks off of them. But for many, NIL money and bidding has grown too big, too fast. It’s turned many off to college athletics.

And it’s not only the fans—it’s run off coaches, too. Legendary Alabama football coach Nick Saban retired earlier than he wanted because he didn’t want to deal with this new world. Villanova Basketball coach, Jay Wright, who won two national titles, saw what was coming and decided to get out before it got to this point.

This new world is more than a little crazy—and plenty of folks think it’s out of control and unmanageable. We’ve seen basketball teams get entire new teams from players in the portal. There are more than a few players who are at their fourth school. Some players that were at schools that are in the playoffs are blowing off those games to hit the portal. Penn St. lost their backup quarterback in this way.

Talking about quarterbacks—Oklahoma lost this year’s starting quarterback to Auburn. No big deal—they poached the QB from Washington St. His price was an estimated three million dollars. But that’s nothing compared to what Michigan supposedly paid their new quarterback. He was rumored to get a cool ten mil. That’s right—$10,000,000!!!

But, there is one good thing about all of this—-some of this money is trickling down to the student-athletes in the non-revenue minor sports. Many of those athletes are not receiving full scholarships and are paying tuition to play their sport. While they aren’t getting football-type money, every little bit helps out the parents paying tuition or the athlete who may have had to take out student loans.

Tonight is the start of the college football playoffs. Oh yeah, that’s a whole new world, too. It’s the first year for twelve teams instead of four. The first game features Notre Dame vs Indiana. A year ago, no one would have guessed that Indiana would be in this position, but they have a first-year coach and he brought a bunch of starters from his previous gig at Liberty. I’m sure no one in Bloomington is complaining about the transfer portal and NIL. Do you think that will change when they lose at South Bend tonight and their players join the thousands of others already in the portal?