Did the Justin Fields fiasco light the fuse???

I think so. CFB was still pretty "normal" up til about 2018. It was at that point that they started allowing free unrestricted transfers wherever you want for any reason, the transfer portal really becoming a thing, and then of course NIL and conference expansion essnetially closed the lid on the sport we once knew.

It's kind of insane to think how much different the sport is in just 5 short years. In 2018,if someone told you that texas/OU would be in the SEC, USC/UCLA woudl be in the big 10, and stanford/cal woudl be in the ACC, players could transfer to any school they want, it's legal to pay players for any reason you want, high school recruits are openly asking for 7 figures to attend your school, and we'd have a playoff where teams with 3 or even 4 losses can play for a title....you would've been called into the asylym for being off your rocker.

Cam Newton ran so Justin Fields could walk.

Transferring and NIL are two separate issues that came together to create a mess.

I don’t mind transferring because your coaches and staff can move at will…so why should you be stuck if everyone that you decided to play for left? Also, like in BVGs case, you don’t want to spend your whole career in the bench.

However, now with NIL you can use that transfer right to pay players to leave…which is messed up. At a minimum NIL should be tied to a commitment and payout/payback if you leave. You can’t have it both ways.

I think that the NIL thing probably got going with a Law Suit launched by Northwestern players several years back.

That was followed by California passing some sort of legislation stating that players in the state could be paid.

The NCAA would have acquiesce or ban all California schools from vying for any NCAA honors, including championships.