re: 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.