Are we witnessing the end of college football as we know it?

No.

College football is still alive and well in Tuscaloosa.

Not your father's college football, that's for sure.

It’s a completely different sport pre and post Covid. I like to think that the majority of player motivation in the old system was driven by school passion and opportunity to go pro. Now it’s primarily driven by NIL benefits but there’s still some obvious motivation to get drafted. That said, I think the on field product has never been better. The game is great and if you can block all all of the other shite (recruiting, transfer portal, NIL, even the names on the back of the jerseys) it’s still great. That said, all of that stuff you have to block out now was really fun to keep up with in the old system. I just A) don’t have time for it and B) don’t give a single frick.. but I love State football

Yes.

Unless Congress intervenes, the sport will largely be dead in 20 years. The current cost is unsustainable for all but a handful of programsin the long term.

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It's people like Greg Sankey and Jimmy Sexton who have fricked up college athletics.

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It’s the fans. Pete Bell (Nick Nolte) from the movie Blue Chips summed it up well way back in 1994.

You know, the best coaching job I ever did, that wasn't tonight, it was last season. When we were 14-15 and we had a losing season, but goddammit, those kids gave me their heart! They gave me everything they had, they played up to the MAXIMUM of their ability! They gave it everything, and it wasn't good enough! Wasn't good enough for me, wasn't good enough for you, wasn't good enough for anybody! That's pathetic.

The three star QB from Tuscaloosa who grew up loving all things Bama and wants to go to college to be a pediatrician isn’t good enough for the Tide. Better to go get an illiterate out of the slums of Los Angeles who has no business on a college campus and may not do one productive thing for society his entire life but has freakish ability and can win football games.

The fans have warped the game by making winning too important. It was a long time coming. Decades in the making.

That said, I think the sport is as entertaining as it’s ever been. But those of you who want to jerk off to player loyalty - while showing none of it - are going to have to get over yourselves.

Talking about tradition - Texas Tech just got banned by the Big 12 from throwing tortillas

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the on field product has never been better.

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Depending on how you view things. These offenses are now limited. They can no longer develop mastery of the advanced schemes they were running in the 2010's. Also, run blocking has suffered everywhere.

On the defensive tackling hasn't been the same.

The one and done's due to NIL and TP kind of ruin the cohesion that multiple years of playing and training together required.

Possession football is now the new thing and the only thing that comes close to ensuring consistent winning.

Now, is it more fun to maybe watch college-level football again instead of near Pro level? Probably so for most of us.

Football sucks when your team is sucking like they are. Expectations are a mf.

You can thank the universities and the ncaa for kicking the can down road for decades until we finally got to this point. It was obvious as the coaches, universities and tv networks continued to make ridiculous money off these players that eventually the players should be entitled to a piece of the pie. Instead everyone milked every last penny they could out of the old system until the dam finally broke and now we're stuck in a free for all with no rules or guardrails. If the universities were proactive 20 years ago this whole thing could have been kept under control.

What does the future hold?

Without major overhauling legislation, the sport will continue to change, even greater than NIL, as courts could allow changes that we see as unimaginable now.

Here are some things we could see changed, what if a failing student sued for;

being "academically ineligible"

Or for the limiting years of eligibility

How about being required to be a student

What happens when the right defensive guard sues for equal share of the money that the quarterback and star tight end gets.

When the girls softball team files title nine because the football team has more budget and NIL

What about the recruits who are overlooked and not picked by any team

And here's the one that will completely destroy football from PeeWee to NFL, the huge Concussion Class Action,
(which is hereby formally declare to be aptly named the CCA.)