Thank you, NIL era.
As another consideration, here’s a take from our fiends in Alabama (no, I didn’t misspell that).
No, they’re not losing faith in DeBoer (well, maybe they are a little), but Alabama, like many other programs, opted out of the traditional spring scrimmage and merely hosted a 90-minute practice session for fans to watch.
While it’s easy to blame the Portal Masters as the culprit to the demise of spring games, that might only be true for the televised portion, which some argue is used to pick kids out of the spring portal. That much is understandable, though another casualty of the game.
The bigger issue here is that the Portal has thinned rosters, as Kirby has argued about this spring, to where experienced players are becoming rarer past the first stringers and fewer schools have a strong two-deep roster anymore. With experience rushing out the portal door each year, now coaches have to worry about protecting their starters and avoiding the risk of injuries to key players.
And don’t get me started on the expanded length of the season, as well. If you’re a team that has a legitimate shot of going 9-3 (seriously…I really wrote this and thought “what the hell” but let’s not forget that the 2024 National Champion lost two games in the regular season and finished FOURTH in their conference) you start thinking beyond the 12 game season into a 15-16 game season and possibly up to 17 if you’re *fortunate* enough to also play in the conference championship game.
That type of slate would seem tenable in the pre-portal/NIL days, where teams like Alabama and Georgia could stack talent three-deep, but we’re in a different day and age now. While this affords more parity, it does also severely compromise a team’s potential if a few blades of grass or an ankle twist goes the wrong way. Does that level the playing field, or is it a disservice to a team like Georgia in 2024, that faced both the hardest schedule in Georgia history alongside a slew of injuries and off-field issues that may have doomed the team from going further?
The game has changed.
Can it be changed back for the better? Or are we just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?
Cue the orchestra…we’re taking on water. CFB is so far away from being reformed and the fix will not bring us back to anything resembling the game we adored. Stetson and our B2B championships will be considered the end of that era.
As pure as speculation is, the pile of monie$ that $hould have gone toward$ nil peep$, needed to come from the $ource, jersey, shoe, portrait manufacturer, book signing, speaking engagements, whatever the event, those event$ should have compensated nil requirements then and there, if a student athlete didn’t participate in events, the ever popular hand shake/envelope would still be alive and well and would be appreciated..having state$ legi$late plu$ collective$ getting involved fucked it all up…understanding greed will screw any good will intentions, college football isn’t the titanic, it will no doubt join the titanic burial site, even row HD isn’t the same, which means…we are sunk!!…GO DAWGS!!
They’ve turned it into “entertainment”, so not sure why they would expect anyone to show up or watch if there’s nothing to “entertain” the audience…..
The portal and unrestricted transfers are rapidly ruining college sports. I supported the 1 time transfer (after all, many college students transfer schools all the time for a multitude of reasons). I have no problem if an athlete transfers a 2nd time after graduation if he has remaining eligibility. He has fulfilled his requirement to his current school. I have a big problem for the 2nd+ transfer prior to graduation. The athlete should lose something for that … the ability to play in games. When the NCAA started granting exceptions for the 2nd transfer, they lost all ability to manage athlete movement.
When you have Cam Newton weighing in on transfers (and complimenting UGA), you have to ask what is going on? Sure maybe he’s gotten his and was a pure mercenary but he brings a different perspective than I have and it’s worth listening (not blindly accepting as gospel) to.
I cannot remember being this disinterested in UGA college football. Saturday came and went and I didn’t give the spring game one thought. I went fishing that morning and watched the Masters that afternoon.
Sounds like my day. Drove down to the coast to help the ‘rents out around the house, a little fishing, hit a couple bars and ate well. Now keeping up with the I’maleavin’ drama? Oh I was loving that all day long. Lol
Can someone tell me when this universal discontentment about college football is going to hit the ticket market? Right now Stubhub has the cheapest tickets to the Alabama and Texas games at just under $500 each.
If we still had scalpers they’d need armed guards.
Anyway I won’t worry about the death of the sport until I’m going to a lot more games.
For that matter, you wouldn’t know it from TV ratings either.
Seems like its going pretty similarly to the dying and very unpopular NFL.
I don’t know if it can be “changed back”, but I do expect that, at some point, it will have to be changed for the better. Right now there are essentially no rules. The strong conferences don’t want to unite with the others (including players) and create rules on transfers (i.e. free agency), revenue sharing, collective bargaining, etc. It’s all about getting the upper hand right now.
At some point, the wild, wild west attitude will create an urgency to set up rules like all other revenue generating leagues have. Holdouts (even in the playoffs), suits over what little restrictions still exist, stupid “NIL” contracts, etc. will eventually wear down even the SEC to the point where college presidents will finally agree that rules have to be made. Of course, legal rules cannot be made if the players aren’t seated at the table (i.e. collective bargaining). So in ten years or so, it will be changed and it will be “better” than it was at its worst (the worst will probably come in the next 2-5 years).
I do believe in the end college football will look like a pro league, though with a much more reasonable salary cap and shared revenue by all players. Kids will be under contract, with uniform implications for breach thereof. Not exactly the kind of football which made us all such loyal fans, but instead a more reasonable version of what we have now. Hopefully, we will continue to have that brand of player in Athens which CKS seems to covet–a Dawg that wants to be in Athens. We won’t like all of it, but we probably will still read this site everyday because we can’t help but love the Dawgs!
I hope you’re right but if there’s one thing the NCAA and the networks have done, it’s make things worse. Much worse. What you suggest is common sense – but they don’t have it.
You forgot to mention unlimited eligibility and the elimination of the requirement to be a student.
I’m not a pessimist by nature but can’t help but be pessimistic about the state of CFB. Whatever else happens, the diminished regular season is probably going to get even worse. Thanks to the networks and university administrators – both of whom ruin everything they touch – we’re almost certainly going to see an even larger playoff field. The de facto end game is to have (at least) 16 teams from just two superconferences finish 9-3. Parity will keep casual viewers and fans of lesser programs tuned in – at least for a while – and supply endless clickbait for idiotic pundits bloviating about who should be #1.
And until and if players are under contract – something universities don’t want because they don’t want to treat athletes as employees – every roster is going to consist of unrestricted free agents who could do exactly what Imaleava just did. And those in charge probably are okay with this because roster dilution further increases the chance for parity. It’s going to further frustrate coaches and upset fans – but coaches are hired to be fired and fans are obviously the least of anyone else’s concerns.
My view is that while I still love the games on Saturdays, I hate literally everything about the off-season. I will check back during fall camp when our roster is settled, and we are preparing for real games.