Watching the smorgasbord of college football over the Labor Day weekend was an in-your-face reminder that the days of playing for pride and old State U are long gone.
Every game, it seemed, had the announcers reciting the extensive travel logs of the various players. Old Schlom, the center for Team A, played a year at Alabama, was at Texas Christian for three years, and now has been plugged into the offensive line at Team A since it graduated (ran out of eligibility for) its entire OL.
Quarterbacks, running backs, defensive or offensive linemen, wide receivers, linebackers, defensive backs, you name it, all had a lengthy lists of schools to which they previously had matriculated, and I bet it wasn’t due to a search for the better math department.
The transfer portal beams players from one program to another, like a college football Star Trek transporter. It’s the free-agent market for colleges, where teams with holes can poach productive players from lower-profile programs to fill immediate needs.
The selling point is perhaps playing for a national championship, and did we mention lots of money?
You might recall legendary Alabama coach Nick Saban got out of the college game a few years back, citing, among other things, the runaway influence of NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) money, which makes it OK to pay college players millions of dollars while they still, incredibly, are considered amateur athletes.
The topic of NIL has become a public spitting contest between the coaches at Oklahoma State and Oregon in advance of their week 2 matchup Saturday in Oregon.
In case you’ve been in a coma in recent years, the Oregon program is funded to the max by NIKE gazillionaire Phil Knight. He frequently used to pal around with Joe Paterno, in the pre-NIL days.
Oklahoma State coach Jeff Gundy, speaking of Oregon, griped that college football has become a spending arms race, saying his team had spent about $7 million (in NIL, presumably) over the past three years while Oregon he said has spent $40 million just last year.
While Gundy exaggerates, he’s not completely off-base. Meanwhile, his Oregon counterpart, Dan Lanning, said his program is just going with the current flow in college football and spending to win.
It makes you long for the old days, when a lesser program might get lucky with a recruit and expect to keep him his entire college career. Now, that program would need to recruit the player over and over again, with wads of cash in each hand.
Just as in (other) pro sports, sometimes spending money doesn’t guarantee college football successs. But failing to spend money guarantees failure.
In the titanic main attraction last weekend, Texas, ranked No. 1 in the AP poll and also, according to 247sports.com, the top 2025 NIL program with $22.2 million in NIL money distributed to its roster, lost to No. 3 AP and No. 2 NIL Ohio State ($20.2 million).
If only Texas had spent a few more million bucks!
While college football has become a disgusting exercise in transfers and millionaire players, it’s refreshing to see that some things hold constant.
In an example of note, while other Top 10 teams chose to meet on the playing field (think Texas-Ohio State, LSU-Clemson and Notre Dame-Miami), Penn State was content with business as usual regarding its schedule, playing Sisters of the Poor, with School for the Blind, and Over Our Heads U upcoming.
Specifically, the PSU opener was against overmatched Nevada. Be still my heart as Florida International is next up, to be followed by Villanova.
Then Penn State has an off week to get ready for finally playing a legitimate opponent in Oregon.
With perennial tormenter Michigan again missing from the PSU schedule, this Oregon game, along with the traditional game (defeat) against Ohio State should be the only challenges. Just split those two games, or even lose both, and Penn State will have a cakewalk into the expanded college football playoffs. What is it now, 80 teams?
Some are saying Penn State is a strong pick to win the national championship this year. Legislating against that prospect is the continuing presence of James “Can’t Win The Big Game” Franklin as the coach, and Penn State, again according to 247sports.com, ranking only 11th in NIL payroll at $13.7 million.
I can’t wait to see if Franklin cries NIL poor in advance of that Oregon game – or after losing to the Ducks.
Sam Ross Jr's site 