The new world of NIL, the transfer portal, and the College Football Playoff is turning college football into a business that looks more and more like the NFL. It’s more corporate, more cutthroat, with more dollars and more postseason spots at stake. The transfer portal is college sports’ answer to professional free agency. Player acquisition is now a year-round pursuit in college football, and programs that don’t go into the portal (see Dabo Swinney at Clemson) are losing ground.
It’s more than understandable that fans hate what college football is becoming. Recruiting isn’t as fun as it used to be. The transfer portal, while very important in the larger scheme of the college football landscape, is infuriating because a program can come in with a hefty NIL offer and snatch a prospect who seemed set on playing at another school. USC fans felt this particular frustration a lot. If they hate what college football has become, no one can blame them for feeling that way.
This discussion becomes more complicated, however, when fans lament the direction of college football and how the sport no longer has the innocence or charm it used to have, but still want their school to be competitive in the NIL, in the portal and in recruiting. We all dislike the gross commercialization of college football and the distorting effects of conference realignment, such as the ridiculous travel requirements imposed on 19- and 20-year-old athletes. However, if we still care about our school, like USC, we realize that this is the brave new world we are a part of. We either play the game or we can go home and pursue other passions.
If we want USC to be competitive, we have to be willing to allow USC to pursue all reasonable and ethical paths to achieving elite football performance. If we say we want the best for USC football but don’t want the school to be hyper-aggressive in its pursuit of quality, we are sending a mixed message.
We may hate the direction college football is going, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t want USC football to do whatever it takes (with honor, of course) to achieve its goals.
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