Does anyone have a good theory where this is going? I forsee some team dropping down to 60 players, nil ing 2 year deals, using the portal to add 30 a year. There is no reason to take high school kids at all.

Kozmozag said:

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Does anyone have a good theory where this is going? I forsee some team dropping down to 60 players, nil ing 2 year deals, using the portal to add 30 a year. There is no reason to take high school kids at all.

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Maybe. However the exact opposite might prove to be true.

The portal is new. So new that there isn't nearly enough data to determine if it is a success or failure. The latter could very well prove to be the case. It's not remotely outside the realm of possibility that six or seven years down the road we've come to the conclusion that the portal was a huge nonthingburger born of the determination that those entering the portal did so for one key reason.... they aren't getting enough money as they aren't getting enough time on the field to warrant a big payday. And if they aren't getting the playing time it begs the question, "why"? Could it be basic skill and talent? Dabo, who has finally come around to NIL is still somewhat skeptical about the portal as in his view most of the players that enter the portal were highly recruited types out of HS that did not pan out and thus are looking for a second/third/fourth chance.

Portal success or failure, its probably way to early to fundamentally change how players are recruited and definitely way to risky to not go after HS recruits.

I think we will eventually see the Top 40 or programs break away from the NCAA and form their own CFB league. It will be just like the NFL. For example, 4 leagues,10-12 teams each, with you playing 9-11 conference games and three OOC games against teams that finished in the same spot you finished in the previous season, switching up the locations every other year (i.e. 4th in the west vs 4th in the North, South, and MIdwest for OOC). And the rosters will be made up of employees, not students. Players can stay on teams as long as they want, like pros. So a QB like Marce Reed could be the Aggie QB as a 30-year old. There will be a salary cap and rosters will be contracted, so no portal.

Playoffs will be for the top 16 teams. First rounds at home. Second round at the Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, and a Bowl in Indianapolis/Detroit for the northern teams. Semifinals at the Orange Bowl and Rose Bowl. Final in the Sugar Bowl.

Detmersdislocatedshoulder said:

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just my personal opinion but college football is going in a direction that will ultimately hurt the sport. i love college football and I skipped many games this year including playoff games because it just not the same anymore. i still watch but the passion is gone.

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Kinda like your lovelife then?

Jeez, some of you just plain suck at life.

Like him or hate him Deion Sanders came to Colorado and stated up front he intended to follow a '40-40-20' approach to team development-as he had at Jackson State. 40% tranfer portal; 40% graduate transfers; 20% High School Recruits. This is what he has done. I don't like it, but judge for yourself if CU has been a success-evidence is kind of mixed but no doubt an improvement over 1-11. I have a soft spot for some Group of 5 schools, and worry that they will be (maybe already are) just a minor league for the Power 4 conferences.

B1G and SEC split off. 30-40 teams. They will become the equivalent of AAA football.

Big 12 and ACC become AA equivalent.

All other school become single A equivalent.

There will be lots of movement up and down. HS recruiting will be more specific. No different than MLB teams pick the best still, that will happen with the top tier recruits, but many are going to be asked to prove themselves. What will be interesting is to see if any natural pipelines are created. Does A&M start working with Houston or SMU or Tech to stash their less certain prospects to see how it turns out?

The biggest issue is and will continue to be the one year transfer. Holding onto and subsequently replacing back up talent will be very difficult because dropping to a lesser school in order to start and prove themselves will always be an option. The pipeline-esque plan could help, in theory.

I think we might as well go back like when we wanted to play a game of football with a group of buddies. We flipped a coin to pick two captains and then flipped again for first pick… then we picked our " teams".
This is almost what this has become except for the money.
So we should get a big sack of money…. invite all the players to the field each weekend…. and do a Calcutta… bidding on each player till somebody gets him and form two teams. Then they play.
Rinse and repeat each weekend.
That's what we are doing anyway. The players don't give a damn who they play for and want to go to the highest bidder anyway… at anytime they want.
Just like fantasy football in a way.

Indentured servanthood now only exists in the H-1b system. College athletes are freed!!!

The Banned said:

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B1G and SEC split off. 30-40 teams. They will become the equivalent of AAA football.

Big 12 and ACC become AA equivalent.

All other school become single A equivalent.

There will be lots of movement up and down. HS recruiting will be more specific. No different than MLB teams pick the best still, that will happen with the top tier recruits, but many are going to be asked to prove themselves. What will be interesting is to see if any natural pipelines are created. Does A&M start working with Houston or SMU or Tech to stash their less certain prospects to see how it turns out?

The biggest issue is and will continue to be the one year transfer. Holding onto and subsequently replacing back up talent will be very difficult because dropping to a lesser school in order to start and prove themselves will always be an option. The pipeline-esque plan could help, in theory.

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That would be an interesting system. Especially if it was set up like the Premier League with the bottom three teams from each conference pushed down to the lower conference with the top three being promoted to the next higher conference. Either way I imagine the concept of a super conference will come to fruition in the next 10 years or so.

Over half of the current FBS teams break off or will become defacto FCS teams No way can teams the likes of UTSA, UTEP, abd North Texas and all of the directional schools can compete in the NIL arena; not that they could compete before NIL and the portal came along. Some may even drop football. it's hard enough for big money schools to hang on. And not just football. other. college sports will be hurt. That's 2 cents worth on my short version. Of course, over half of the FBS teams may break off first. What a mess!

12thMan9 said:

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Detmersdislocatedshoulder said:

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just my personal opinion but college football is going in a direction that will ultimately hurt the sport. i love college football and I skipped many games this year including playoff games because it just not the same anymore. i still watch but the passion is gone.

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Kinda like your lovelife then?

Jeez, some of you just plain suck at life.

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Excellent commentary, bro. Way to advance the discussion. (Eye roll)

I like NIL bc it creates parity with all the bama, OSU, Michigan, sip, GA, USC teams. It also gets money to players for the product they put on the field that any given school makes billions from.

Any regulation of it takes us back to square one again where some teams are penalized for infractions, when others aren't.

Just have a draft for CFB. Make it a D league for the NFL. None of it matters anymore.

JWinTX said:

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I think we will eventually see the Top 40 or programs break away from the NCAA and form their own CFB league. It will be just like the NFL. For example, 4 leagues,10-12 teams each, with you playing 9-11 conference games and three OOC games against teams that finished in the same spot you finished in the previous season, switching up the locations every other year (i.e. 4th in the west vs 4th in the North, South, and MIdwest for OOC). And the rosters will be made up of employees, not students. Players can stay on teams as long as they want, like pros. So a QB like Marce Reed could be the Aggie QB as a 30-year old. There will be a salary cap and rosters will be contracted, so no portal.

Playoffs will be for the top 16 teams. First rounds at home. Second round at the Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, and a Bowl in Indianapolis/Detroit for the northern teams. Semifinals at the Orange Bowl and Rose Bowl. Final in the Sugar Bowl.

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I would hate this and would just go back to watching only the nfl like I did as a kid before I ever went to A&M

I dont want 30 year old players on a college team

The 12 team tournament has seen the 5,6,7,8 seeds go 2-0 each while the 1-4 seeds are 0-4 as are the 9-12 seeds.

No road team won and no team with a bye won. Expand it immediately to a 16 team field with no byes and true seeding like basketball or baseball seeds.

The college game with free agency via the portal will simply become minor leagues for the NFL. Balance out all scheduling or under qualified teams will continue to make the playoffs. The SEC and Big 10 will not be able to stay above the others without changes. NIL and the Portal will eventually make dynasty runs impossible. Bama and Georgia this year and probably Ohio state and Michigan will fall back to the pack. 8-4 is a good record in the NFL and will be in college with the right scheduling. It's coming faat

You just described the end of college football. How many minor league baseball games or G League basketball games do you watch? That's how many people would watch it.

Passion replaced by tv ad payouts. It is easy to not watch now.

greg.w.h said:

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Indentured servanthood now only exists in the H-1b system. College athletes are freed!!!

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This is and has always been such a stupid and wrong viewpoint. Every sport has rules and that's all people are asking for.

I anticipate many smaller programs will eventually cease to exist. It'll begin with D3 programs folding and eventually work its way up into FCS and then G5 programs.

We've very much evolved into a "if you ain't first, you're last" culture and anything less than the "biggest and best" is considered garbage. Fans will begin to ignore the struggling to mediocre programs at the lower levels creating financial difficulties which accelerates such programs' decline.

SlickHairandlotsofmoney said:

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I anticipate many smaller programs will eventually cease to exist. It'll begin with D3 programs folding and eventually work its way up into FCS and then G5 programs.

We've very much evolved into a "if you ain't first, you're last" culture and anything less than the "biggest and best" is considered garbage. Fans will begin to ignore the struggling to mediocre programs at the lower levels creating financial difficulties which accelerates such programs' decline.

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You have to opt into the House settlement if not a named Defendant for Div. 1 schools from my admittedly vague understanding.

You see a lot of D3 schools doing so, exclaiming Doh!, and then ceasing to exist?

And you fear that fans will "begin" to ignore the mediocre programs at the lower levels creating financial difficulties? Are you sure it's the D3, FCS, and Group of 5 schools we're worried about?

My son plays hockey so I've become somewhat familiar with how that works going from grade school to the pros.

You have various levels they can play at in grade school....A, AA, AAA/Prep.

Then they can either play juniors for several years or possibly jump straight to college. Or they can play Juniors then jump to college.

Of course there's several levels and divisions of college (NCAA DIV I being the highest). And likewise there's several levels and divisions of Juniors.

Finally, the best go on to play after college and/or juniors, either in the Pros or Semipros (or in Europe).

I can see football turning into some variation of this.

Multiple different amatuer levels of play and routes to potentially make it to the pros. You absolutely know that if there was a football route to go from H.S. to Juniors with the possibility of being drafted by an NFL team, there are plenty of current college football players who would absolutely play on a "Juniors" football team where they could get a stipend and focus solely on training in football rather than play for a college and have to worry about classes and grades.

1-seeding reformat for 2025 season

2-fourteen team playoff by 2026 season

3-within ten years, "Big 10" and "SEC" are going to break off to do their own thing. I put those in quotes because it won't be all the current teams. So will be left out by their own choice, others told to beat it. They set up a near-NFL model where each side has a playoff, then champs play each other.

4-federal laws put in place regarding antitrust exemptions related to NIL & transfers. Entirely new governing body potentially created. Feds fix the problem in short term, but as usual bring a whole host of other problems.

5-Redshirts go away. 5 years eligibility for everyone. (Already being considered)

It's going to take a complete reset, and by that, I mean breaking away from ESPN, and self-managing all aspects of the production again. Retro, for the fans. You have to be there, and buy a ticket to see it.

ESPN made, and ruined college football.

Breaking away from espn? That's not happening.

Buford T. Justice said:

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It's going to take a complete reset, and by that, I mean breaking away from ESPN, and self-managing all aspects of the production again. Retro, for the fans. You have to be there, and buy a ticket to see it.

ESPN made, and ruined college football.

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Yeah, none of that is happening, period. Go ahead and point to any period in time when things have gone backwards.

Buford T. Justice said:

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It's going to take a complete reset, and by that, I mean breaking away from ESPN, and self-managing all aspects of the production again. Retro, for the fans. You have to be there, and buy a ticket to see it.

ESPN made, and ruined college football.

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This is an insane suggestion.

The oversaturation of the game started about 25 years ago. Too many channels and shows devoted to the game. Watered it down. Add in the internet, football BBS's like this one, the ability to scratch that itch any time you wanted it. It removed the "kid on Christmas morning" feeling of the game. That goes double for the bowl games. The growing anticipation waiting for New Year's Day to watch the bowls was indescribable for CFB fans. Then bowl games became so ubiquitous that you even had teams with losing records going to them. All the meaning and prestige of being a bowl team vanished.

Now with NIL and the transfer portal, it's all just ruined. Gone.
The game that we knew is gone. Those of you saying "it will ruin/kill the game" are too late. It already has. It's done. And it ain't ever coming back.
They took the most perfect game in the world and ruined it. It's all about money. Amateurism has become a bad word in this country. You're somehow un-American or anti-capitalist if you don't support everyone "getting theirs" at every level.

The whole thing stinks. And it's all made worse by the fact that our school can't seem to do anything right regarding football and marketing. It's just so deflating.

Buford T. Justice said:

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It's going to take a complete reset, and by that, I mean breaking away from ESPN, and self-managing all aspects of the production again. Retro, for the fans. You have to be there, and buy a ticket to see it.

ESPN made, and ruined college football.

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Pare down the revenue to punish all involved and limit eyeballs to the gate. Once the players, media, and whomever else owes one has apologized things can go back to some idealized remembrance.

I don't like many of the changes in College Football-NIL, Transfer portal, conference realignment out of control etc. But I don't see the end of college football and a turn to a 'minor league' system. And it is easy to forget that there are many other levels of College Football, that are enjoyed by a lot of people, and played by players that don't get NIL, and many of whom don't even get scholarships. Yet they still play.