If you want to win but don’t like where college football is going, you have to choose

The new world of NIL, the transfer portal, and the College Football Playoff is turning college football into a business which looks increasingly more like the NFL. It’s more corporate, more cutthroat, with more dollars and more postseason berths on the line. The transfer portal is college sports’ answer to free agency in the pros. Player acquisition is now a year-round pursuit in college football, and the programs which don’t go into the portal (see Dabo Swinney at Clemson) are losing ground.

It is 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 college football’s landscape, is annoying because one program can come in with a hefty NIL offer and snatch away a prospect who seemed intent on playing at another school. USC fans have felt this particular frustration quite a lot. If they hate what college football has become, no one can blame them for feeling that way.

This discussion gets 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 NIL, the portal, and recruiting. We all don’t like the crass commercialization of college football and the distorting effects of conference realignment, such as the ridiculous travel demands being placed on 19- and 20-year-old athletes. Yet, if we still care about our school, such as USC, we realize this is the brave new world we’re a part of. We either play the game, or we might as well go home and pursue other passions.

If we want USC to be competitive, we have to be willing to allow USC to pursue every reasonable and ethical avenue to achieve elite football performance. If we claim to want the…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/want-win-don-t-where-220522921.html

Author : Trojans Wire

Publish date : 2024-06-23 22:05:22

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