A casual fan's take on college football anarchy

Tis the season of what I call the "East Armpit Bowls." These are the contests between (mostly) unheralded college football teams which have winning, but undistinguished, regular season records (think 6-6 or 7-6) often played before Christmas or immediately after in warm tourist spots. This is college football for the unserious and I revel in it. The high class serious Bowls come later. I consider having the space and time to watch the East Armpit batch a great seasonal pleasure; this doesn't prove convenient every year but it sure is a good way to unwind after a election campaign season.

It used to be the distinguishing characteristic of the best of these seasonal bowl games that, in one their one chance of wide TV exposure, both the college in question and its gladiators took the opportunity show their stuff, to strive violently, and sometimes skillfully, to demonstrate their passion for the game. 

(And they still do. Yesterday I saw a contest between Pitt and Toledo in the "GameAbove Sports Bowl" that went to 6 OverTimes and ended with scores in the mid-forties.)

The changing structure of college athletics, the demise of enforced amateurism, and of enforced penury for the "student" athletes, is changing all that, even at the lower levels.

A series of legal rulings have released college football players from what was a sort of indentured servitude. Once recruited and signed by a college's football program, and often its domineering coach, young men were awarded a scholarship and perhaps a small stipend, while losing their freedom. Including the freedom to decide they should play somewhere else. No more. Now college football is shaped by the "transfer portal." Moving between school and football programs is constant, though regulated.

ESPN explains:

At the FBS level [the Bowl stratum of college teams], more than 25% of scholarship players transferred after the 2023 season. Thousands of players becoming available each offseason is forcing programs to adapt and rethink how they construct their rosters to stay competitive.

The NCAA transfer portal is an online database that lists student-athletes who are interested in changing schools. In major college football, players can enter their name in the portal during transfer windows in the winter and spring. For this 2024-25 school year, the winter window is Dec. 9-28 and the spring window is April 16-25.

When a player puts their name in the portal, schools can immediately begin contacting and recruiting them. ... once a player enters the portal, their school can decide to cancel their athletics aid and remove them from the roster. ...When programs go through head-coaching changes, their players are granted an immediate 30-day window during which they can enter the portal. However, players are not allowed to play for multiple teams in one season.

There's no more penalty to the athlete of having to sit out of football for a year when jumping to another college. An increasing number of players jump every year. And football programs can accumulate as many transfer players as they can recruit with no limiting rules. Concurrently, when popular and successful coaches jump to new jobs, the players they've accumulated can jump along with them!

The disruption has been huge -- and it is complicated by court rulings that the college athletic association (NCAA) cannot enforce amateurism (and poverty) on the athletes. A scholarship that comes with an obligation to the football program is not fair compensation for many athletes. Collectives of rich boosters and the colleges themselves can contract with the athletes for the use of their  "names, image, and likeness" (NIL). The best players, usually quarterbacks, can earn serous money.

Many coaches feel they are having to navigate a new world:

"You're not building a program anymore," Coastal Carolina coach Tim Beck told reporters Thursday. "This isn't a program. Each year, you just build a team. You try to find the best team that you can put out there every year, and you know the team is going to get hit by free agency."

Some make the case that the new wild world of unfettered college sports will teach athletes new skills:

The portal process has evolved into a sophisticated professional development opportunity. Athletes gain real-world experience in personal branding, contract negotiation, and business relationships.

Well, maybe. But for many of these young men, this may be a dangerous opportunity. There are a lot of sharks out there, wanting a piece of the new money that comes with the new freedom.

Naturally, with all that money floating about, there are moves to try to organize college football players into something like the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) at the professional level. Some coaches have even encouraged this effort -- a union would simplify and clarify a very murky and potentially exploitative situation.

[Last May University of Alabama Birmingham] football players say their entire roster ... signed up for Athletes.org, making them the first Division I football team to publicly join the players' association. They were introduced to the group by an unexpected source: their head coach.

[Former NFL quarterback] Trent Dilfer gathered his team for a voluntary meeting in mid-April to encourage them to prepare for a future when college athletes might be able to negotiate for a larger share of their sport's revenue.

"They're going to have a seat at the table," Dilfer told ESPN. "I wanted to make sure I helped pour gasoline on something that is going to happen no matter what. I might as well use my influence to help it happen faster on behalf of our players."

A union to protect the majority of players seems like a necessity. 

All this is unsettled, changing every year as colleges struggle to organize themselves to grab the largest possible TV broadcast contracts, winning coaches command ever higher salaries, and players demand their piece of the pie. Football truly is the all-American game.