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It's hard to get football coaches to have a consensus opinion on almost anything.
After all, there's uptempo offenses, ball-control attacks and aggressive defenses as well as bend-but-don't-break units for a reason.
Tuesday inside AT&T Stadium, home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys and Big 12 Conference media days, the Big 12 head football coaches represented sounded almost like an a capella choir.
They want structure in this new era of revenue-sharing in collegiate athletics since the official onset of the House Settlement July 1; they want uniform standards across their beloved sport.
A sample of their comments:
"Just to create some standards, whatever it is. I don't think anybody cares what the rules are, they just want to know the rules. Right?," asked Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham, the league's lone representative in last year's inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. "Tell us where the sandbox is, and we'll play in it. At the end of the day, this is a game. I know this is a business, I know it's a profession to everybody, but if anybody who's not in this to see an 18-year-old go to a 22-year-old man and enter the real world is in it for the wrong reasons. I think people always focus on the negative and the changing of college football and the reality is we get to impact a lot of young people every single day."
Added Baylor's Dave Aranda, 'Well, just now that we're in revenue-share mode, just the enforcement. I think that's going to be the strongest thing. I think if there's rules and everyone's following the rules, I think that will help the programs that are represented here, if everyone is playing by those rules. And there's people that are not and they're trying to get this advantage or that advantage to go around the system. That there's some type of repercussions for that, I think that would be way helpful."
Embattled Cincinnati coach Scott Satterfield, who's generated a meager 8-16 ledger in two years atop the Bearcats program, echoed those sentiments.
"I think sometimes we sit here and talk and we're in the profession and we don't know the rules," said Satterfield, who had elite success at Appalachian State and then turned his stint at Louisville into the Cincinnati post. "I mean, it's difficult and it's ever-changing and there's not been really anything that's been very stable since 2020.
"Going into this, hopefully we can set some boundaries and some rules and there are going to be some ramifications if someone does break the rules."
Scott Frost, the former Group of Five darling for his initial work at UCF, might have had the most direct message after spending time in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams after he was fired from atop his alma mater, Nebraska.
"I think there's things that concern a lot of us. At least in the NFL, you know what the rules are, you know what the salary cap is," Frost said. "Right now at the end of the day [in college football], things are decided on the field but way before that they're decided in bank accounts and that needs to be leveled out. Like Coach said, if there's some enforcement and everybody's playing by the same rules, I think it's a better game.
"It's a sad state of affairs in college football if whoever has the richest boosters wins. I don't think that's where anybody wants it or where it was intended to be."