"Coach complains about current state of college football" is a story that could have been written every day for the past, oh, forever. I don't often write these stories because: A) Viewed through the right lens, college football is on better ground than it's ever been, and B) Writing the same story every day would get really old, really fast.
However, rip the current state of college football as poetically, passionately, and creatively as Central Michigan head coach Matt Drinkall, and we'll make an exception.
The second-year Central Michigan head coach has been a subject of admiration for years around here. If he wasn't in coaching, Drinkall would be one of the fans parked on the couch from noon to past midnight each Saturday throughout the fall. It was that part of Drinkall that spoke on the coming College Football Playoff expansion from 12 teams to 24, and we'll let him take it from there.
"All everything since COVID has just been 100 percent reaction. No one has ever said, 'Okay, well if we do this, what does it look like 15 years from now? What does this look like 10 years from now? Is this is in the best interest culturally of everyone?' Or is it all just, 'How do I save my ass and make the most money right now this second right now?' Which is what everyone's going to do," Drinkall said Tuesday, via By the Belt.
"Whoever has to sell TV spots or tickets at every school or promote a conference, they're not interested in what's good for the sport of football. They're not interested in what's good for young people coming up. But they want to know what makes my job the most amount of money right now, so everything since COVID, all the reactionary conference realignment, eligibility, paying players, transfer policies, none of it's good. None of it's in the best interest of the student-athlete, none of it's in the best interest of the sport. It's just like everybody went nuts at once.
"And it's just been a downward spiral that is nonstop until it's going to be a smoldering dumpster fire left like the Truffula trees and the Lorax. Like they're going to ring this sport out for every cent they can as long as they can and prostitute the sport for financial gain. Until the people stop caring, just like they did with boxing back in the '20s, Major League Baseball back when they sell all these fields out, they're going to prostitute it as much as they can as possible until people stop caring."
For the record, the Lorax is the titular character of a 1971 Dr. Seuss book, most recently turned into a 2012 animated film of the same name where -- you guessed it -- characters who cut down all the truffula trees to make a quick buck live to regret it.
I could quibble here and there with Drinkall, but the gist of what he's saying is absolutely correct. There's no one person with the power and direction to think and move for college football's best interest. In that void, the Big Ten and its commissioner Tony Petitti convinced the so-called leadership across the sport that their own personal best interest and the betterment of college football were intertwined. The public will accept an 8-4 team ostensibly competing for a national championship, everything will be fine. Does the world really need all those truffula trees anyway?
Needless to say, college football would be in much safer hands with Matt Drinkall at the helm than Tony Petitti and his minions.