Listen to enough of the wrong people speak, and you'd think college football is on the brink of implosion. We're in a "disaster," says Lane Kiffin. The most common associated with the sport right now is "chaos" and most often that chaos is "total."
The twin topics of NIL and the Portal have sucked up the majority of the oxygen during the ongoing media day circus, and so I went to the American Athletic Conference media day on Tuesday in Arlington, Texas, to find out what's going right with college football. I wanted to know whether college football was an endeavor even worth saving. More immediately, I hoped the sight of actual players and coaches would confirm there is still a season to be played, that the vortex of NIL and the Portal hadn't swallowed every stadium whole.
"It's still college football. We still have the opportunity to develop young men to win football games but also prepare them for life," Navy head coach Brian Newberry told me. "We still have a great opportunity and a great platform to develop young men. That's what this is all about."
"The greatest thing about college football to me is the development of the young men in our program. It's the reason I love my job," said East Carolina's Mike Houston. "It's why I don't consider it a job is I get a chance to go spend every day with them. I'm better for it and hopefully we're making their lives better."
"You still have the ability to change and shape young men and be a part of their lives. I don't think that's ever changed. I'll never lose sight of that," said Ryan Silverfield of Memphis. "It's still a thrill to see guys get their college degree, to see them go out and perform at the highest level in the greatest game that's ever been played."
Several coaches alluded to growing interest in the sport. ESPN reported its most-watched regular season in five years in 2022. For the first time in decades, NBC increased its investment in college football, purchasing a Big Ten package to supplement Notre Dame's home schedule.
The advent of the 12-team Playoff means that, for the first time ever, teams in the American have a credible shot at competing for a national championship. TV rights for the new format are expected to fetch $2 billion per year when the new contract comes into place in 2026.
"It's not broken, for sure," said UTSA's Jeff Traylor. "There's probably more people in this country excited to watch football now than ever."
"The brand of college football is as strong as ever. Regardless of all the rule changes, I think it's still such a strong and powerful thing," Silverfield added. "You look the number of people that watch games each week, you see fans that live and die by what occurs on a Saturday afternoon. That will never go away."
"I don't know if the excitement around our game has ever been higher," said SMU's Rhett Lashlee.
And while no one will ever argue the Portal and NIL are perfect, nor are they twin forces sent from Hades to destroy God's favorite sport.
In fact, several coaches mentioned the positives of the new world thrust upon college football.
"When I was at Ohio State, Braxton Miller got called to the carpet because some fan or donor emailed about him wearing a Louis Vuitton belt," Florida Atlantic's Tom Herman said. "What is a student-athlete doing wearing a thousand dollar belt? So I was asked to get to the bottom of it. 'Coach, it's a knock off. I paid $75 for it.' This was 10 years ago, now. The guy's a two-time Big Ten player of the year, everyone knows he wears No. 5 for Ohio State. But, those were the rules at the time. So I get on the NCAA shop and right there in bold letters, I'll never forget it, 'Braxton Miller Ohio State jersey.' I didn't know what to do. I believe that every human being on this planet has the right to monetize their name, image and likeness."
"Coaches used to worry if they saw someone buying (a player) a soda pop, worry someone would take a picture of it and they were going to get a violation for getting a benefit," said Traylor. "Now with NIL, all that stuff's been rejected."
For all its faults, the Portal allows players to find the proper fit for their talents, benefitting them personally and the sport globally, since a player who would've been on the bench at one school can now freely transfer and see the field someplace else.
Traylor mentioned UTSA's opposing quarterback in the Roadrunner's season opener. "Donovan Smith wasn't going to be the starting quarterback at Texas Tech. He goes over to Houston, he'll be the starting quarterback there," he said.
Removing restrictions on transfers has forced Kevin Wilson and his Tulsa staff to work harder at connecting with their players on a personal level.
"It forces us as coaches to work harder to get to know the players. To communicate with the players," he said. "(Senior safety Kendarian Ray) had his family come to my office back in December. I didn't make any promises. I didn't say, 'Here's NIL money, come back.' I'm going to work my damndest to get some good coaches in here, and we're going to work like heck. I think you're a special player and if we do it right, we're going to get you to the League. Everybody's working hard to take care of the kids. I think I'm having as much as I ever have. The Portal's a part of it, NIL is a part of it. We don't fight it. We work like heck to build our culture and build our team."
Like any human endeavor, college football has never been and will never be perfect. A sport with 133 teams (and counting) in the top division and no one person in charge will always be ripe for controversy. With eight months between one season and the next, it sometimes feels like looking for new things to complain about is our favorite offseason pastime. Who can forget the summer of 2016, when satellite camps were college football's latest, most ominous threat?
No one's minimizing the complexities of NIL and the Portal, but Aristotle, Jesus and George Washington could descend from On High with a solution to those twin challenges that would perfectly satisfy players, coaches, Congress and the courts on Jan. 1, 2024, and we'd find something new to complain about on Jan. 2.
In fact, complaining is just as much part of the fabric of college football as the bands, the cheerleaders and fat guy touchdowns.
Said Silverfield: "It's still the best game in the entire world."