So it begins... The decline of college football

[manjano mdudu]

Stanford has more billionaire alums than any school in FBS.

And millionaires

While no doubt the grads of some of the schools listed have become very accomplished, we also know that the kids of the very wealthy have relatively easy paths to admission at the schools of their choice. The Development and Admissions offices at about every school are essentially next door to each other. At places that depend on donations for success, it's just the way it is.

 

[MEwreck02]

If I am AD at Stanford, Cal, USC, or another Pac12 school with a wealthy, liberal alumni base I’m couching NIL in “social justice” terms to shame my alums into paying the most for players.

What and have those kids go play for those evil white coaches? Good Luck with that until these schools hire BIPOC, women, and some LQTBABCKX!@#Y coaches.

 

[LuvdaJackets1944]

Alabama QB Bryce Young Nets NIL Deal with BMW of Tuscaloosa

The Heisman Trophy winner will be repping a different German automobile than Nick Saban.

www.si.com

.

Here is my question. What is to stop coaches and boosters that own businesses from paying kids to play for a school? Maybe I am wrong, but if someone gets paid, to play a sport, should they NOT lose their amateur status? I know that GT will NEVER have the booster backing like a UGA, Bama, Auburn, Notre Dame and such... Is it just me, or are we seeing the end of college football, as we know it?

The NIL & Transfer Portal are rapidly destroying college football, just like free agency has done to professional sports.
It would be nice to hear some positive support for our players.
I personally think we have a chance to win 7-9 games this year.

 

[TampaBayJacket]

Stanford has more billionaire alums than any school in FBS.

And millionaires

One commonality among all that entire list is elite business schools. Elite b-schools make CEOs and CEOs make hundreds of millions (just to run a corporation into the ground, I might add).

 

[originalwombat]

I started losing interest in CFB around CPJ's last year or so. Making it easy for guys to transfer never bothered me. They should have as much freedom to move around as any other college student. For me it was the writing on the wall about players getting paid. Yes, players have always gotten paid, I'm not naive. To compare NIL to this historical fact is idiocy, though. It's like saying legalizing weed doesn't matter because people have been smoking pot anyway.

Unlike weed, which made something accessible that I couldn't previously enjoy, NIL takes the joy out of something I currently have.

 

[Nehru Jacket]

I started losing interest in CFB around CPJ's last year or so. Making it easy for guys to transfer never bothered me. They should have as much freedom to move around as any other college student. For me it was the writing on the wall about players getting paid. Yes, players have always gotten paid, I'm not naive. To compare NIL to this historical fact is idiocy, though. It's like saying legalizing weed doesn't matter because people have been smoking pot anyway.

Unlike weed, which made something accessible that I couldn't previously enjoy, NIL takes the joy out of something I currently have.

The obvious answer is to start accessing the weed that you couldn’t previously enjoy and you might regain your joy for college football.

 

[originalwombat]

The obvious answer is to start accessing the weed that you couldn’t previously enjoy and you might regain your joy for college football.

The only problem is that I can't watch football when I'm high bc I forget who I'm rooting for.

 

[OptionJacket]

I started losing interest in CFB around CPJ's last year or so. Making it easy for guys to transfer never bothered me. They should have as much freedom to move around as any other college student. For me it was the writing on the wall about players getting paid. Yes, players have always gotten paid, I'm not naive. To compare NIL to this historical fact is idiocy, though. It's like saying legalizing weed doesn't matter because people have been smoking pot anyway.

Unlike weed, which made something accessible that I couldn't previously enjoy, NIL takes the joy out of something I currently have.

I was always against legalizing weed. But you know what? Now that some states have legalized it and a few years have gone by which has lowered the hysteria over that topic I realize its not that big a deal. Those who wanted to smoke dope would whether it’s legal or not and those (like me) who have no interest in it won’t smoke it whether legal or not. The same with NIL. If you drop fandom for a fleeting moment in time then so be it.

What I see in your post is simply the frustrations of a fan of a team that is on a downward trend with little hope if turning it around anytime soon. You even said you’re fandom starting waning at the end of Johnson’s era. That so happens to to the beginning of when GT stopped having competent QB’s. Our fanbase is beaten down but NIL isn’t to blame. We’ll start winning games when we have consistent QB play. We haven’t had that since Thomas.

 

[originalwombat]

I was always against legalizing weed. But you know what? Now that some states have legalized it and a few years have gone by which has lowered the hysteria over that topic I realize its not that big a deal. Those who wanted to smoke dope would whether it’s legal or not and those (like me) who have no interest in it won’t smoke it whether legal or not. The same with NIL. If you drop fandom for a fleeting moment in time then so be it.

What I see in your post is simply the frustrations of a fan of a team that is on a downward trend with little hope if turning it around anytime soon. You even said you’re fandom starting waning at the end of Johnson’s era. That so happens to to the beginning of when GT stopped having competent QB’s. Our fanbase is beaten down but NIL isn’t to blame. We’ll start winning games when we have consistent QB play. We haven’t had that since Thomas.

Well, to expand a little on my waning interests. I used to keep up with rankings. Used to watch "big games" on Saturdays regardless of who it was. I don't really do that anymore. The only reason I've watched any big games is bc the wife went to Bammer, and they're in 50% of them. I'm certain the state of Tech football has something to do with it. Has it been an accelerator or just the cause of a temporarily loss of interest? That's the question, of course. But it feels more like the former. Does knowing that Tech will NEVER be able to compete on NIL influence this? I'm sure it does. But if Tech went 10-2 for the next five years, would it compel me to watch any conference championship games, the playoffs, or NC game? I doubt it.

Also, I never thought much about legalizing weed. Didn't really have an opinion and hadn't done it but maybe two times since the 90's. Now that it's legal, I've become a more frequent user. Like beer, I don't drink it all that often, but I've always got some in the fridge. That's me with weed now (in edible form). I'm thrilled that they legalized it. Saw Todd Barry last week in Houston. Popped an edible before the show. Laughed my ass off.

 

[TampaBayJacket]

I was always against legalizing weed. But you know what? Now that some states have legalized it and a few years have gone by which has lowered the hysteria over that topic I realize its not that big a deal. Those who wanted to smoke dope would whether it’s legal or not and those (like me) who have no interest in it won’t smoke it whether legal or not. The same with NIL. If you drop fandom for a fleeting moment in time then so be it.

What I see in your post is simply the frustrations of a fan of a team that is on a downward trend with little hope if turning it around anytime soon. You even said you’re fandom starting waning at the end of Johnson’s era. That so happens to to the beginning of when GT stopped having competent QB’s. Our fanbase is beaten down but NIL isn’t to blame. We’ll start winning games when we have consistent QB play. We haven’t had that since Thomas.

Fair take for sure but your head is in the sand if you haven't noticed CFB is way different than 10 years ago and not even recognizable from 20+ years ago. The downfall was ESPN-SEC getting in bed with each other. A positive feedback loop ensued to ensure the SEC was glamorized by its business partner which consolidated recruits to the conference, even to typically bottom feeder SEC schools (minus Vandy since they still try to enforce academic standards). NIL is more of a catalyst that sped up the death of CFB and made the SEC feedback loop gain infinite. Now a team with $1B to waste chasing a championship can go all in and try to buy one. Everybody seems doubtful that TAMU can pull it off but use UGA as your case study where if you accumulate that many five stars on a team, it is inevitable. The formula is to out talent 10-11 teams on your schedule and then try to beat bama. You will get two shots at bama too. I mean, how is CFB even interesting anymore? Clemson bucked the trend for several years of the CFP era but NIL has blasted them back to the pack. Their run is over.

The CFP champ will be Bama, UGA or TAMU every year going forward. My only hope with TAMU is these recruits could give two öööös about the school and are there just to collect their $1M and hit the transfer portal. That would bring me much joy.

 

[rghoae]

I started losing interest in CFB around CPJ's last year or so. Making it easy for guys to transfer never bothered me. They should have as much freedom to move around as any other college student. For me it was the writing on the wall about players getting paid. Yes, players have always gotten paid, I'm not naive. To compare NIL to this historical fact is idiocy, though. It's like saying legalizing weed doesn't matter because people have been smoking pot anyway.

Unlike weed, which made something accessible that I couldn't previously enjoy, NIL takes the joy out of something I currently have.

Unfortunately the NCAA didn’t make the decisions that they should have made, and accepted that college football and basketball players are largely not students (especially the ones actually winning the games) and the fact that the whole system was little more than a farm league for the pros, and let the athletes form a union with whom they could have negotiated a reasonable salary range for every player and team salary caps.

The NFL with this system has tremendous parity, where the NFL with 32 teams has had almost as many teams (11) make it to the 2 super bowl spots than the CFB playoffs with nearly 120 teams has had in the 4 playoff spots (13), in the period during which the playoffs have existed.

Instead, by continuing what was a clearly illegal system, they were forced by a unanimous conservative majority Supreme Court to enter a system that has made college football an even worse product than it already was.

 

[ClubSeats]

While donations make a huge part of what allows some schools to be successful, the donors do not donate for nothing. They get massive amounts of money (many multiples) back.

Where does the $200mm for a locker room go? It goes to contractors, construction companies, building companies, people who sell weights, etc.

It’s these people who are the biggest donors because they know the corrupt system launders their money into tax free donations, and then combined with state funds, fees, and TV money, it will come right back into their pockets.

Tech suffers because our alumni base isn’t filled with local and provincial car sellers and construction companies and landlords and brokers.

Tech alumni run and work in global companies that don’t benefit as much from local small town construction contracts, for example.

Any donations from Tech alumni is a pure donation. But in most other schools actual charitable donations are only a tiny portion of the corruption racket donations that are the actual meat of the funding.

So let me get this straight. You think when we build a new building on campus, all the money to build the building came from donations from the contractors and architects who worked on it? Because it sounds like that’s what you’re saying.

 

[clapper]

Tech suffers because our alumni base isn’t filled with local and provincial car sellers and construction companies and landlords and brokers.

This comment is patently false.

First, the local construction market - developers, design firms, construction companies (general and major subs) - CEOs and presidents (as well as many of their employees) are significantly represented by GT grads, who are also major contributors to GT & GTAA. Only UF and Auburn match it by number.

Second, there is absolutely no beneficial consideration given to those grads when awarding construction contracts at Georgia Tech, despite the fact that those individuals know the buildings better, understand the the school's needs more specifically, are end users of the facilities, and have a vested interest in providing a better quality product than their competitors.

 

[OptionJacket]

Fair take for sure but your head is in the sand if you haven't noticed CFB is way different than 10 years ago and not even recognizable from 20+ years ago. The downfall was ESPN-SEC getting in bed with each other. A positive feedback loop ensued to ensure the SEC was glamorized by its business partner which consolidated recruits to the conference, even to typically bottom feeder SEC schools (minus Vandy since they still try to enforce academic standards). NIL is more of a catalyst that sped up the death of CFB and made the SEC feedback loop gain infinite. Now a team with $1B to waste chasing a championship can go all in and try to buy one. Everybody seems doubtful that TAMU can pull it off but use UGA as your case study where if you accumulate that many five stars on a team, it is inevitable. The formula is to out talent 10-11 teams on your schedule and then try to beat bama. You will get two shots at bama too. I mean, how is CFB even interesting anymore? Clemson bucked the trend for several years of the CFP era but NIL has blasted them back to the pack. Their run is over.

The CFP champ will be Bama, UGA or TAMU every year going forward. My only hope with TAMU is these recruits could give two öööös about the school and are there just to collect their $1M and hit the transfer portal. That would bring me much joy.

Yeah, we just disagree. No problem with that. You believe the game is fundamentally changed and that teams like Bama, UGA, and TAMU are now the forever champs. I believe nothing has really changed. Bama, UGA, OU, and others have always dominated no matter what the “current” landscape was. This year we saw the first G5 team get into the playoffs. Yet, I never hear that brought up.

Bottom line is our fanbase is beaten down. Our folks in charge have made some poor decisions and here we are caught in the middle of a lost decade in football with little hope today. Hoops is a mess and we have allowed our baseball program to become a retirement home for Hall (we better not lose Ramsey before Hall leaves). Add to that that UGA‘s decision to force out Richt has paid off and they not only broke the curse but now have a young proven coach who will be there for two more decades that every 5 star wants to play for. Decisions have consequences and we made poor ones and UGA finally made a good one.

Things in sports rarely work out the way everyone thinks so I’m not worried at all about NIL. As you stated, people will get burned when players take the money and run. That is already happening and I agree it’s glorious. For every Gibbs type who made the right decision to transfer you’ll have 10 who make the wrong call. But we’ll never hear about those guys.

 

[originalwombat]

The NIL & Transfer Portal are rapidly destroying college football, just like free agency has done to professional sports.
It would be nice to hear some positive support for our players.
I personally think we have a chance to win 7-9 games this year.

I'd love to see the argument that FA has ruined pro sports.

 

[TampaBayJacket]

Yeah, we just disagree. No problem with that. You believe the game is fundamentally changed and that teams like Bama, UGA, and TAMU are now the forever champs. I believe nothing has really changed. Bama, UGA, OU, and others have always dominated no matter what the “current” landscape was. This year we saw the first G5 team get into the playoffs. Yet, I never hear that brought up.

Bottom line is our fanbase is beaten down. Our folks in charge have made some poor decisions and here we are caught in the middle of a lost decade in football with little hope today. Hoops is a mess and we have allowed our baseball program to become a retirement home for Hall (we better not lose Ramsey before Hall leaves). Add to that that UGA‘s decision to force out Richt has paid off and they not only broke the curse but now have a young proven coach who will be there for two more decades that every 5 star wants to play for. Decisions have consequences and we made poor ones and UGA finally made a good one.

Things in sports rarely work out the way everyone thinks so I’m not worried at all about NIL. As you stated, people will get burned when players take the money and run. That is already happening and I agree it’s glorious. For every Gibbs type who made the right decision to transfer you’ll have 10 who make the wrong call. But we’ll never hear about those guys.

I gotta hand it to ya, you make a lot of sense with this angle of looking at NIL. And yes, when you are as beat down as we are, the landscape looks like a hopeless barren apocalypse regardless of NIL or 20 years ago.

 

[OptionJacket]

I gotta hand it to ya, you make a lot of sense with this angle of looking at NIL. And yes, when you are as beat down as we are, the landscape looks like a hopeless barren apocalypse regardless of NIL or 20 years ago.

I fully admit I’m jaded. And it all for me goes back to our 1990 season. We were clearly the best team in the country. We checked all the boxes - undefeated, beat a #1 ranked team, had dynamic play makers, had a highlight reel QB, and were rolling to end the season. The fact that we had to wait, and wait, and wait, and then it was by 1 freaking vote. That is when a 20 year old GT student entered the real world and realized that politics impacted everything. From the 5th down to the phantom rocket flag the entire sport was against GT which is why the media voted against us. Add to that the realization that the “police” of the sport were on the take by those breaking the rules the most and for me the NCAA can‘t die soon enough because nothing is worse than a corrupt cop. I’d rather deal straight up with a crook than endure more decades of lies and manipulations. NIL just brings it all to the open. But since I saw it back in 1990 I’m not worried because I’ve enjoyed the sport from 1990 to now. GT can be fine if we hire a real coach and win some games. There are so many quality football players in this state that we can be competitive. Maybe not top 10 but definitely top 20 which is why I’m looking forward to an expanded playoff.

 

[manjano mdudu]

There are a variety of long-term trends in place that cumulatively appear to be contributing to the changes we're all seeing, many of which have clearly been in place for the past generation, which of course, corresponds with the time since our last season with major success. And of course, the team pictures from the Dodd era look a bit different than the ones of the top programs today.

Football in general, from the little kids and on through high school, is seeing reduced participation though much of the country. Some of that is likely the realization of the health risks, while other aspects appear to be social, and even ethnic. Lots of studies on the topic, but it appears more and more that the strongest regions of participation remain in the SEC footprint, a dynamic that I don't think we can ignore as we look back at the corresponding increase in football domination by their respective schools. This trend also appears to have a racial component that further benefits schools in the SEC neighborhood.

The anomaly is that we happen to sit right in the middle of a region where football still flourishes.... The problem, it seems, is that fewer and fewer of the really talented players have any interest in playing for us. Why is that?


From The Atlantic:
The White Flight from Football

From Forbes:
The Decline of Football is Real and it's Accelerating

 

[ramblinwise1]

Notre Dame's AD Thinks It's 'Inevitable' The NCAA Will Break Up In 2030s Because So Many Teams Are Still Trying To Leave Conferences

[SI] - Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick told Sports Illustrated that he believes the breakup of college sports at the NCAA Division I level is “inevitable,” and puts a potential target date...

www.barstoolsports.com

 

[IM79]

Notre Dame's AD Thinks It's 'Inevitable' The NCAA Will Break Up In 2030s Because So Many Teams Are Still Trying To Leave Conferences

[SI] - Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick told Sports Illustrated that he believes the breakup of college sports at the NCAA Division I level is “inevitable,” and puts a potential target date...

www.barstoolsports.com

Which group will we try to go with?
The semi-pro league with only a sponsorship from the school or the real school league.?
I say the “student athlete” model has been broken too long. If we have enough big donors to fund it, go for the major league.