The college football landscape is crap and we are starting to see how NIL, the transfer portal and tampering can ruin things. And it has to change.
You can’t argue against NIL. Universities and the NCAA have been making millions off the backs of free labor forever. Sure, tuition has been covered but no sane person can argue that players shouldn’t be compensated. Not with billion dollar TV contracts being signed.
You can’t argue against the transfer portal either as coaches leave jobs year after year without repercussions while players are left with a new position coach and system. These are the same coaches who lie to them and tell them they will be there for their 4-5 years. Players shouldn’t be punished for wanting a new start.
But there are massive problems with NIL and the portal and UNLV QB Matthew Sluka is the perfect example. No one yet knows the details of Sluka quitting on his UNLV team after a 3-0 start, a top 25 ranking and wins over two Power Four programs. But whatever the reason, and I’ll go through the possibilities, there are fixes.
Sluka might have been promised more in NIL than delivered. Or, he might have gone to head coach Barry Odom with additional demands after their hot start. In the NFL players are signed to contracts and either play or don’t play. Ja’Marr Chase or CeeDee Lamb can hold out and such but when it comes time to play, they are either signed or not. Rarely do players just sit out as Le’Veon Bell did. And I’m not sure if anyone just decided to sit during the season after playing a few games. These NIL deals need to be signed before the season with zero wiggle room for in-season negotiations. And that’s not what’s happening with NIL in college football. And it’s a joke.
Players are allowing promises to be made unsigned and some NIL deals are vague in language. Most are ironclad and straight forward so don’t get it twisted, but it’s not a smooth business arrangement like the NFL has. Even with agents involved it’s dumb and clunky at the college level. And that needs to change.
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With the portal, tampering is rampant and no one does a thing about it. Alex Atkins gets suspended, Kirk Ferentz falls on his sword for a game but there’s nothing of true consequence. I’ve said it from the start that a few teams need to be absolutely hammered by the NCAA and made an example of and others will at least slow down. The problem? The NCAA is afraid of their own shadow and has little clout left. So there is no fear of being caught tampering. And trust me, Sluka has been tampered with. You don’t shut it down and keep your redshirt without a future home. And the dots in tampering are so easy to connect, it’s just that no one is trying.
So here we are. Vague NIL contracts with no defined oversight and coaches in a kid’s ear with zero fear of being punished for tampering. A good story like UNLV turns into an example of the garbage landscape we are suffering through. Each time we move forward with great games and enhanced excitement we are met with a reminder of how truly unstructured college football is.
So what’s the solution? The NCAA needs to be replaced. There needs to be a players association overseeing the rights of the kids and a commissioner at the head of a punitive body that has teeth and can actually enforce rules. This is a business and it needs to be run like one — as soon as possible. Because in the Sluka situation no one wins. The kid doesn’t win because he looks like a greedy ass. UNLV doesn’t win because they look like they screwed him over. His teammates don’t win because their magical season is suddenly in peril. And college football fans don’t win because they want more on field stories and less of this crap. This is a billion dollar business being run by clowns and the sooner we get real businessmen in charge the better.
