I became a college football fan in the early 1980s. My uncle and cousin were massive Boston College football fans, and a kid named Doug Flutie was emerging from fifth-string nobody to budding superstar. I wasn’t even in middle school yet, but I was hooked. I already liked professional sports and was enamored with the NBA (Larry Bird, Magic Johnson), MLB (Pops Stargell and those Pirates and more), NHL (kid named Gretzky was gonna be good), and of course the NFL with Danny White and my Dallas Cowboys. But college football had an innocence that matched mine at that age. It was magical. I just fell in love.
Flutie went on to beat teams like Alabama and Miami (in a miracle) and won the Heisman in 1984. College football became my obsession — so much so that I willed it to be my profession.
Fast forward to 2023, and I don’t know what the hell I’m looking at anymore. With NIL, the transfer portal, and the ridiculous money grab that has become college football, the sport with such innocence in the 1980s is now a shell of its former sense. Player loyalty is at an all-time low, movement on the coaching carousel is at an all-time high, NIL money dictates both commitments and recruiting classes, and TV money rules the world.
So even when there is a feel-good story like Florida State surviving Jimbo Fisher’s attempt to leave them high and dry and Willie Taggart’s ineptness, college football still takes a crap all over it. Mike Norvell and his staff worked tirelessly to make this program legit again, and the team worked their asses off to have an undefeated season. Jordan Travis spurred his team on from the sidelines after suffering his gruesome injury, and the Seminoles willed themselves to wins over Florida and Louisville with zero QB help.
Was it pretty? Nope. It was kind of ugly. Did I want to see more of it in the playoff? No, I did not. In all honesty, I’d rather see Alabama and Texas. But then I thought back to what college football was, what it used to be. And this ain’t it.
Florida State got screwed. Not because they lost because, well, they didn’t. Not once. And not because they aren’t a big brand — they are, and their fan base is massive and rabid. They got screwed because college football is now all about money. Texas is a bigger brand headed to a bigger conference with a bigger TV contract. Alabama is already the biggest brand in the biggest conference, making billion-dollar TV deals worthwhile. This was a money grab, plain and simple. And it’s kinda gross.
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I’ll happily watch Alabama play Michigan and Washington play Texas. I’ll watch FSU battle Georgia. And I’ll continue to collect money myself from the sport I love as it will remain my profession until I die.
But today, more than ever, I know what I’m covering.
It’s no longer about magical moments and underdog stories. It’s no longer about amateur athletics and student-athletes trying to leave legacies and make their way to being professionals. It’s about fat cats and rich dudes teaching these young kids that all that matters is the bag.
Money is now the first thing on everyone’s mind, and it leads to conferences dying, players and coaches abandoning any sense of loyalty to their programs, and everyone out there cheating in whatever way they can, from recruiting to sideline signals to tampering to buying players. It’s a free-for-all, and everyone involved has allowed it to degrade into the product we see now. It’s still a pretty cool thing, and it’s still my passion and favorite sport, hands down. But it’s not what it was, and each year it gets worse.
Follow me or don’t follow me, click on my website or don’t, pay attention to my rankings or don’t. I don’t care. I’ll continue to cover college football the way I want to and say the things I feel are true. And as much as I’m happy with the playoff rankings, today also kind of sucked. Florida State got screwed — and it’s all about money.
Doug Flutie won the Heisman in 1984 when the Boston College Eagles finished the season ranked fourth. But in today’s game, Flutie would have never won the Heisman, BC would have been pushed down the rankings each week, and he likely would have transferred to be at a bigger school before any of that happened anyhow. 1984 was magical for this young fan, but today it would have sucked. It kind of makes me happy that covering college football for so long has left me so jaded that I don’t give a crap about who wins what game or what award. I’ve lost my ability to care. But diehard fans who haven’t seen behind the ugly curtain of college football for the last 25 years still care — and care a lot. And whether they are FSU diehards or hate the Seminoles, they all got screwed today. And it’s only gonna get worse.
