You also now have a landscape where the handful of powerhouse programs can't stash talent like they used to. An Alabama used to be able to play a guy til he graduated, then plug in the next guy who'd been warming the bench for two or three years. But now they can transfer far easier, and go somewhere and play right away. So the playing field does level out somewhat.
This is true for the most part, and why Saban-haters say he was against the NIL deal.
However, the truth is a little more nuanced.
The fact is, the schools with the most money aren't necessarily the ones you'd think of first. For example, teams like Bama, Georgia and Ohio State don't have the most money. It's Texas and Texas A&M.
UT is as much a political body as it is a school or football program - they have more money than literally any university system on earth, including Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Kings College, etc. The Bush family are Texas donors. They could buy the rest of the Big12 and sell it like real estate, which they essentially did over the last 20 years.
I think transferring is good - if coaches can leave whenever they want, players should be able to, too. It complicates things, but fair is fair.
Now money will always be a big factor, as players will go to the school who offers them a bag; however, I think we're already starting to see examples of kids
staying at their respective teams instead of transferring or going pro
because they've already been paid. Some of these dirt poor black kids from the South are getting $1.5M AND a car to sign, so there isn't as much pressure to go pro and buy their mothers a house. They can now afford to hang around another year and wait their turn. This is something Saban never predicted. Saban might have actually done
better under NIL than he did before, if he'd only had the patience to put up with zoomer faggot recruits.
And the playoff will allow for the occasional fluke outcome, where some ridiculous school goes on a run, like in basketball sometimes. Imagine some retarded team like Navy squeaking into the playoff, then edging someone like Georgia in a driving rainstorm or something.
Agreed. We'll finally get a Boise or a Cincinnati or UCF beating an Oklahoma or a Michigan in the Elite 8 and it will be legendary. Betting is going to go through the roof.
The bowl season was already dead. Anyone with a 6-6 record made a bowl game, and pro-prospects were sitting them out. Now we have something to really look forward to.
I will always miss the BCS era and the times before that, but things aren't all bad. It's a weird time to follow this sport, but there are things worth enjoying about it as it is now.
