PostGameOrangeSlices
Well-known poster
In my opinion, college football was the greatest sport ever. Takes arguably the most exciting and complex team sport ever created and displays it at the perfect level: A high enough level that you're still watching freaks be freaks but not such a high level that you might as well be watching robots play. In college football, there is still big money and pressure on the line, but not so much that conservatism reigns. Every NFL team looks exactly like every other NFL team, to the point where a player can be traded and be starting for the new team a week later. Most football innovations start at the high school or college levels, usually out of necessity, as the playing field can be so tilted. There are years where OSU (west) or WSU are legit good, and that's amazing! Rivalries are regional and accessible. Players stay on the same team throughout their career--they choose their team just like the fan does, so they're more relatable and likeable than a pro mercenary.
The problem is that nearly all of these reasons that college football is great have either already been thrown in the trash or are about to be. The transfer portal has already brought free agency. (Hell, all the hand-wringing here over the total cuckery of wishing Oregon well in repping the north was closing the barn door after the horse was already out: Just the prior season, UW cried in a corner while watching Georgia fuck their girl, then took their sloppy seconds and let him start at quarterback. All for 8-5.) Now NIL is bringing the mercenary nature of the players into the light of day.
And this imbalance is tilting the playing field so far toward the haves that even the ingenuity and variety that used to keep the game interesting is no longer sufficient. You're not going to beat Alabama's 40 5-stars no matter how clever your scheme and no matter how much you care about the kids and develop them. Besides--you're just developing some portion of them so they can transfer to a lower school if they're impatient for playing time or a higher school if they were using you as a stepping stone to greater exposure in the SEC.
And then the final nail in the coffin: Traveling 3000 miles to take on a "conference rival," because that's all a "lowly" program like the fucking University of Washington can do to have a prayer in the future of keeping a top-100 kid who lives five miles from campus from losing 20 pounds and moving to Columbus, Ohio to be closer to home.
I didn't realize how close I was to the edge, but I'm right there with @MikeDamone and @TommySQC: I already don't watch the NFL, and I can not watch college football as well if it's just going to be another NFL only without the parity.
This cannot be chinned enough. The CFP and players' rights has completely fucked this incredible sport.
CFB at its best has always been about the everyday fan, located in every corner of the country. Not in blowing the 100-200 players who, at any given time in their teens and 20s', actually have an NFL future.
We will see how it plays out.
Bama was dominating even before players can get paid. Who knows, maybe the cash will bring more distractions?