Into the era of “business decisions”

Preemptively, let me state this clearly: I’ve always loved bowl games and college football, so what you’re about to read isn’t some disinterested hipster rant. I dig this stuff and want to continue doing so. 

It’s not a new insight to suggest that NIL and the portal has wrecked bowl season. I mean, bowl season was never pristine to begin with, what with a bunch of crummy 6-6 (or worse) teams playing each other in mostly meaningless neutral-site stadiums, in order to provide ESPN with something to put on television and gamblers something to gamble on. The “do we care about this” calculus was always tenuous for games like the Poulan Weedeater Independence Bowl and the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl (no disrespect to these fine companies). But there was always the promise that the Cotton Bowl and the Orange Bowl would deliver. And it was always kind of implicit (if not always true) that the players cared.

Not so this season, which saw Ohio State’s starting quarterback pass on the Cotton Bowl in favor of an early transfer portal commitment to … Syracuse. And which saw many of Florida State’s scholarship players opting out of their game, which led to their scout team’s 63-3 shellacking at the Capital One Orange Bowl. This wasn’t fun for anybody. Even Georgia. It’s probably safe to say that advertisers weren’t thrilled either.

What’s sad is that College Football Transfer Portal Twitter (transfers! signings! photoshop! oh my!) outshone Actual College Football this bowl season, and it wasn’t even close. This is very NBA-ish, where the offseason is now better than the season (also sad).

All of this leads me to believe that this—the Michigan/Washington game that Michigan won 34-13 on Monday night—was our “last” national championship. By “last” I mean the last one that feels like anything, pre-crazy realignment, and current-portal-and-NIL. By the time this publishes, Michigan’s coach and quarterback will likely both no longer be at Michigan, Pacific Coast teams will be in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and there will be two California teams in the Big Ten.

This game was the symbolic end of college football as we know it.

Think of your favorite college football memories. They probably have something to do with where/how you grew up. If you grew up in the mid-South, they probably involve Peyton Manning and Tee Martin and Shaun Alexander and Bo Jackson and Siran Stacy and Eli Manning and Jared Lorenzen and Brett Favre. If you grew up (like me) in the upper Midwest they involve Tony Mandarich and Lorenzo White and Jarrod Bunch and Ricky Powers and Andy Katzenmoyer and Ron Dayne and Nebraska Fullbacks in Neckrolls (Mackovicka, Schlesinger, et al.). They involve Desmond Howard hitting the Heisman pose in the end zone, and Lou Holtz allowing Prop 48 players (showing my age) at Notre Dame. Catholics vs. Convicts and all that. If you grew up on the West Coast they involve Deshaun Foster and Russell White and Junior Seau and Joey Harrington and Dan Fouts. Keyshawn Johnson. Brian Cushing. Snoop Dogg on the sidelines, and Pete Carroll leaving USC a moment before the law came to town.

Everybody on the non-exhaustive list above played for “their” school the whole time.

Keith Jackson (the announcer) and Keith Jackson (the tight end) are probably a part of these memories, as is Brian Bosworth, pre-Dr.-Pepper-commercials.

I’ve been around a lot of college football coaches in my life. I’ve played for some and coached with some and interviewed some. The best football coaches are teachers, and got into the business because they love football and love teaching. Zero of them got into the business so that they could run high-powered NIL-contract-mills, which is what the job requires now. It involves recruiting, and re-recruiting, and in some cases un-recruiting all of their roster from year to year.

Ohio State’s former quarterback world-wearily described his decision to transfer as “a business decision.” He is 21 years old and has the rest of his life to be world-weary and make “business decisions.”

Which is how we arrived at Monday night’s national title game as the last national title game and, perhaps, the symbolic end of college football. In a way Monday night was a throwback to all of the above. The uniforms looked great, Washington was the last Pac-12 team to ever take a football field, and Michigan even won the game by running the football and playing defense. The winning coach was a former Michigan quarterback.

I mean, yeah, next year there will still be kids who are college-aged, running around in laundry representing colleges, but in another decade (or less) we will have removed the façade of classes altogether, “coaches” will be glorified CFO’s putting together portfolios of NIL deals, the playoffs will drone on forever, and we won’t care.

I’m already nostalgic.