Clemson Football: Lost in NIL and the transfer portal

The shift in the landscape of college football has been dramatic in the last couple of years and it’s difficult to see the tide turning back at this point.  How Clemson football adjusts to those changes will play a big part in the Tigers future in the sport.

While acknowledging that change was needed and deserved, I can’t help but notice the part of college football that no one talks about anymore. College.

At one time coaches were chastised and ridiculed for not graduating players, using their talents on the field and throwing them away.

Now they’re chastised for not playing them fast enough or long enough to enable their talents to shine and the actual college part of the experience is an afterthought, if even that.

I’m absolutely more sensitive to this as a Clemson fan, it comes with the territory and should be acknowledged.

But recent stories about NIL money being overstated and overblown, got me to thinking.  We rarely hear stories or articles about kids graduating.

Somehow we’ve forgotten that 115 of the 120 kids on a team likely won’t see much, if any NIL money or make the NFL.  We focus on the 5 and not the 115.  It’s what we do.

Yet, there’s a coach that realizes a degree still means something and that the vast majority of his team will never see financial freedom from NIL or the NFL, but rather have to work for a living.

His reward?  He’s lambasted and made fun of, called backwoods, and out of touch.

All for trying to better the lives of the young men in his stead.  Not the future NFLers, but the 97% of his team that will do something else for a living.

It continually amazes me that the good work being done at Clemson and other universities is ignored for the story about the kid on his fourth or fifth school and will likely never graduate.

He’ll also likely never play a down in the NFL and end up without a degree or any real future.

But man he can spin a football on Saturdays.

When I was a kid old men complained about free agency in pro sports and how it was ruining the games.  It was difficult to keep up with which player was on which team pre-internet and while it didn’t end the games as we knew them, it sure made them different.

Clemson football has huge decisions to make in the coming years regarding transfers and NIL, as does college football

The current college football model makes free agency in professional sports look like child’s play.

Even those that can benefit from it are acknowledging what no one wants to address, as this quote from Drake Maye in the article linked above shows.

"For me, I think college football is going to turn into a mess. They’re going to have to do something."

Hundreds of kids will be left without a scholarship and no one cares as long as we get that transfer from State U that can snatch the ball out of the air.

It may not be killing college football, but it sure ain’t doing the vast majority of it’s players any favors.