At the end of the TV show The Office when the character Andy Bernard seemed to fulfill his lifelong dream when he secured a job at his alma matter Cornell yet realized he missed his life in Scranton, he famously said, “I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.” This is one of the more prophetic quotes from a show that was famous for more satirical ones, and not just to Cornell grads who admired Andy’s reverence to the Big Red, a cappella group and all.
But as we reach the end of 2023 and nearly so for another college football season, longtime fans of one of America’s oldest and most tradition laden sports are starting have similar thoughts. A sport that once measured its trajectory in decades and inspires thru lines across its history now seems to evolve by the hour, so much that we might begin to wonder if the game of today much less tomorrow is still the same pastime we once adored. In other words, as we move quickly towards what’s next in big time college football, how are we to be sure that we haven’t unknowingly left the good old days behind.
Such has become both apparent and pronounced in the past several days, led by a landslide of top players both sitting out premiere bowl games and concurrently entering the transfer portal, making both once singularly important games fairly irrelevant if also not disconnected from the season they are supposedly rewarding. Perhaps the best example of that landslide is Florida State, the same school that recently made history as the first Power 5 team in college football history to go undefeated and miss the playoffs. In that wake, at least 15 of its players will skip the Orange Bowl, most of whom are doing so because they declared themselves eligible to transfer. That includes previous backup and current starting quarterback Tate Rodemaker, who’s looking for a greener pasture for next season. Which means that the FSU team that will play Georgia on December 30 will look nothing like the one that was nearly the center of a lawsuit against the NCAA for its exclusion from the four-team playoff. And rest assured that the Seminole team that takes the field next season will look nothing like the one of today, as they look to poach talent from other teams who have players with wandering eyes. There are over 1000 athletes who’ve entered the transfer portal this year, which makes every season a player draft and changes recruiting in college football from simply wooing high school stars to trying to reload every step of the way. And it also means that as a fan, you have to take each season as a disparate and completely autonomous unit, where rosters may look nothing like the recent past. And while this river has run now for the past several years, particularly with the increased sophistication of name, image, and likeness cooperatives, it seems like at the cusp of 2024, the dam has finally broke.
To be clear, this is overdue equity for top college athletes, the small percent who generate millions of dollars yet historically were given no agency, financial or otherwise. Which, theoretically, is good news for all those players who were previously locked into college commitments, happy or not, and largely destined to play for one team even if it wasn’t working out for any number or reasons. But it’s at least worth considering what we’re giving up in the process, a process that is just getting started, especially if the courts and the market eventually recognize true employment for football players at revenue generating schools. College football, while finally more equitable, is never going to look the same, even if the big games will still be really exciting. And the era of players going to one school for their entire career will largely be relegated to the lower divisions and the Academies. And a bunch of lesser teams who can’t play in this sandbox may simply go away. That’s what we’re losing with the trajectory of 15 Florida State players sitting out an Orange Bowl appearance against last year’s national champion, a decision I totally understand. The college football we’ve known is, by all accounts, soon to be a memory. Is the new version better? For some folks, absolutely. And it’s certainly fairer. But just remember, college football as it used to be may still be good old days unknowingly left behind.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.