The landscape of college football has never been this treacherous. A player can seemingly commit to a school one afternoon and find himself on his way to another university later that same night. There has never been a tougher period than this one to recruit talent and build a program. If you’re not hitting the transfer portal and reloading instead, you’re at a major disadvantage.
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This reality has separated college football into haves and have-nots. The Michigan Wolverines, despite an 8-5 record in 2024, are decidedly located in the former group. They won the 2023 College Football Playoff championship and have the most wins of any program in NCAAF history (1,012). But even their coaches can acknowledge there’s a fundamental problem with the sport’s recruiting principles.
Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore spoke about the issues he sees on Next Up with Adam Breneman. The second-year head coach thinks he and his colleagues need to band together and find solutions to add structure to the recruiting space.
“There’s definitely some avenues that we have to, as coaches, figure out, ‘what’s the best avenue for everybody?’ Not just for your school or your conference, but for every conference to make sure it’s a level playing field for all of us.”
Ironically, Michigan benefitted from the system in this recruiting cycle. The Wolverines poached talented QB prospect Bryce Underwood from the LSU Tigers by offering him a $10 million NIL deal. Underwood and his parents received new cars as part of his commitment.
College football recruiting currently bears similarity to the Wild West. Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin confirmed as much in early January. The landscape has changed so much that even Nick Saban decided to retire.
Nick Saban and Packers CEO Mark Murphy on college football’s future
Saban is widely considered to be the greatest head coach in college football history. He’s a seven-time national champion. And he decided to retire because the “whole dynamic” of college football has changed.
“It used to be you went to college to develop value for your future. Now people are going to college to see how much money they can make. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but you change the whole dynamic of the importance of getting an education, making good decisions and choices about what you do and what you don’t do to create value for your future.” – Nick Saban said on The Pivot podcast
This shift is reflected in the NFL Scouting Combine’s player affiliations. According to Green Bay Packers CEO Mark Murphy, there were “very few” prospects from FCS schools at the 2025 Combine. He assessed this change to college football’s NIL adaptations. In his opinion, the sport’s current path isn’t good for its long-term health.
“I have always been a proponent of student athletic rights, but I am not sure the current system is sustainable for the colleges. The schools need to have a [Collective Bargaining Agreement] like the NFL. The current system in college football is the equivalent of having all NFL players be free agents every year with no salary cap. It would not work.” – Mark Murphy
Murphy isn’t the first person to suggest a CBA for college football. However, implementing such a system in the near future would take time because of legal hoops and red tape.
The only consistent thing in college football these days is chaos. Coaches agreeing that something needs to be done to combat said chaos may be a close second. But until real change actually occurs, the sport will keep spinning its wheels under this current construction. And that isn’t something anyone is excited about.
