I think everyone from fans to ADs to coaches is in agreement that college football is currently off the rails and is essentially the Wild West. I’m curious if anyone has any solutions to correct the glaring issues before it’s too late and under the assumption that it is completely impossible to return things to pre-NIL/transfer portal protocols. How would you fix it?
 

For me, I’m a big believer that the free market is going to correct some of this on its own because the money has to come from somewhere and I don’t know how many times NIL funds can solicit donations from donors/brands if the return in investment isn’t paying off from recruits constantly busting or transferring. Also not to mention the in-fighting that overpaying a player (i.e. if USC is really paying $3m for Jordan Addison, you don’t think Caleb Williams isn’t going to be like “Umm I need to be getting more than Jordan” etc) My solution won’t fix everything but I think it would help a ton. I think as a player you have the option to take NIL money or not. My idea is that if you as a recruit/player take NIL money, I think you should have to forfeit your free transfer. You would still be allowed to grad transfer and could even transfer before that but would be forced to sit out a year if the transfer is initiated before graduation. If you don’t take any NIL money, you can transfer freely just like 2021 and even solicit NIL offers for your services as well when you enter the portal. This would give some protection to the schools/NIL funds knowing a player couldn’t just leave them in the dust after a huge investment. It also would curb schools from tampering knowing that they wouldn’t immediately get the player if they were able to pry him away from his current school. It would also help out with things like the Texas A&M situation of just buying all the big recruits because as a player you’d have to take a look at the roster like “ok Alabama has six 5 star DEs on its roster. If I take the money and go there, but I’m unable to crack the roster, I’m stuck there until I graduate and I’m potentially hurting my chances at the NFL” I thinks it’s a win win for everyone instead of just a win for the player only as it exists today. Players still get paid, recruits can still get paid if they want, the schools can’t get screwed, and one school wouldn’t be able to overstock a specific position.