Coach departure portal?

College football is soundly in its next era; some might say it’s a long time coming. The best cheaters aren’t the best rewarded anymore. Players can trade their youth and health for some life-changing money while the schools figure out where to park the profits.

As fans and as alumni (and even as Americans) we do need to decide how mercenary we allow this sport to become. It’s easy to dismiss the past 3 days as sour grapes from a losing party, but what about how this played out would make any Ole Miss fan ever want to buy into college football again? Are there going to be 5 titans who buy and sell players and coaches and the rest of the FBS can just deal with it? I can’t believe I’m here arguing for them, but Ole Miss just had its greatest regular season in the school’s history and it was (likely) blown to hell because Brian Kelly couldn’t be bothered to coach at this level. And the rules the sport plays under made it so that LSU had to immediately move on its best option or risk being left with discards.

Fairness and sportsmanship need to remain a part of college football at whatever scale the money rolls in, and it’s going to keep rolling in. If the league can restrict players to a portal window for transfers, shouldn’t the same apply to coaches for the same reasons?

Maybe Ole Miss jammed LK and he could have stayed and coached their team into the playoffs but for some stubbornness in Oxford. But there has to be a way to prevent a school from having to make that choice that still leaves an open market for talented coaches.