re: Curt Cignetti: “College football won’t exist the way we’re going right now…”

I don’t have the context of the quote but a reporter probably asked for his opinion. He’s probably had this opinion for a while

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Did someone really say to “highly regulate NIL” and was serious.

We had rules in place for 100 years where schools were forbidden to pay players and yet we all know players were paid. And maybe 1% were punished.

I know most of the schools of posters on this board would love to go back to the old ways where players are paid under the table to sign with your team and then they have no way to transfer without wasting a year, but everyone else knows this which is why it won’t happen. Most schools were played for suckers by the NCAA and those schools and their fans aren’t going back. We love the portal and we love NIL. I’ve had families of players straight up tell me the player would have loved to have gone to my school but when Auburn or FSU offer cash to a poor kid in south Georgia he’s gotta take it. Now, we can offer cash and y’all just don’t like it.

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No one serious is saying "go back to the old under-the-table bagman system." That was hypocritical and exploitative and we all know it. The issue is that we've replaced one broken model with another that's equally messy but in new ways that I keep hammering at: legalized bidding wars, 40-60%+ annual roster churn at many programs, $20-50 million roster payrolls at the top, and donor fatigue beginning to set in.

Poor kids from south Georgia getting cash is great. No argument there. But now mid-majors and smaller programs get raided as talent farms, non-revenue sports are being cut by the hundreds because budgets are redirected to football NIL/portals, and continuity/development is suffering.

Most reasonable fans want fair compensation for players plus some guardrails: things like roster stability incentives, reasonable transfer limits after the first year, or structured revenue sharing that doesn't turn every season into unrestricted free agency.

It's not sour grapes. It's wanting the sport to stay college sports, not minor-league NFL with worse contracts and constant roster resets. You can pay players openly without destroying team chemistry, loyalty, and the developmental aspect that made it unique.

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indiana just won the national championship beating alabama and ohio state

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Indiana isn't a mid-major nor are they a small program. They have the largest living alumni network in the United States with an endowment pool of $3.8 billion. This makes them one of the richest public universities in the country. They are a Big Ten school with a billionaire donor who is very active in their athletic program. That isn't typical of a mid-major.

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tcu just played for a national championship

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TCU isn't a mid-major either. They are in the Big 12 and were historically part of the Southwest Conference which, until 1995, was one of the power conferences in college football.

Want to try again?

And Indiana 3 years ago was a laughingstock because they followed the rules and didn’t cheat. Once they were allowed to pay players legally they took off. That’s what back bone and morals look like. They sucked for 50 years when they could have been a giant but they had principal while a lot of southern teams cheated like crazy to win on Saturday and then had the nerve to sit in church on Sunday. It was all a scam.

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P4

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Okay. You have no argument. I'm done responding to you.

The only reason why TCU made the CFP in 2022 was because they were in the Big 12. Had they still been a member of C-USA a two-loss Alabama team would have taken their spot. You can deny that fact all you want to but that doesn't make it any less true.

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But you have not lived the sporting life of many of us. Your team won because they were protected and the last 60 years of your fandom has been awesome, Those of us who were not protected and thus could not buy players have a completely different view of the sport the past 60 years. I took loss after loss while getting laughed at and barked at because my school actually played by the rules. Not one time did a Bama or UGA fan ever say “yeah, sorry we whipped you with our 5 stars that we gave bags of cash to against your 2 and 3 stars who actually go to class”.

My team has had maybe 2-5 players who choose us and were elite - Calvin Johnson and Jhamyr Gibbs to name two. And you guys bought Gibbs out from us. You guys have had elite player after elite every year. You do know that didn’t just happen out of the blue, right? They were paid to come. I wish my team had cheated because losing sucks. That feeling you had after the Indiana game you’ve felt maybe 5 times in 30 years. Most teams feel that way every season.

So yeah, we aren’t going back. What guardrails can anyone put in place that will stop cheaters from funneling money to players? There are none. If I want to get 200K to someone I will find a way and unless you have subpoena power you’ll never know how.

I’m sure something will be put in place the next 5 years and then teams will cheat it.

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I get the frustration. Watching your school play by the (flawed) rules while others bent them for decades sucks. The old 'amateur' system was a hypocritical mess, and plenty of programs (north and south) had their hands dirty. No one's pretending Alabama or UGA didn't benefit from talent-rich recruiting grounds and strong cultures. But Gibbs transferred in 2021-22, right at the start of the NIL era, not some massive bag that proves the whole system was always rigged that way. Players have always chased better opportunities.

The problem now isn't that schools like yours finally get to compete openly. It's that we've swung to the other extreme: near-unlimited portal movement + massive collectives creating insane churn (40-60%+ roster turnover at many Power programs), mid-majors getting raided as farm teams (without a Mark Cuban to save them), and over 400 non-revenue/Olympic sports teams cut or threatened since 2024 because money floods to football/basketball payrolls.

Guardrails are possible. Bipartisan bills like the Protect College Sports Act (2026) are pushing national NIL standards, disclosure rules, transfer limits, and fair market value requirements - exactly to reduce the Wild West without going back to fake amateurism. Cheating will never be zero (pro sports prove that), but rules + enforcement can limit the damage, just like salary caps and tampering rules in the NFL.

Alabama fans aren't begging to go back. Most of us just want a version that keeps some continuity, development, and actual college feel instead of annual free agency where loyalty is dead on both sides. Winning with bought rosters every year gets old too when the product loses what made Saturdays special.

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see fewer Cinderella runs

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indiana just won the national championship beating alabama and ohio state

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Indiana was in the CFP last year for one. For another, it's a Cinderella run until it isn't. The 1983 Miami Hurricanes were thought to be a Cinderella team when they upset #1 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. They only went on to dominate college football for the better part of the next decade.