Do you still enjoy college football/sports?

[DBT]

I’ve loved college football more than any sport at any level. I’ve always loved the team building and development of players. I’ve loved the recruiting. As a matter of fact one reason I joined Allbuffs way back when was to follow recruiting.

I loved the bowl season and the New Years Day bowl games. I even loved the old ranking systems.

Then, first, came the destruction of the bowl system. I mean, it’s still there, but the games are mostly meaningless. The National Championship always seems to come down to schools from the SEC or Big X.

But what really has damaged my joy of college football, and college sports in general, is the combination of NIL and the transfer portal.

I find myself unable to identify with the players any longer. High School recruiting has lost its appeal. The unfettered movement of players in and out of the portal has killed my connection to the team. I hardly know who will be lining up against NDSU.

The conference system is being destroyed. I was one who embraced the move to the Pac. And now the Pac is dust blowing in the wind. Rivalries are being destroyed. I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around all of this.

 

[FLounder]

This exact feeling happened to me during the Dorrell years
Not knowing who was on the roster (mainly cause they were BUMS!)

Now I realize that none of that matters, cause we gon win

Prepare to witness greatness once again old man

You’ll be excited to look at the roster to see who is making all these plays this year.

Consider it a gift

 

[ahoelsken]

The older I get, the less I'm inclined to put up with losing from teams I root for. The Rangers (because of the connections I have to that team) and CU athletics get more leash than the Nuggets or Avs do. I include CU because of Rick George. I think he's been a key part of needed change with the athletic department done. The move back to the Big 12 is one example. Not the sexiest league in the world, but its definitely more stable and significantly easier than the Pac 12 was. I think we're going to win 8-9 games this year. Sweep the OOC, take the two easiest conference games (Baylor and Cincinnati are both AWFUL and they're coming here), and I think three wins out of the other seven (Utah, @UA, KSU, KU, OSU, TT, @UCF) happens at least. KSU and OSU are probably top 20-25 teams. They're both really good, but there's no reason we can't get either one of them here.

I have some advice and an observation. If you're worried about not knowing names in the opener, do two things. Get to the spring game. Even if there's piss-poor weather like this past year and you decide not to go, its a $50ish donation to the program. LaJohntay (somebody feel free to correct me if I named the wrong brother-I'm thinking of the WR) Wester opened my eyes at the spring game, and he's going to be fun to watch. You may not know who he is if you weren't there. I think this staff can improve in one area, and that's high school recruiting.. To use the NFL metaphor, that's the draft. You build depth there more than anything. I think the portal is great, and I like the idea of targeting the guys who have 2-3 years left.....but you patch holes there.

 

[DBT]

The older I get, the less I'm inclined to put up with losing from teams I root for. The Rangers (because of the connections I have to that team) and CU athletics get more leash than the Nuggets or Avs do. I include CU because of Rick George. I think he's been a key part of needed change with the athletic department done. The move back to the Big 12 is one example. Not the sexiest league in the world, but its definitely more stable and significantly easier than the Pac 12 was. I think we're going to win 8-9 games this year. Sweep the OOC, take the two easiest conference games (Baylor and Cincinnati are both AWFUL and they're coming here), and I think three wins out of the other seven (Utah, @UA, KSU, KU, OSU, TT, @UCF) happens at least. KSU and OSU are probably top 20-25 teams. They're both really good, but there's no reason we can't get either one of them here.

I have some advice and an observation. If you're worried about not knowing names in the opener, do two things. Get to the spring game. Even if there's piss-poor weather like this past year and you decide not to go, its a $50ish donation to the program. LaJohntay (somebody feel free to correct me if I named the wrong brother-I'm thinking of the WR) Wester opened my eyes at the spring game, and he's going to be fun to watch. You may not know who he is if you weren't there. I think this staff can improve in one area, and that's high school recruiting.. To use the NFL metaphor, that's the draft. You build depth there more than anything. I think the portal is great, and I like the idea of targeting the guys who have 2-3 years left.....but you patch holes there.

Yeah. I went to the spring game last year and few of those players were on the opening day roster.

It’s hard to be invested in players when they very well may go chasing NIL deals at another program.

And I peruse the recruiting board and it’s been pretty much stagnant. And when we get verbal commitments it’s 50/50 that they will ever actually sign. The odds of CU signing a HS player and him playing at least 4 years are less than 10% anymore.

 

[Medford M.]

Every thing great about college sports is basically gone unless you're actually a student, on campus who gets to experience it first hand.

For we who are old men or women, not close to goings on, the traditions, rivalries, pageantry, etc. are basically completely dead and gone.

There's zero familiarity with the rosters, no opportunity to form attachments to players.

It's just become "sports"...it's almost more soulless than the NFL now. At least there, guys are around for 3-5 years, usually.

 

[GABuff]

I moved to Atlanta twelve years ago I kept my season tickets, even though I only make it back for a game or two a year. I've been lucky enough to sell those tickets, despite the many miserable seasons in that twelve years. But every year, at renewal time it gets a little more difficult to justify keeping them.

Over that twelve years I've read so many calls for college football to make changes. "They should do things "this way", that's what the NFL does." Now that we're getting to "what the NFL does", I ask myself, if I'm going to spend my time watching something that is like the NFL, why don't I just watch the NFL?

As I look at the future landscape of college football I wonder if a team like CU will be able to compete. There was always the hope that if CU found the right coach they cold get back to winning ways. Now it's a question of money. CU has limited alumni support when compared to many schools. The Broncos dominate every aspect of football in the area. Where will the support come for the NIL deals that will be needed to compete in the new world of "NFL Lite"?

 

[Highlander]

If it weren’t for Prime, I’d probably be mostly done with serious CU fandom, but I don’t know how you can’t be excited for what should be a positive season in front of us.

And the guys who left the team last year were not chasing NIL deals, that’s for sure.

It is hard to be seriously invested in the roster before fall workouts start, so that’s a bummer.

 

[hokiehead]

@DBT , I appreciate you as a poster, but I'm not sure your motive in starting a thread about all the things you hate about colleges sports... On a website dedicated to college sports.

If you don't like uniform discussions, stay off the uniform thread. Going into the uniform threads and shïtting on others' interests isn't cool, it's putting down others for having different interests.

If you don't like video games, stay off the video games forum. Going on the game forum and shïtting...

I'd you don't like college sports, stay off college sports message boards....

And, I realize DBT isn't the only one doing it. He's just the one who most recently started a thread on the subject.

Some of us are still enjoying the sports -- please don't tell us why you think that's wrong. Having an in-depth discussion about NIL or transfer policy is one thing, but if you just want to generally bitch and complain about modern day college sports, there's better forums for that.

/rant

 

[NWD Buff]

@DBT , I appreciate you as a poster, but I'm not sure your motive in starting a thread about all the things you hate about colleges sports... On a website dedicated to college sports.

If you don't like uniform discussions, stay off the uniform thread. Going into the uniform threads and shïtting on others' interests isn't cool, it's putting down others for having different interests.

If you don't like video games, stay off the video games forum. Going on the game forum and shïtting...

I'd you don't like college sports, stay off college sports message boards....

And, I realize DBT isn't the only one doing it. He's just the one who most recently started a thread on the subject.

Some of us are still enjoying the sports -- please don't tell us why you think that's wrong. Having an in-depth discussion about NIL or transfer policy is one thing, but if you just want to generally bitch and complain about modern day college sports, there's better forums for that.

/rant

C'mon man.

This website is dedicated to the Colorado Buffaloes, and posters like DBT have been part of this community for a long time. You are welcome to disagree with the post, but I do not understand the idea that he is not allowed to voice that sentiment.

Also, you are just as welcome to avoid this thread as you are to avoid the uniform and video game threads.

 

[J.R. Ewing]

My interest in CU is up because of the coaching change. My interest in college football is in free fall. If Prime doesn’t work or leaves, I’m sure I will rapidly check out.

 

[hokiehead]

C'mon man.

This website is dedicated to the Colorado Buffaloes, and posters like DBT have been part of this community for a long time. You are welcome to disagree with the post, but I do not understand the idea that he is not allowed to voice that sentiment.

Also, you are just as welcome to avoid this thread as you are to avoid the uniform and video game threads.

He is certainly allowed to post about how much he hates college sports, but that doesn't make it right.

I have a right as a member to post in the uniform threads and video game threads about how much I don't like changing uniforms or how little I care for video games, but there's no good reason for me to do that beyond trying to spoil the fun for those who enjoy those things.

 

[NWD Buff]

He is certainly allowed to post about how much he hates college sports, but that doesn't make it right.

I have a right as a member to post in the uniform threads and video game threads about how much I don't like changing uniforms or how little I care for video games, but there's no good reason for me to do that beyond trying to spoil the fun for those who enjoy those things.

You are misrepresenting the OP. He is not posting about how much he hates college sports. He is posting about how recent changes to a sport that he has always liked have been challenging to him.

He's not trying to spoil your fun. If you disagree, great for you!

 

[The Alabaster Yak]

I think NIL and unlimited transfers has been challenging for everyone involved in the sport, even though Prime has actually done a nice job of retaining the guys who they want to retain.

I think a lot of these fan frustrations go away if/when they are able to implement some kind of policy on transfer restrictions as I feel that is the primary issue.

 

[Not Sure]

My passion has waned.

 

[FM-Buff]

I don’t care how much money the players get paid. The challenge for me is the roster turnover. I’m fine with the unlimited transfers. It just makes it harder to follow and get attached to a player.

 

[DBT]

@DBT , I appreciate you as a poster, but I'm not sure your motive in starting a thread about all the things you hate about colleges sports... On a website dedicated to college sports.

If you don't like uniform discussions, stay off the uniform thread. Going into the uniform threads and shïtting on others' interests isn't cool, it's putting down others for having different interests.

If you don't like video games, stay off the video games forum. Going on the game forum and shïtting...

I'd you don't like college sports, stay off college sports message boards....

And, I realize DBT isn't the only one doing it. He's just the one who most recently started a thread on the subject.

Some of us are still enjoying the sports -- please don't tell us why you think that's wrong. Having an in-depth discussion about NIL or transfer policy is one thing, but if you just want to generally bitch and complain about modern day college sports, there's better forums for that.

/rant

Did I say I hate college football and sports? Nope. I love it but my enjoyment is taking a beating. I laid out the things I enjoyed about it in the OP and that NIL and the portal have taken a lot of that away.

I don’t have an issue with players making money off of their NIL. But that isn’t what is happening. I have a huge problem with the transfer rules as they have evolved.

I got tons of enjoyment out of recruiting and having young men and women COMMIT. (There is no such thing as commitment in college athletics any longer). I enjoyed watching kids develop through their college careers. That is no longer a thing.

But I still enjoy game day. I renewed my season tickets. I even upgraded a bit this year. I still pull for the Buffs. I only hope that college athletics figures things out and regains some sanity.

 

[cu3x]

@DBT , I appreciate you as a poster, but I'm not sure your motive in starting a thread about all the things you hate about colleges sports... On a website dedicated to college sports.

If you don't like uniform discussions, stay off the uniform thread. Going into the uniform threads and shïtting on others' interests isn't cool, it's putting down others for having different interests.

If you don't like video games, stay off the video games forum. Going on the game forum and shïtting...

I'd you don't like college sports, stay off college sports message boards....

And, I realize DBT isn't the only one doing it. He's just the one who most recently started a thread on the subject.

Some of us are still enjoying the sports -- please don't tell us why you think that's wrong. Having an in-depth discussion about NIL or transfer policy is one thing, but if you just want to generally bitch and complain about modern day college sports, there's better forums for that.

/rant

Pretty dumb post imo, You can skip a thread if you don't like it.

 

[hokiehead]

Did I say I hate college football and sports? Nope. I love it but my enjoyment is taking a beating. I laid out the things I enjoyed about it in the OP and that NIL and the portal have taken a lot of that away.

I don’t have an issue with players making money off of their NIL. But that isn’t what is happening. I have a huge problem with the transfer rules as they have evolved.

I got tons of enjoyment out of recruiting and having young men and women COMMIT. (There is no such thing as commitment in college athletics any longer). I enjoyed watching kids develop through their college careers. That is no longer a thing.

But I still enjoy game day. I renewed my season tickets. I even upgraded a bit this year. I still pull for the Buffs. I only hope that college athletics figures things out and regains some sanity.

thanks for the sincere reply. I disagree entirely with the bolded - players are absolutely making money off their NIL. I'm not sure where you'd be getting any information to support the contrary.

 

[Not Sure]

Another deep semantic dive coming soon.

 

[Buffnik]

The only constant in life is change.

Always some good and some bad with that.

In many ways, college sports is better now. Most of that is media companies doing a better job of packaging it - promoting & making it more accessible.

I think we've taken a step back with regional rivalries and with conference championships being meaningful. (SEC has been great so far at keeping this.) I think we've taken a step back with fans and players feeling connected to the school and each other. I hope these things get addressed, because the product itself is the best it's been.

While I'm on this topic, I think we need to talk about the negative impact of short-sighted greed. How, for instance, is the following group of schools unable to stay together as a conference?

Baylor
Colorado
Kansas
Kansas State
Iowa State
Missouri
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech

I think I'd be in a happier place right now if we had that Big 12, a Pac-12 that had expanded with BYU & Utah, the pre-expansion 12-team SEC, the B1G getting Notre Dame for a 12th team, and the ACC sticking together but going from 9 to 12 via Big East teams. Heck, everyone could have even gotten to 14 pretty easily by poaching BE, MWC & C-USA while staying regional.

With that, there would have been some very strong programs still out there to create a couple top tier G5s from the East and West.

 

[DBT]

thanks for the sincere reply. I disagree entirely with the bolded - players are absolutely making money off their NIL. I'm not sure where you'd be getting any information to support the contrary.

The evolution of NIL started when Ed O’Bannon led a class action lawsuit against the NCAA that claimed the NCAA was making money off of player’s names, images and likenesses, which was undoubtedly true. Specifically they were allowing video game manufacturers to use player’s NIL.

The NCAA stupidly fought and lost. The purpose of NIL is that players can market themselves and make money primarily through lending their NIL to marketing.

That isn’t what is happening. The schools have created these collectives which are paying players to play for them and I would argue that they are not getting paid for their NIL. And I realize my point is arguable. It’s cloudy. We need clarity.

 

[MtnBuff]

The original poster makes some very good points and they are legitimate items for discussion here.

This is an independent fan board, not a team/school run promotional board. We aren't Nebraska where anyone who disagrees with or sees something negative about the program is ostracized until they fall back into the official line.

I love that we have Prime as a coach. He is a guy who has never allowed himself to not be successful, he is also from everything I have ever seen from him a guy who truly cares about the wellbeing and development of the young men who are a part of his program.

Professional football is a great game with tremendously talented players making great and exciting plays. It though has always had a very harsh element to it running from a business standpoint with very few exception the owners, management, and players completely focused on the business element. Loyalty goes no further than the next check.

No illusions that college football hasn't always been a business but it has also had a different element to it in seeing young men grow and develop, get and education and become leaders, develop friendships while developing links to and becoming part of the community. This is all something that is missing from or less frequently seen in professional football.

Now college football is taking on much more of the tone of professional football. Players hold no loyalties, schools hold no loyalties, conferences hold no loyalties. It used to be that money was the key, now money is everything.

I still enjoy the game but have less motivation to know the rosters, to know about upcoming opponents, to know about who else in the country is good, who is rising or falling, etc. and if I miss a game now it's not that big of a deal.

There is also reason to believe that the goose that laid the golden eggs in college football is on the verge of being very sick. The greed that has led to the radical and continuing changes in college football doesn't come without a large cost and significant risk.

I'm not sure that in another 30, 20, maybe even 10 years top level college football even still exist. If we look at the rapidly changing media landscape which is what pays for it all along with an aging fan base and the potential cost if women and athletes in non-revenue sports use title IX to want their share of the money and at the same time the majority of the schools who aren't making money from it now realizing that it has very little to do with being an educational function we could easily see the whole thing crumble.

 

[DBT]

Paying players aside, my biggest issue is the unfettered transfers. There are now zero rules. The pay thing is what it is.

Also, I’m bummed about the destruction of the conferences and, to a degree, the bowl system that has become meaningless for the most part.

 

[LesGrossman]

Became a disinterested coastal elite the moment I unpacked the first moving box in Brentwood. Don’t watch any Well Off, don’t know any of the new players, and I’ll try my best to watch some games if it doesn’t interfere with wine and cheese nights this fall

I will become an illiterate rabid dumbf*ck addicted to sports the moment I unpack the first moving box in St Pete or Charleston (work relocation TBD) next year

 

[Not Sure]

To fix the problem, there’s a couple things that need to be addressed - first, the disparity in revenues across the major football schools. Rutgers should not be making more money than Clemson. Disparate revenue is largely to blame for the absurd conference affiliations we are seeing today.
Second - regionality and traditional rivalries need to be valued a lot more.
Third - tighter controls on NIL and transfers.

If we can manage to address these issues, college athletics will be fun again. I give it a somewhere less than 50% chance of happening, but it’s possible.

 

[leftybuff]

I still follow, but it is NFL lite now. The bowls, the crazy, slightly arbitrary polls, traditional rivalries in conferences, the vagaries of determining the MNC, watching HS recruits develop into starters, and occasionally the superstar was fun. Watching 40% of the roster turnover every year, watching "commits" who come and go before even setting foot on campus, a CFP that renders every other bowl game meaningless, conference and traditional rivalries sacrificed on the altar of the dollar, well, it is less appealing to me.

I don't follow recruiting at all anymore. I am not all that ginned up to play in the B12, because to me, many of the teams are not B12, but rather cheap imitations of OU, UT et al. (yes, UCF and Cincy, I am looking at you). I agree with whomever said it above, once Prime goes, I suspect CU to return to where it was before.

 

[Alfred91]

I'll just echo what has already been said - the roster turnover is what is making it hard to enjoy collegiate sports. As soon as you start getting familiar with a player, boom, they're gone. Or you start thinking that a player is coming into his own. Football is the worst, but Tad lost basically his whole team, some to moving on to the next stage of their lives, but others to the portal.

NIL has become an unmitigated disaster. It's a free for all. But I don't think it'll last. We've all read and heard of how exhausting and overwhelming it is for coaches, players, and institutions. I foresee regulation and standardization coming down the pike on NIL.

The one thing that really scares me though is the repercussions of House. I see it as the death knell for all collegiate sports other than football and basketball, which will be a ****ing travesty.

 

[Buffnik]

Paying players aside, my biggest issue is the unfettered transfers. There are now zero rules. The pay thing is what it is.

Also, I’m bummed about the destruction of the conferences and, to a degree, the bowl system that has become meaningless for the most part.

Yeah. There's a lot of truth to NIL really meaning "Now It's Legal" so most of the change there is how the money gets paid and that the public can't pretend it's not happening. The most negative consequences, by far, have resulted from the NCAA absolutely bungling transfer and signing period rules.

 

[ZandiBuff]

Money
Ruins
Everything

 

[Bison]

One way to look at this is that the way we used to approach the upcoming season is no longer viable and we are just going to have to adjust ourselves. Everyone wants things to stay the same but we stupid humans get bored with the same old stuff for so long that we want to do something different. It just sucks when it's forced on us like what is occurring right now.

I have been more of a college sports guy most of the time and at times, I'd watch pro sports because those two were different from each other. Now college sports will have young pro players so what's the point of watching all those pro sports leagues? I feel like I'm going to choose between college sports and pro sports and in this case, I choose college sports because it will still be an uneven playing field but everyone loves those David versus Goliath type of games instead of a dull & level playing field like professional sports in North America are like these days.

I am also retaining the option of dropping down to FCS and G5 football if I don't like how things go with the P4 stuff and the same thing for basketball. An attractive option is that if I did that, I can subscribe to ESPN+ and watch games on demand since I do not have a cable TV/streaming subscription.

We have been through change before but not as profound as this one.