The college football media have won: Fans are starting to dislike the sport just as much as them

As long as I can remember in my 20+ years of obsessively following college football, there has been a strange divide between some of the biggest names covering the sport and the fans who can’t get enough of it.

My personal college football experience has been glorious.

As a student at the University of Florida, I had my Steve Spurrier-induced entitlement shattered at the hands of the Ron Zook era through countless thrilling wins and stunning losses. After a particularly painful home loss to LSU, I recall throwing my Florida hat toward the field and walking back to sub-standard fraternity living conditions in silence refusing to speak to anyone.

Not long afterward, lame-duck Zook was carried off the field after knocking off the Seminoles in Tallahassee. We celebrated at the fine Tallahassee establishment of Potbelly’s until they kicked us out. Due to a lack of accommodations, I slept in my car outside the bar. College football.

After college, attending games was less frequent, but just as fun. One year we took an RV from Florida to Auburn. The Gators lost, but that night in the RV lot at Auburn, an adjacent RV completely burned to the ground. We sat around drinking beer, talking college football and watching nearby flames reach upwards of 50 feet high. Nobody was hurt, but one RV would not make the trip home. College football.

I’m older now. Much of my fandom is expressed through simple Saturdays around the TV with my kids and endless text chains with friends yelling at each other about who should be in the Playoff. It’s still pretty awesome.

But, throughout the years, nearly every time I read major stories about college football, I was told everything sucked. The postseason format is unfair. Players are exploited. And, of course, the COVID-era argument of “college football hates science.”

It’s been nonstop for literally decades. I’ve often wondered, do these people even like the sport they cover?

It’s one of the reasons we started Saturday Down South more than a decade ago. We asked ourselves, what if a group of people who love college football cover and write about college football? Our staff has always been full of guys and gals who would rather be at a tailgate and in the student section than in the press box rubbing elbows with the other fancy media members.

And now it’s 2022 and the sport feels like it’s changing more than ever.

Conference realignment continues, and it’s definitely weird. The idea of a USC-Rutgers regular-season game seems, well, stupid. But the reality is that conference realignment has been going on for decades. Conference realignment is more inherent in the sport of college football than we realize. It’s part of its DNA.

While conference realignment can definitely be a bummer, I’ll be honest … I absolutely hate NIL. Combine it with the transfer portal, and college football now makes the NBA look conservative from a player empowerment standpoint.

Somehow we got to a point where it’s considered going out on a limb to say that I think it sucks that the Ohio State coach has to say he needs $13 million to keep his players. College football in 2022.

So, yeah, I blame the media here. Sure there are other factors like the increasing amounts of TV revenue that led to higher coach salaries and reckless facilities spending. But the media’s constant drumbeat of unfairness in college football has contributed to where we are today.

Nowadays, getting a text from a friend bemoaning the latest NIL headline has become routine. In the past, these discussions would typically revolve around who we thought would win it all, how many games a team might win this year and what coaches will be on the hot seat. In the past, we’d say things like “I can’t wait for college football.” Today, we often say things like “This is all pretty stupid, isn’t it?”

Much of this is anecdotal, but I’m guessing I’m not alone. I loved college football because of its regionality, its insanely awesome regular season, its quirky postseason, bowl games, and yes, the endless debates about who should play for a national title because of the asymmetrical and goofy structure of the sport.

But the national college football writers didn’t agree. They wanted an NFL-style Playoff and players to be paid. Unforeseen consequences be damned. They wanted a mini-NFL, and that’s where we’re headed.

If you agree with me, I also want to provide some encouragement. Not all is lost.

When that first Saturday rolls around, it’ll still be awesome. Regardless of what conference your team plays in or the offseason NIL nonsense that led to the current roster, when your team takes the field on a Saturday, all will be well.

College towns across the country still will swell with people flooding in to experience the tradition and pageantry that goes into college football Saturdays. The games on the field still will be dramatic and wild. And during that great run through October and November, we’ll have some good debates about the Top 25. Man, I love that stuff.

The world of college football will continue to change, but Saturdays can still be glorious. If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s to not take them for granted.

SDS

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