Everyone wants college football reform – until it is time to actually do the reforming
By David Wasson
Published:
We have all been there. And if you claim you haven’t, well, you’re lying.
Rush-hour traffic, and you’re keeping pace with all the cars and trucks around you just trying to get home when out of nowhere a vehicle quickly zig-zags through and barges forward 10-15 mph faster than everyone else.
“Wow, never a cop around when you need one…” you think to yourself – wishing that lawbreaker would get caught – all while forgetting about how you pulled off the exact same illegal moves when you were dreadfully late a few weeks ago.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the current state of college football: a world filled with coaches and programs who want the cops to maintain order except when it’s their turn to bend, massage and otherwise ignore the laws of the land.
The latest exhibit of “rules for thee and not for me” comes to us by way of College Station, where Texas A&M coach Mike Elko recently emitted all the noises of wanting reform in college football – all while knowing the Aggies invest a ton of money in a zillion-dollar budget toward finding any loophole possible of which to take advantage.
“At some point, we’re going to have to have somebody who is capable of making rules regarding the betterment of college football,” Elko said in an interview with On3’s JD Pickell. “Enforcement of rules, all of it. Until we get that, I think we’re all at risk of this thing not lasting like we want it to last.”
If that didn’t red-line your hypocrisy meter, I’m pretty sure you need to get that sucker checked.
Before all you Aggies get your overalls in a bunch and chirp back about how Mike Elko hasn’t been accused of causing the NCAA to open up a satellite enforcement office in College Station, please note that I am not accusing Elko of any crime, infraction or even anything that deserves a tsk-tsk.
But a big-time college football coach in the Southeastern Conference – one who, incidentally, also just signed a meaty new contract worth $11.5 million per season – like Elko preaching for reform when he is thriving in said system is the actual definition of hypocrisy.
It is also time to point out that Elko isn’t wrong or even slightly off-pitch with the message. On the contrary, if anything Elko is actually just the latest in a string of voices that carry weight calling on some sort of reform to somehow control what feels more like a runaway train than a healthy, functioning sport.
Thing is, though, Elko is a beneficiary of the very busted system he is griping about. He has thrived on it, in fact, leading Texas A&M to its first College Football Playoff just last year before merrily going back to the transfer portal trough and bellying up with another double-fistful of NIL cash to lure fresh talent to eastern Texas.
We aren’t talking small dollars, either. Texas A&M reportedly reloaded for 2026 thanks to $18.5 million in NIL spoils from Texas Aggies United and the 12th Man+ Fund. That big spending locked in a top-10 recruiting class in an unbridled pursuit of an SEC title.
Again, this column isn’t an indictment of Elko and the Aggies – or even a nod-wink at one. He and they are only the latest in a familiar cycle. Remember when former Alabama coach Nick Saban climbed atop his substantial soapbox to complain about his beloved sport needing reform? I do, and I also noticed how quickly Saban disappeared back into the woodwork of retirement rather than actually stepping forward to do the thankless work of reforming.
Saban isn’t stupid, and neither is Elko nor anyone else who has their platform. They – rightly, for what it’s worth – see that what has become of college football is a transactional, unsustainable disaster. Deep down in their hearts, I sincerely believe that they want an even playing field that rewards recruiting acumen and coaching smarts over a splayed-open checkbook.
Problem is, just as we do when it is our turn to get to where we are going, traffic be damned, these coaches and these programs are quick to mash pedal to metal to win at all costs. This is not a symptom unique to college football, of course. Name any sport and I can quickly point out the myriad ways that sport’s competitors seek any and every loophole imaginable to gain an edge.
But unlike the now-quaint hundred-dollar handshakes of a bygone era, college football has become the ultimate Pandora’s Box of inequity. Zoom out and look around: the NCAA is supremely toothless to enforce even the most bedrock of rules these days, athletic departments have become masters at milking fanbases for every dollar of now-legal NIL donations, and almost every news cycle has some new tidbit of excess that makes you wonder if there is actually a bottom to all the depravity.
In other words, at any and all times “insert big-time college football program here” is zooming through traffic at a breakneck pace – with the Mike Elkos and Nick Sabans of the world begging out of one side of their mouth for enforcement while simultaneously taking notes on the best strategy to bend, massage and otherwise ignore the increasingly impotent laws of the land.
Is there an end to the madness? Who knows.
Will there actually be a straw that someday breaks the college football camel’s back of lawlessness? Who knows.
Is there anyone or anything out there willing to grasp the necessary power to put all the toothpaste back in the tube? Who knows.
But here is about all we know: All the radar detectors, road signs and flashing lights ain’t stopping anyone. And neither are the well-intentioned words of the rules-massagers themselves.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
