This NCAAF season has been wildly unpredictable and the top teams have been a far cry from the regurgitated same teams in the playoffs that we've seen for almost the past decade. With Oregon being a consensus #1, Miami and Indiana making their first Top-5 push this decade and schools like BYU, SMU and Tulane being very competitive, this season has shown that College Football is at it's most competitive we've seen in a long time.
However, most of what you see in the media these days is about the negatives and/or controversial parts of the sport. So what is truly going on in the college football landscape? What changes have happened to the sport that has gotten us here? What will the future hold for one of the longest-standing traditions in U.S. sports? Let's dive into it as we go over the biggest changes and happenings in College Football in 2024.
NIL Deals
A couple of factors have made the college football landscape very different this year and the game as a whole is benefiting from it. The first big change has come from NIL money deals being paid to players. NIL stands for name, image and likeness is the abbreviation and shorthand name for what the NCAA allows players to be paid for from outside parties. NIL laws dictate that money can't be paid directly to athletes from Universities for performance, but what it has done is ensure athletes can make money no matter where they go. For so long schools like Alabama, Georgia, Texas and Ohio State would have the best recruitment classes because a variety of legal tactics. However some have speculated that the high-power and rich universities were also most willing to pay their players and that was the icing on the cake to bring in the best classes. Nowadays with NIL, we've seen schools like Tennessee, Auburn, Nebraska and others recruit Top-10 players at a higher rate.
Players can earn more than some professional players in some cases. Shedeur Sanders is a Senior Quarterback for the Colorado Buffaloes and is a potential #1 pick come April. He and his teammate Travis Hunter, (Junior WR/CB) are projected to earn the most NIL money in CFB right now at $6.2 million and $3.4 million respectively.
Whether or not NIL is the biggest reason for larger parity in College Football's top teams is up for debate but it is without question the biggest change that has happened to College Football in decades. A big way NIL deals have become so impactful is their appeal to transferring students. NIL laws make it clear tampering with a player of another university, whether it be from another university or an independent business or entity affiliated with the second-party university is illegal, it can be assumed these back room dealings will be rampant for possible-transferees.
Transfer Portal Changes
Almost as crucial to the college football landscape but arguably more important to parity between teams has been the Transfer Portal. Starting before the 2024 season, student athletes are not allowed to transfer multiple times without sitting out a year or losing eligibility; causing them to stick it out with their team even if things aren't going the way they hoped. Before this change, athletes were allowed to transfer once without having to sit out a year, (often transferring after their first or second year) but if they were to transfer again they would lose a year of eligibility in their first season at the new university.
This new change has made it possible for athletes who are not starting to transfer to another school they will have a better chance to, optimizing the players' desires over the universities, (which is a FAR CRY from what it used to be.) This has been a tremendous tool for schools like Oregon and Ohio State who each added 3 or more starters to their team this year from the transfer portal including both teams Quarterbacks. An incredible tool for the players as well, we've seen players boost their draft stock and reach their potential on teams that are a better fit then their former team. Players like Dillon Gabriel and Evan Stewart, (Oregon QB and WR respectively) have helped Oregon become the #1 team in the nation while defenders like Walter Nolen (Ole Miss DT) and Cam Ward (Miami QB) have seen their draft stock sky rocket on their new teams, (Cam Ward now a possible #1 pick in this upcoming draft.)
New Playoff Format
10 years ago in 2014, the College Football Playoffs began as the Top-4 teams at the end of the regular season would compete in single elimination tournament to declare the National Champion at the end of every season. Creating a tournament that college football fans and pundits alike had craved for a very long time, the CFP was largely liked but didn't come without controversy. With a newly appointed College Football Playoff Committee making the decision of the 4 teams worthy enough to be in the Playoffs, some teams were controversially left out of the Top-4. Most notably, Florida State last season who were 13-0 and ranked #3 the week before the CFP but were dropped to #5 before the tournament commenced and left out.
With this 4-team playoff becoming more and more controversial and stagnant, the decision to expand to a 12-team format was made in 2023 before last season. With this year being its inaugural season, people are very excited and curious for its prospects. Seeding rules have also been made to ensure fairness in the Playoffs, with the conference champions of each of the Power-4 Conferences, (SEC, ACC, Big 10 and Big 12) being the Top-4 seed and getting a First-Round Bye in the Playoffs. The remaining 8 seeds will be the highest remaining seeded teams at the end of the regular season. These new rules should make for a fair and compelling Playoff race starting this year but controversy is never far away in College Football and will probably pop up somewhere.
Coach Prime
Deion Sanders has been the most-talked about individual in College Football for almost five years in a row now. Ushering in a new aura in College Football, Sanders has been one of the key factors of the sports likeness and popularity growth in the past half-decade. The most polarizing man in the sport, you either hate what Prime stands for or absolutely love him for the ground he is breaking. Like him or not, you have to respect his coaching ability, his ability to mature and improve the young men he's coached and his knack of shooting straight to the media.
After a 3-year stint at Jackson State where he turned the historically mediocre FCS-team to a record of 23-3 (16-0 in conference play) in his final two years at the HBCU. Now in his second season at Colorado, Sanders has turned that program around in similar time with a record of 8-2 and a #16 national ranking.
A big part of Deion's success has been his best two players, his son and Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders and Heisman-favorite Travis Hunter who has broken barriers in playing both sides of the ball at WR and CB. Sanders may be looked at as being carried by these two future-NFL players; this is a gross-exaggeration. He's made so many more great players out of a "bad" roster he inherited just over a year ago. Not only does he make great players out of nothing, but he attracts great players to his program too, just signing 5-star 2025 QB Julian Lewis as I'm finishing this article.
With speculation circling of Sanders taking his talents to the NFL next year, we could be at the end of one of the greatest attention-grabbers in NCAAF history.
What Does the Future Hold?
Cooler
The future of College Football looks bright to some and bleak to others. More specifically, it looks bright to those in position to make money off of TV deals involved with the sport and to the younger crowd of viewers. It looks bleak to the older fans of the sport and to some Coaches.
We've already seen Nick Saban retire in part due to in his words, "the money-driven attitude" players have turned to. These changes will also be the principle reason older fans are souring to the sport as well, with the old traditional ways of College Football seemingly falling to the wayside to make room for the new nature of the sport.
And yes, Money seems to be the name of the game nowadays which is quickly breeding a new sense this sport hasn't seen in a long time; Coolness. College Football has never been the sexy sport in town besides a few lightning-in-a-bottle situations. But with star players starting to earn millions of dollars, Deion Sanders bringing player-first mentality to the sport and a new sense of PARITY between teams that makes national championships feel a lot more unpredictable, CFB has become must-see TV.
Yes the biggest winners of the new state of College Football are the advertisers and the TV executives, with TV viewership of Saturday Night's primetime Football game up 87.6% through the first 7 weeks of this season (NY Times data). The new sense of urgency and viewership has created stars in the College Football landscape and is thus bringing in more viewers and continuing the circle.
The monetary-based incentives to the game are good and bad, in one sense finally paying the young players for their hard work they've deserved for decades but also further minimizing the focus on character growth, team-building and education that colleges and universities stress on these young men.
Whether these changes are good or bad for the sport is for each individual to decide for themselves but make no mistake, with the amount of money the networks and players are making these changes are here to stay. Let's all sit back and watch.
Check out fansonlysports.com for more sports media content dropped daily.
Follow us on Twitter: @fosportz : @DrapeauZak
-Z.D.
Comments