That kid Noah Rogers go down in the spring game, and knowing he’s a transfer himself, just puts a fine point on the whole rotten system. We’re now in a spot where our depth chart is held together by duct tape and mercenaries. One guy gets hurt, and the whole plan for the season is in jeopardy because you don’t have the third-year juniors and fourth-year seniors who know the system inside and out, waiting for their moment. That’s what we built our dynasty on. The 2011 team didn’t blink when they lost a starter, because the next man up had been in the program for years, learning from Saban.
Now, you’ve got a roster full of guys who were somewhere else last spring. They don’t know what it means to wear the jersey, they haven’t suffered through the summer conditioning, they just showed up for the paycheck. The portal has turned every team into a temporary collection of talent, not a brotherhood. I think about leaders like Cornelius Bennett or John Copeland, guys who bled crimson for four or five years. They would look at this current landscaape and not recognize the sport.
And the worst part is, we have to participate in it just to keep up. We’re out there “aggressively revamping the offensive line” through the portal, just like everybody else. It feels dirty. It’s not building a team, it’s assembling parts. The connection between the players, the university, and us, the fans who have been here for decades, is severed. They’re just passing through. Loyalty is a word that died with the old NCAA rulebook.
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