Just saw that ESPN ranking of every Power 4 offseason and I keep coming back to the same thing. You watch these kids transfer after one spring practice and I think about the old stadium. I remember sitting in the old Sanford Stadium in the early 80s when you could still feel the concrete steps vibrating under your feet. We did not have all this nonsense about portal hauls and NIL valuations. You measured a program by how many guys came back for their senior year and by how loud the crowd got when Herschel took that first handoff against Tennessee in 1980.
These kids today will never understand what it meant to walk into Sanford Stadium on a Saturday in October when the hedges were still that deep green and the band was playing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. You did not see 50 transfers coming in every offseason like Oklahoma State is doing now. You had a roster of guys who bled red and black and hated Florida and Auburn because their daddies taught them to hate Florida and Auburn. Now everybody is just renting jerseys for a season.
I miss the days when you could name every starter on the team and knew which guys were going to be there for four years. The stadium felt different back then. It felt like home.