This story about Ty Simpson turning down millions from Miami to chase the draft just crystallizes everything wrong with the sport. It's not about a rivalry game anymore, it's about an auction. I remember when the Carnegie Mellon and Case Western Reserve game meant something because you were playing for the school on your chest, not the check in your pocket. The kids on that field hated each other for four years because they built that animosity through blood and sweat, not because of some NIL bidding war that happened six months prior.
We used to have real rivalries in the Centennial Conference, where you knew every player's name and number by heart because they were there for the duration. The hatred was earned. Now, you look at these matchups between schools like Oregon and whoever, and half the roster is wearing a different uniform than they had last season. How are you supposed to build contempt for a logo when the guy wearing it is a mercenary who arrived last Tuesday? The portal has turnde every game into a corporate merger, not a clash of cultures.
They've killed the soul of the game to feed the machine. I think about our old battles, the mud and the cold and the sheer will it took to win those games. That feeling is gone. Now it's just a transaction, with kids like Simpson calculating their draft stock against their bank account. That's not college football. That's free agency with a marching band. The sport I fell in love with died when loyalty became a line item on a balance sheet.