They’re already talking about the 2026 NFL Draft and which SEC kid is a first-rounder. It’s April. The whole year is just a factory now. I remember when a bowl game was the reward, the final chapter for a senior class. Now it’s just a pit stop on the way to declaring or entering the portal. The Las Vegas Bowl, the Holiday Bowl, the Sun Bowl… they used to mean something. You played for your brothers and for that trip. It wasn’t an audition.
We had guys at Concordia who would have given anything to play in one more game, to put on the maroon and gold one last time with the guys they came in with. That 1998 team that went 9-2, they would have cherished a bowl bid. Now these kids at the big schools opt out of New Year’s Six games because they’re worried about their draft stock. What happened to finishing what you started? What happened to pride in the program?
The tradition is gone. It’s a transactional league now. They’ll watch Jermod McCoy or KC Concepcion get drafted and forget they ever played a down for their school. The bowl season used to be a celebration of the year. Now it’s a meaningless exhibition for teams that are just collections of rented players. They’ve stripped all the soul out of it.