You see CBS talking about teams hurt by no sprnig portal window and I just think about how we used to build a program. Coach Fran would take a bunch of three-star kids from Texas high schools who had something to prove and we would grind them through two-a-days in August until they knew the option pitch like it was breathing. Nobody was jumping ship in April because you had to sit out a year and you had to earn your spot in the huddle. Now these kids transfer twice before they even go through a full spring practice and we are supposed to believe this makes the game better.
The 1998 Sun Bowl squad had maybe two guys who ended up in the NFL and they went undrafted. But they played together for three years. They knew each other's families. They stayed through the 1-10 seasons and the 6-5 seasons and when we finally got to that bowl game against USC they played like men possessed because that was their team. That is what I miss. Not the rankings. Not the portal hauls. The brotherhood that came from sticking it out.
You look at what Indiana did last year winning it all and everybody wants to copy the formula. Hit the portal hard. Bring in 30 new guys. Hope they gel by October. But that is not a program. That is a rental car. We used to build something that lasted. Coach Fran's 1999 team that went 8-4 had 22 seniors on it. Twenty-two. Try finding that on any roster today. The portal killed loyalty and the NIL killed the idea that you play for the name on the front of the jersey.
I will watch this fall. I will always watch. But I am tired of pretending that this is the same sport I fell in love with sitting in the old east bleachers at Amon Carter when the sun would bake you for four quarters and you could smell the grass and the sweat and the heat coming off the field. That was real. This is just business now.