Remember watching the 1992 Sugar Bowl against Miami and thinking that was the peak of bowl season? The pageantry, the tradition, the actual meaning of earning your way to New Orleans or Pasadena or the Orange Bowl. Now it is all about who can buy the best roster thorugh the portal and NIL to get into some bloated 12-team playoff.
ESPN is running stories about the busiest recruiting month and I just shake my head. Back when Coach Stallings had us running the wishbone, you built a program through relationships and development. Kids committed to the University, not to the highest bidder on some NIL collective spreadsheet. We did not have kids flipping their commitments three times before signing day because Oregon or Texas or whoever waved more cash at them.
Coach Saban having to go beg Congress for help tells you everything. The man won six national titles here by outworking everybody and building men of character. Now he has to stand in front of politicians to try and save the sport from itself. That is where we are. The bowl games used to be rewards for seasons of blood and sweat in the August heat. Now they are just another game on the schedule for some mercenary roster that barely knows each other's names.
I miss the old Sugar Bowl. I miss the Rose Bowl meaning something real. I miss when January 1st was sacred and you knew every kid on that sideline had been through three years of spring drills and fall camps to earn that moment. This new world just does not hit the same.