Watched that clip of Kirby sitting there on Finebaum talking about the SEC maybe leavign the NCAA and all I could do was shake my head and think back to 1992 when we finally got the championship game and it meant something real. You had the East and the West and you earned your way to Atlanta through blood and grit not through some committee deciding who looked prettiest on paper. Now we got this whole mess where the Pac-12 is trying to cobble itself back together with Mountain West leftovers and Texas State of all programs and everybody acts like this is progress. I remember when the Pac-10 was the Pac-10 and you knew what you were getting when you turned on a USC or a Washington game. Now Oregon State and Washington State are holding a yard sale for conference members and calling it a revival.
The whole thing just makes me tired. We got Oregon out there stacking five 5-stars in one recruiting class and Dylan Raiola transferring in from Nebraska to battle Dante Moore for the quarterback job and everybody wants to talk about who has the best roster on paper. Back in the 1980s you built your team with boys who grew up wanting to play for your school not with mercenaries shopping their talents every December. You watch what Oklahoma State is doing bringing in 50 portal transfers under Eric Morris and it is like they are building a fantasy football team not a program with any soul or continuity. The spring portal window got eliminated and thank the Lord for small mercies because that spring window was nothing but chaos every single year. But even that feels like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound.
Kirby Smart talking about seceding from the NCAA is just the latest chapter in this long slow decline where everybody is looking out for themselves and nobody cares about the traditions that made this sport great. I remember when conference pride meant something. When you rooted for the SEC in bowl games because it was about the whole league not just your own program. Now we got the Big Ten and the SEC circling each other like heavyweight fighters and everybody else is just scrambling for scraps. The Pac-12 was one of the great conferences in college football history and now it is a zombie wandering around with eight teams and no identity. You cannot tell me this is better than what we had.
Give me the old days when the Rose Bowl meant something and the Sugar Bowl was the Sugar Bowl and you did not have to check a spreadsheet to figure out who was in what conference this week. That is the Georgia football I fell in love with and I am just watching it slip away year by year.