Reading about Oklahoma State bringing in fifty portal transfers under a new coach just makes me sick to my stomach. Fifty. That’s not building a team, that’s assembling a fantasy roster on a video game. There’s no soul in that. There’s no grit. How do you develop any toughness when half the locker room has been there for three months and is already eyeing the next paycheck? It’s a mercenary camp, not a football program.
I think about our Cobber teams from the late 80s, the ones that would go toe-to-toe with Saint John’s in a blizzard. You knew the guy next to you had been in the trenches with you for three yeears, through two-a-days in August heat and losses that stung for months. That forged a bond, a collective will that you simply cannot buy or transfer in. You earned your stripes through sweat and time, not by entering your name in a database.
This is what they’ve traded for “talent.” They’ve traded heart. They’ve traded the very essence of what makes a team tough. When the fourth quarter gets long and your body is screaming, you don’t fight for a logo or a check. You fight for the brother you bled with for years. That concept is as dead as the old MIAC rivalries they ruined. Now it’s just a revolving door of hired hands, and they wonder why the game feels hollow.