You look at NIL and what it has done to this sport and I just think about the 1993 Rose Bowl team. Those kids played together for four years, bled for each other, and built something that meant something. Now we have kids collecting paychecks and jumping into the portal the second they do not get enough targets in spring practice. Oregon has five 5-star recruits in their 2026 class and a quarterback competition between Dante Moore and Dylan Raiola who both transferred in from somewhere else. That is not building a program, that is renting talent for a season.
The portal window got eliminated for spring and that is about the only good thing the NCAA has done in years. But the damage is already done. Colorado brought in 43 transfers and Oklahoma State brought in 50. Fifty players in one offseason. How do you even build chemistry with that many new faces? You cannot tell me that is the same sport we watched in the 1990s when Barry Alvarez took Wisconsin kids and turned them into Big Ten champions through hard work and development.
NIL killed loyalty plain and simple. Kids used to earn their spot on the depth chart through summer workouts and fall camp battles. Now they just look at the higest bidder and pack their bags. I miss when a Wisconsin Badger meant something more than whatever the collective is paying this month.