Watching Coach Saban have to go stand in front of Congress just to beg for some basic sanity in this sport we love, and I cannot help but think back to the 1992 season when we won it all the old fashioned way. We had a quarterback who transferred in from junior college, sure, but he sat, he learned, he earned the respect of that locker room over two full years before he ever took a snap in a big game. That does not happen anymore. Now a kid shows up for spring practice, has one bad scrimmage, and his handlers are on the phone shopping his name to the highest bidder before the A-Day game even finishes.
The NIL era has turned our program into a revolving door and I will die on this hill. We used to build offensive lines the way Coach Bryant taught us, you recruited a big country boy from some town you never heard of, you redshirted him, you let him learn the system for three years, and by the time he was a junior he could move a defensive tackle out of the hole better than any five-star who ever lived. Now we are having to patch together an offensive line through the portal every sngle spring because these kids want immediate playing time and immediate paychecks. The loyalty is gone. The development is gone. The pride in putting on that crimson jersey and knowing you had to earn every single rep is gone.
The portal being open all winter long like some kind of shopping mall for college football is the single worst thing that has ever happened to this sport. I remember when a kid committed to Alabama and that was it. You did not see him again until he was walking across that stage on graduation day with a ring on his finger. Now you have to check your phone every morning just to see who decided to leave because they did not like their NIL deal or they wanted more touches or the cafeteria food was not good enough. It is embarrassing. It is not college football anymore. It is professional free agency with a student ID card.