Scrolling through that ESPN award candidate list and I cannot help but laugh. They name some of our guys as potential hardware winners and I think back to the early 90s when Coach Wacker was trying to build something at TCU with scraps and duct tape. We did not have preseason watch lists back then. We had guys who showed up in August and proved it on Saturday. Now these kids see their name on some national list and half of them are already checking the portal before the season even starts because they think they should be getting more NIL money somewhere else.
The transfer portal has turned college football into a rental car agency. Kids sign up for a semester, drive the car around, and if they do not like the mileage they trade it in for something flashier at Oregon or Texas or wherever the bag is biggest. We lost a couple of our best players to the portal this winter and I guarantee you ESPN did not mention that in their offseason ranking for us. They just looked at who we brought in and gave us a grade. But they do not account for the loyalty that used to hold this program together.
I remember when a kid committed to TCU and that was it. You stayed. You fought through the 3-9 seasons because you believed in what Coach Fran or Coach Patterson was building. Now we have to worry about our quarterback getting poached every December because some SEC school dangles a six-figure check in front of him. The portal killed the soul of this sport and nobody wants to admit it. And do not get me started on these kids entering the portal during spring ball. That used to be called quitting on your teammates.