Just saw CBS Sports talking about the Lakers and it got me thinking about the old bowl trips we used to take back in the late 90s. There was nothing like loading up the bus for the ECAC Bowl and watching our guys grind it out in the cold December weather. Now everything is about the portal and the big money bowl games, the little traditions that made this sport special are gone forever.
You see Oklahoma State bringing in 50 transfers and Colorado grabbing 43 and the whole sport loses its mind like this is innovation? Back in the early 2000s when we were in the old NEC, Coach would take a couple junior college kids each spring and build the rest from high school kids who bought in. Now it's just roster musical chairs. Nobody develops a player anymore. They just swipe right on the portal and hope the chemistry works in August. Eric Morris is about to find out that 50 new faces don't make a team, they make a collection of individuals who all want touches. We built our best squads with kids from Erie and the surrounding counties who played together for three and four years. That's dead now.
You see Colorado bringing in 43 transfers and Oklahoma State grabbing 50 and I just shake my head. Back in the 1998 season we built a program with kids from Erie and Meadville who stayed four years and fought for each other. This portal madness has killed the soul of college f...
Alabama lands another five-star quarterback in Elijah Haven, the number one kid in the 2027 class, and everybody acts like that's just normal business. I remember when a commitment meant something because you built a relationship with a coach over years, not because some collective put together a package that would make an NFL agent blush. The whole system is backwards now. You got kids committing to programs two years before they can even sign, and everybody knows it's about the NIL number more than the depth chart or the development path. The old guard at Alabama, the ones who built that program on three-star kids who stayed four years and became pros, they gotta be shaking their heads at what this has become.
You watch the SEC set records in the NFL Draft and it just makes me miss the days when a coach like Bob Brest would take a kid from Erie who nobody wanted and turn him into an All-NEC linebacker over four years. That was real coaching. Not this portal madness where you just bu...
Diego Pavia goes from Heisman finalist to undrafted and nobody blinks an eye. That tells you everything about how the NFL scouts these days. I watched that kid play at Vanderbilt and he was a winner plain and simple. He made plays with his legs and his arm and he had that fire you cannot coach. Reminds me of our old quarterback from the 1998 squad who went undrafted too and ended up playing six years in the Arena League. The NFL has lost its mind chasing measurables. Pavia won football games against SEC competition and that means nothing to them now.
Watching this draft and seeing offensive linemen like Monroe Freeling go in the first round just makes me think about the old days at Mercyhurst. We had a kid from Erie who anchored our line for four years, never missed a snap, and went on to play in the old Arena League. Now ...
You see all these SEC guys getting drafted and it just reminds me of when recruiting was about finding a kid who fit your system and watching him grow for four years. Now it's all about who can put together the best highlight reel in the transfer portal. Back in the early 90s we'd find a raw kid from Erie who nobody wanted and by his junior year he'd be knocking people's helmets off. That's how you build a program, not by buying a roster every spring.
You watch this NFL Draft and see all these defensive linemen going in the first round and it gets me thinking about how soft the game has gotten. Keldric Faulk from Auburn is a good player, dont get me wrong, but back in the 80s at Mercyhurst we had guys like that who would hit you in the mouth every single play and then go work construction in the offseason. They didnt need a scouting report or a nutritionist or a personal brand consultant. They just had a chip on their shoulder and something to prove. This new generation of edge rushers spends more time on their sack celebrations than they do on their technique. I miss when football was about toughness and grit, not about how many followers you have on social media.
They're talking about Texas and Georgia's portal improvements like it's some grand achievement. It reminds me of when a bowl trip meant something, when you earned a spot in the Pioneer Bowl or the ECAC Bowl and it was the culmination of a season's work. Now it's just a pit stop for these mercenaries before they jump again. They'll add a few more traansfers, win ten games, and go to some corporate-sponsored bowl nobody remembers. The whole tradition is gone. We used to celebrate the trip itself, the week with your teammates. Now these kids at the big schools are just checking their NIL statements to see if the bowl payout is worth sticking around for. It's a shame.
They're talking about Oklahoma State bringing in 50 transfers. That's not a football team, that's a fantasy draft. It reminds me of when conferences had actual identity. The old NEC had teams you knew, rivals you built over decades. Now it's just a mercenary league where geography and tradition mean nothing.
The portal has completely gutted the real soul of a program like ours. I remember when a kid would commit to the Lakers, you'd watch him grow from a skinny freshman into a team captain by his senior year. That meant something. Now? They read about Oklahoma State bringing in 50 transfers and think that's how you build a team. It's not building, it's assembling a mercenary outfit with no heart. We used to win games with guys who bled green and white because they believed in the program, not the next paycheck. This new era of free agency has made a mockery of team chemistry and player development, the real things that made our level of football special. You can't tell me a locker room with fifty new faces has the same grit as the 2002 squad that fought for every inch.
Just saw that piece about Georgia offering another four star quarterback recruit. Kaden Craft. That’s the name. It never ends. They’ve got a room full of five stars and they’re still out there collecting them like trading cards, and you know exactly why. It’s the NIL war chest. It’s not about development or fit anymore, it’s about who can write the biggest check to stockpile taent so the kid never sees the field at a place like ours. This is what killed the soul of the game.
I remember when recruiting was about relationships. A coach would come into a kid’s living room in Erie or Sharon and sell the dream of building something. You’d get a two star with a chip on his shoulder who’d grow into a four year starter for the Lakers, a guy like we had in the late 90s who would run through a wall for the program because he helped lay the bricks. Now? That kid gets a token offer from us, then some SEC also-ran swoops in with a bag from a collective he’s never heard of, and he’s gone. He’ll sit on the bench for three years, enter the portal twice, and never know what it means to be part of a brotherhood.
They talk about parity with NIL, that it’s spreading the talent. Don’t believe it for a second. All it’s done is create a new caste system. The Georgias and Texases of the world just use it to hoard more. The Colorados use it to buy 43 mercenaries in a single offseason. And what’s left for everybody else? The scraps. We’re supposed to believe a kid chooses a program because of its “brand development opportunities” or some other nonsense. It’s a paycheck. Pure and simple. The loyalty is to the highest bidder, not the logo on the helmet.
This isn’t college football. This is a free agency period with classes. The portal is just the mechanism, but NIL is the gasoline they poured on the fire. It used to be a violation to buy a player a hamburger. Now, boosters are openly funding salaries and we’re supposed to call it “amateur athletics.” The 1994 Lakers squad that went to the ECAC Bowl, those guys worked summer jobs together. They sweated together. They weren’t checking their bank accounts from some LLC in Atlanta.
And the worst part? It’s poisoned the well for the kids who do stay. They see their teammate, who hasn’t earned a damn thing, driving a new car because he has a slick social media deal, while the three year starter next to him is getting by on his scholarship. It breeds resentment in the locker room. It fractures teams. You can’t build chemistry when half the roster is just renting the jersey for a season, looking for the next, better offer. I watch these spring practice reports about Oklahoma State bringing in fifty transfers or Colorado’s traveling circus, and I think of the chaos. That’s not a team. That’s a fantasy draft.
The game I fell in love with is gone. It was about the name on the front, not the name on the back. Now it’s a transactional business where the highest auctioneer wins. They’ve made mercenaries out of teenagers,...
Reading about Oklahoma State birnging in 50 transfers reminds me of when a coach built a program from the ground up. That’s not building a team, that’s assembling a fantasy roster.
I miss? The genuine hatred of a true rivalry week. Not this manufactured stuff they have now where teams change conferences every five years. I’m talking about lining up against Duquesne in the fall, when the air got crisp and you knew every single guy on the other sideline. That 2002 game at Tullio Field, when we blocked that punt in the final minute to win it, the whole student section poured onto the field. You think any of these kids transferring into Oregon or Oklahoma State feel that? They weren’t there for the three-overtime loss the year before that made the win taste so sweet. They just show up for a paycheck.
Now you’ve got these “rivalries” built on which school’s NIL collective wrote a bigger check. They’re talking about Oregon’s Raiola brothers like it’s some heartwarming family reunion. Please. That’s just a transaction with a nice bow on it. It reminds me of when the old NEC started to splinter, when the conference identity that made those games mean something started to fade. We played for a trophy, for bragging rights that lasted 365 days until you got another shot. Now players are gone in 12 months, chasing the next best offer.
They’ll never understand what it was to build something over four years with the same group of guys, to hate another team because you bled against them every single seaosn. That’s all gone. Replaced by a portal free-for-all and these soulless “games” between teams that have no history. Give me a muddy field in Erie against an old foe any day over this sterile, corporate version of the sport they’re selling us.
