By James B. Ewers Jr. Ed.D.
Football season is winding down and in the coming weeks bowl games and college football playoffs will begin. In some respects, football is a year-round sport. The playing stops but the recruiting of prospective college student-athletes never does.
Let’s be reminded that college signing day will be Wednesday, February 4, 2026. Now, there is the early signing period which happens this month where high school recruits can sign a National Letter of Intent.
Student-athletes, along with their parents and family, will sit at tables with pen in hand. The custom is to have three or four caps of the schools recruiting them and they will choose the winning school’s cap. What role do NIL agreements play?
Another factor that is in play is the transfer portal. Thousands of college student-athletes have benefitted from it over the years. They are looking for more playing time and usually more money. Back in the day, student-athletes at the Division I level had to sit out a year before joining their new team.
According to ESPN, over 3,400 FBS scholarship players in 2024-2025 entered the transfer portal. This number was much lower prior to Name, Image and Likeness agreements. It says the days of the pure athletic scholarship are over. I received an athletic scholarship to attend college and was thankful to get it.
I have raised a debatable question before and that was how teammates feel about each other’s NIL agreement. Does it cause hard feelings? Is all of that forgotten once the games begin?
I believe that winning is still the most important part of the sports equation. That purist notion still reigns supreme in college athletics. It is the foundation and the bedrock. To quote former player and coach Herm Edwards, “you play to win the game”.
Another pressing issue with college football is with coaches. I am old school many times over. Way back when, you didn’t see coaches moving around from school to school. It has changed somewhat today.
Of late, it’s like a pigskin carousel. It’s going around with the conductor asking where do you want to get off. This seems to be happening mostly at the Division I level.
College football has had some legendary coaches who left their imprint on the sport. Their names were tied to the schools they represented.
We will never forget Eddie Robinson (Grambling State University), Frank Beamer (Virginia Tech University), Jake Gaither (Florida A&M University), Bobby Bowden (Florida State University) and Bill Hayes (Winston-Salem State University).
These coaches were difference-makers in the lives of their players. They molded boys into men. Simply put, they were winners on and off the field. These are just a few of the coaches that we respected and revered. All of us have our lists of impactful coaches.
Now, we are seeing right in front of our athletic eyes coaches with winning records that are being fired or simply walking away from their positions. Take for example, James Franklin who was fired as the coach at Penn State despite having a winning record. The problem was his teams couldn’t beat Ohio State or Michigan.
Another example is Lane Kiffin who had a winning record at Mississippi State and simply decided to pursue another coaching opportunity.
Allegiance wasn’t a factor at Penn State by the athletic department. Beating rivals was. Coach Kiffin left because of new challenges and allegiance wasn’t considered. Those are my opinions.
My wife who is a latecomer to sports believes that schools shouldn’t be allowed to recruit coaches during the season. They should be expected to continue coaching until the end of the season including bowl games and playoffs.
She also thinks that it is not fair for student-athletes to be left without their head coach when eligible for postseason play. These same sentiments have been expressed by sports commentators and critics across the board.
Unless some changes are made, this trend will continue in college sports.
