It’s the multibillion-dollar question these days.
Literally.
How do the powers that be fix the current model of college athletics before it bankrupts itself?
Some people don’t believe the system is broken. I do. I am not against compensation for student-athletes. I am against a system with no guardrails and no consequences.
Let’s be honest. The old system wasn’t perfect either. Universities, conferences and television networks were generating hundreds of millions of dollars while athletes had limited — or zero — opportunities to share in that revenue.
There is no simple answer. Not in a day and age where every time the NCAA makes a rule or ruling, a lawsuit is filed and a state or federal court gets involved. Courts have significantly weakened the NCAA’s authority, and the organization has enough issues of its own without being held hostage by the courts (see the recent ruling by a Lubbock, Texas, judge on Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby as a perfect example).
Welcome to 2026.
It’s perplexing. It’s frustrating. But mostly, it’s concerning.
I love college athletics. I have since I attended my first Louisiana Tech football game in 1978. I have made a career out of working in the industry. And I still believe in the student-athlete experience.
However, it’s the number of those experiences that I worry will start to dwindle if the current system isn’t corrected.
Let me stop here and say that I am not opposed to student-athletes getting compensated beyond their scholarship — to a point.
A decade ago, Skip Holtz and the Louisiana Tech football program began a stretch of seven straight bowl appearances, winning six straight postseason games. It was a lot of fun for Louisiana Tech fans.
Players like Kenneth Dixon, Vernon Butler, Trent Taylor, Carlos Henderson, Jaylon Ferguson, Milton Williams, Amik Robertson and J’Mar Smith — to name a few — became household names for the Bulldog faithful. They were recruited by Tech out of high school and finished their college careers in the old red and blue.
No offense to Skip and the boys, but I don’t believe that seven-year run would have occurred in today’s environment. Why?
Although I can’t speak for each one of them, odds are — based on what we see these days — that some of those guys would have never made it to Ruston. And if they had, the odds of keeping them for four years would have been almost impossible.
We live in a time where student-athletes have the ability to transfer an unlimited number of times. That’s hurdle No. 1. We live in an age where student-athletes are paid to play. That’s hurdle No. 2.
It’s an open market each and every year. Free agency for every single player every single year. Can you imagine if that occurred in the NFL, NBA or MLB? It would be chaos.
Welcome to college athletics in 2026.
Let me slow down here to reiterate that I am not opposed to student-athletes being better compensated than they were a decade ago. I think the recent rule that has put roster limitations on sports but has allowed all sports to be head-count sports (as opposed to equivalency sports) is a good one. The days of trying to field a college baseball roster of 35 athletes using 11.2 scholarships are over.
That’s a good thing.
Now, the catch is that the respective schools have to have the funds to put these student-athletes on full scholarships, which isn’t always the case everywhere. But it definitely opened up the opportunity for programs to better compensate student-athletes more fairly, where before many equivalency sports were handcuffed.
Recently, I saw a video of Nick Saban testifying before a bipartisan group of politicians in Washington, D.C., earlier this month about his fears for the future of college athletics. Whether you like Nick Saban or dislike him, I do believe the man is sincerely concerned about what could happen down the road if guardrails aren’t put in place.
Having spent the past 27 years working in college athletics, I have insight from a mid-major level. I know how difficult it has been to compete with the P4 programs even before it became legal to pay for play. And it’s only getting worse.
But it’s not just mid-majors. The “big boys” are losing kids left and right as well. It’s almost as if it’s become the cool thing to do. According to social media posts, it’s a wide variety of kids. Kids who are happy. Kids who aren’t happy. Kids who played. Kids who didn’t play. Kids from P4 schools. Kids from mid-majors.
I know this: Both Socrates and the good Lord are busy these days. Every social media post has a student-athlete claiming that “after much prayer and thought” he or she has decided to chase what is believed to be greener grass. It’s not always the case.
College athletes transferring is nothing new. It’s happened for decades. But not at this rate and not for these reasons.
Historically, kids transferred for more playing opportunities or because the coach who recruited them was no longer there. Now, they are transferring for those reasons plus many others. Male or female, it doesn’t matter.
Most recently, NCAA Division I softball player of the year Isa Torres entered the transfer portal. Yes, the national player of the year isn’t happy at the same place with the same coaching staff that recruited her while playing for a nationally ranked, national title-contending program like Florida State.
Torres is just one example. The mass exodus every year is a complex issue that the NCAA and courts need to try to simplify.
Rosters are in constant flux from year to year. Free agency every single year.
I don’t believe this is sustainable. I have heard Troy Aikman and Charles Barkley state publicly that they are tired of giving large sums of money to their alma maters in this current climate. How long will donors continue to give?
Fan bases are having more and more trouble becoming invested in their own schools. I have people tell me all the time that they are struggling to feel emotionally invested in the players these days. Why? Because by the time they “know” them, the student-athlete is leaving for another program.
Coaches are having more and more challenges creating a locker-room culture. Between paying players different sums of money and locker rooms housing fewer returners and more newcomers every year, most businesses could not succeed like that — even those with the advantage of greater resources.
Now, having written all of that, it’s hard to place blame on the student-athletes in many cases. They are simply playing the game that has been created through litigation and laws. They are chasing the dollars in many cases. That’s understandable.
But in many cases — I would argue most cases these days — they are chasing something that won’t be there. Many are getting bad advice from agents and other outside sources. The number of players who never find their second home is high.
Personally, I don’t believe today’s landscape is a healthy one for college athletics or student-athletes in the long run. Many universities and colleges have already canceled programs because of the financial strain of trying to keep up with the Joneses. And I think many more will be canceled if things continue on the current path.
I don’t have all the answers or even all of the intricacies to the suggestions I have, but here are just two that could stem the tide.
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CONTRACTS
One of the arguments I hear all the time is that student-athletes should be able to transfer as many times as they want because coaches can leave whenever they want. I understand the thought process. However, what this argument fails to consider is that coaches have contracts and buyouts.
When Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss for LSU, there was a buyout provision in his contract. A large sum of money was paid to Ole Miss, providing financial protection for the university.
This is commonplace in coaching contracts, even for assistant coaches.
What if student-athletes had to sign contracts? Four-star quarterback John Doe signs a National Letter of Intent with State College and gets a full scholarship plus $100,000 per year on top of the scholarship. On top of the NLI, John Doe signs a contract stipulating that if he leaves the school after a certain amount of time, he must pay a percentage of that additional compensation back to the school.
John Doe or his next school would be responsible for paying back X percent after Year 1, Y percent after Year 2, and Z percent after Year 3. This is similar to what coaches have in their contracts. It’s a sliding scale based on how many years are remaining when they leave for the next job.
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ONE-TIME TRANSFER
This may be the most important suggestion and the easiest to follow.
The NCAA needs to bring back the one-time transfer rule.
John Doe gets a one-time transfer that doesn’t cost him a year of eligibility. He can transfer and play immediately. However, after the first transfer, any additional transfer would force him to sit out a year, costing him that year of eligibility.
It doesn’t prevent him from transferring, but it would certainly make student-athletes pause and think before doing it.
At one time, schools had the ability to block a student-athlete from transferring to certain schools. Usually, a school would prevent an athlete from transferring to an in-state school or another school within its conference. That practice was eliminated, as it should have been.
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There are many more ideas and suggestions floating around the world of college athletics. There are also many different versions of some of the suggestions listed above.
College athletics is big business.
But it is still college athletics.
At its core, it was built on amateurism.
The vast majority of the dollars schools spend every year go toward facilities, student-athlete health care, academic support, travel, operations and much more. Those resources are spent directly and indirectly on the student-athlete experience.
My concern is that if the powers that be — the NCAA and the courts — don’t put stricter parameters around college athletics, the number of opportunities available to student-athletes will continue to dwindle.
When programs start to disappear, it won’t be football and basketball players who are impacted. It will be soccer players, volleyball players, tennis players, golfers, track athletes and countless others whose opportunities may no longer exist.
And if that happens, everyone loses — including the student-athletes this system was designed to help.
