College athletics is changing and all of us, including coaches, must adjust

New transfer rules and NIL rights will change college football as we know it. But the game will thrive. It always has

The year was 1978 and at a meeting of NCAA president and athletics directors, the decision was made to reduce the number of total football scholarships available to each school from 105 to 95.

John McKay, the legendary coach at Southern California, saw the change as nothing less than football Armageddon.

“Mark this day on your calendar,” said McKay. “This day is the ruin of college football. It will only go downhill from here.”

Scholarships were further reduced to 85 total in 1992 and the game, it would seem, has survived quite nicely.

The year was 1990 and the SEC presidents gave commissioner Roy Kramer the authority to expand the 10-member conference. It fell to Kramer to announce to his football coaches that the 12-team conference would split into divisions and play a championship game in 1992. The coaches were not fond of the idea of having to play a ninth conference game to win the championship.

“The SEC will never win another national championship,” Alabama Coach Gene Stallings predicted.

Actually, Alabama won the national championship in 1992 and in the in 28 seasons that have passed since expansion the SEC has won 14 national championships in the sport of football.

I could go on but the point is simply this: Coaches, bless their hearts, do not like change. And when it comes to college football, the next few years are going to bring a lot of change.

At the very least we are going to see a couple of major shifts:

There will be NCAA legislation that will allow players to make money off of their name, image, or likeness (NIL). Think of players making public appearances and signing autographs for money. Could players have their own shoe deals? We shall see.

Now it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out how big-money boosters could “help” their schools best take advantage of the rule. So there will have to be some kind of accounting of the process. Good luck with that.

Coaches wonder about the health of the locker room when the star quarterback is getting endorsements and the linemen who block for him are not.

It’s a legitimate concern. But not legitimate enough to keep the student-athlete from getting what their NIL is worth on the free market.

But the thing that really has the coaches torqued out is the possibility of a change to the transfer rules that would give each athlete one unchallenged transfer during his college career without having to sit out for a season.

The imagination quickly races to the possibilities of unfettered movement by the players.

Former Georgia and Miami head coach Mark Richt posted this Tweet on Tuesday.

“I know. I have an idea. You recruit and develop players and when I think they’re good enough I will poach them from your roster. Welcome to what the new normal will look like in college football.”

He’s right, of course. But coaches have been poaching from other teams since the leather helmet days. This new rule will just make it easier for the athlete who wants to leave.

Todd Berry, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, told Ross Dellinger of Sports Illustrated this:

“You go with a one-time transfer and add NIL…kids are going to be going for whoever pays them the most money.”

Yep.

That’s the way the world works, at least for everybody but college athletes. Mel Tucker, who was making $2.7 million a year as Colorado’s head coach, swore his allegiance to a group of CU donors at a meeting on Feb. 11. Later that night, according to SI.com, he agreed to become Michigan State’s head coach for a salary of $5.4 million and other benefits.

Bad look? Sure. But Tucker, who once slept under his desk while making $400 per month as a graduate assistant coach, did what was best for his family. The players should be able to do the same.

Here’s what is really going on here.

Many years ago the late Mike Slive, who was the Commissioner of the SEC from 2002-2014, told me he saw a sea change coming in college athletics. Since the NCAA was founded the guiding principle had always been to create a rule structure and a playing field that was based on competitive balance among the members.

The new structure, Commissioner Slive said, would be based on what was best for the welfare of the individual student-athlete.

That's where we are. College athletics as we have known it is about to change.

But we--and the games--will be just fine.