Major College Football Personality Alleges SEC Was Cheating Before NIL Era

One major college football personality made a not so subtle jab at the SEC after the conference has struggled in the postseason.

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The Name, Image, and Likeness era has brought about a ton of change within the sport of college football.

NIL, combined with the transfer portal - two factors that frankly tie completely hand in hand with one another - has at least begun to level the playing field in that the recruiting giant programs such as the Alabama Crimson Tide and Georgia Bulldogs are unable to stack the same level of talent and depth as they once had.

In a microwave society, players want to play as soon as possible.

Rather than the heyday of Nick Saban at Alabama where guys would wait their turn and trust the process, players simply leave in the portal in favor of both playing sooner and to get huge money deals tied to the opportunity as well.

Teams that once had five levels on the depth chart of players that could take the field and see immediate success is no longer the case, and it's made it harder for the best of the best to continue to dominate.

One major college football personality, Brandon Walker of Barstool Sports, thinks the fall of the Southeastern Conference, long known as the best in the sport having produced 13 of the last 20 national champions, is no coincidence.

Walker sent out a social media post after Georgia fell in the Sugar Bowl to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish implying that paying players was not exactly a foreign concept to the SEC when the NIL era came along.

"I must say it is interesting that the fall of the SEC’s dominance, the fall of Alabama, and Georgia coming back to normal all happened as soon as every team could start legally paying players," Walker posted on his X account.

It's worth pointing out that Walker is a noted fan of the Mississippi State Bulldogs, meaning he has no agenda to push against the SEC, and in fact, has an incentive to prop up the conference.

There's no question that NIL and the portal has leveled the playing field. But to imply that every big time program outside of the SEC was not also making some under the table deals, and it was only teams like Alabama and Georgia compensating players is not just dishonest, it's outright ridiculous.

Between a 12-team expanded playoff, a portal that seems to have absolutely no guidelines or rules whatsoever, and an open pay-for-play system that's as chaotic as anything the sport has ever seen, coaches from the old guard are still trying to navigate the new way of doing business and figuring out how they can keep their teams on top.

Chances are, five years down the line, the premiere programs are still going to be the premiere programs.

NIL has certainly changed the game, but not nearly as dramatically as some may want to believe.