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Anyone losing interest in CFB

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psulongago

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Aug 29, 2001
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In the past could root for a team, follow recruiting and watch the kids develop. Now this is like the Pro's, started with opt outs, now full-blown free agency. NIL $$$, big money teams with big $$$ backers BUYING kids. Kids do commit to coaches; I see allowing a player to leave in "free agency" if the coach leaves. By the way, where is the education factor, perhaps, if a player leaves (portals), he should reimburse the university for tuition and expenses.
 
I agree. Getting harder and harder to care about this sport much anymore. No player needs to stay anywhere and they can be paid as much as the boosters/school can get them. It wIll be like the NFL with no contracts or salary caps.
 
Been having this conversation with friends a lot recently. I think what most of us have enjoyed over the years is long gone. Not sure where this is going to end up but with A&M spending like $35 million on recruits the writing is on the wall. CFB is no longer CFB.
 
In the past could root for a team, follow recruiting and watch the kids develop. Now this is like the Pro's, started with opt outs, now full-blown free agency. NIL $$$, big money teams with big $$$ backers BUYING kids. Kids do commit to coaches; I see allowing a player to leave in "free agency" if the coach leaves. By the way, where is the education factor, perhaps, if a player leaves (portals), he should reimburse the university for tuition and expenses.
Not yet, but the NCAA or whomever have get a handle on the portal and NIL. Left unchecked they will, for all intents and purposes, destroy the sport
 
Definitely losing interest. There is maybe 5-8 programs that have a realistic shot at the final four every year and the rest of the programs are zombies. Sadly Penn State has a pulse but unless they break into the circle in the next few seasons I think our program is dead.

l live in Lehigh Valley and have taken more interest in patriot League as well as Muhlenburg D-3. The talent is not at D-1 level but the games are competitive and players are really into it because of their love of the game. I can watch the NFL for amazing talent.

ESPN and big donors have destroyed the fun of CFB.
 
I am afraid that I have fallen into the same category. I used to follow PSU football unceasingly. Even followed it during military service oversees. Season ticket holder for 50 years - gave them up 2 years ago. I used to travel to PSU from NY, stay the weekend, see old friends (Johnny O. who owned the Rathskeller), play some golf. Rarely missed a game. $1000+ for a weekend at a good hotel ridiculous. Seating way too tight. Most important, there seems to be little commitment by many players to the team. I think the portal and quick exit to NFL either has already or soon will ruin college football. I think Joe would not tolerate this state of affairs, although I don't think there would have been much he could do. It's all about money. And I understand that reality. But it does not mean that money has not damaged the game.
 
In the past could root for a team, follow recruiting and watch the kids develop. Now this is like the Pro's, started with opt outs, now full-blown free agency. NIL $$$, big money teams with big $$$ backers BUYING kids. Kids do commit to coaches; I see allowing a player to leave in "free agency" if the coach leaves. By the way, where is the education factor, perhaps, if a player leaves (portals), he should reimburse the university for tuition and expenses.
Nope.

I don't love the direction the sport is going (NIL, transfer portal, opting out of bowl games) but I still watch WAAAAY more CFB than any other sport. It is the only sport I watch when I don't have a cheering interest in either team.
 
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College sports is one of the most hypocritical institutions there is. So I'm pretty amazed it still exists at all.
 
I agree. Years ago players played for their team and school. I think most tried to follow the rules, promote academics, etc. Not all obviously, but I think there was much more of an effort in the past to try to hit the true ‘student athlete’ goal. That’s been degraded over the decades and it seems now it’s a far distant thought.

The limbo state football is in now is a complete mess. The NCAA has literally abandoned ship. They are completely worthless with zero leadership. They will not save college sports.

The more we go on each year, the more I miss the days of hard hitting, fundamentally sound Penn St football. They always seemed to peak at bowl season and there was no ‘opt out’ culture.

It was interesting each year following the last few weeks of the season across the country. Everyone was tracking which bowl officials were at each game. There was nonstop debate on which bowl would PSU go to and who would they play. It was wide open with so many possibilities- long before the start of the sterile current system with bowl lock-ins reserved for specific conferences. It’s just gotten old repeating the same places year after year. Add to that the pretty much reserved final 4 each year with portal/ recruiting issues and it has lost a lot over the years.

The problem is it’s been a slow drip with many supporting the decline step by step, whether out of a hatred for the ncaa or focusing on the here and now and not the big picture.

It reminds me of that old saying- put a frog in hot water and he’ll jump out. Put him in cold water and slowly turn up the heat and he’ll stay there and boil to death.
 
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In the past could root for a team, follow recruiting and watch the kids develop. Now this is like the Pro's, started with opt outs, now full-blown free agency. NIL $$$, big money teams with big $$$ backers BUYING kids. Kids do commit to coaches; I see allowing a player to leave in "free agency" if the coach leaves. By the way, where is the education factor, perhaps, if a player leaves (portals), he should reimburse the university for tuition and expenses.
Can you imagine how convoluted the academic transcripts must be for the players who are transferring? Some players might even have attended three schools. There must be an academic advisor who is dedicated to helping potential portal players get admitted. And there must be an academic major that is flexible enough to accept these transfers.
Then again, I guess academics don't matter much anymore.
 
In the past could root for a team, follow recruiting and watch the kids develop. Now this is like the Pro's, started with opt outs, now full-blown free agency. NIL $$$, big money teams with big $$$ backers BUYING kids. Kids do commit to coaches; I see allowing a player to leave in "free agency" if the coach leaves. By the way, where is the education factor, perhaps, if a player leaves (portals), he should reimburse the university for tuition and expenses.
Yes I no longer get as upset when PSU loses.Still enjoy watching the games but it’s just not the same.I think the beginning of this for me when joepa said we fans need to get our expectations lower
 
Been there for a few years now. I find it hard to watch games because they seem to coincide with my 12 year old's travel soccer games. With not being able to watch the interest does wane some.
 
My interest waned some in 2011 after the responses to the scandal by the NCAA, Big 10, and PSU leadership. It waned further because the playoff is basically still a subjective dog and pony show, and the same teams keep playing in it. It's waning father with the NIL and transfer portal in their current state. CFP is using up a lot of favor with many fans.
 
Started losing interest in all sports over ten years ago. Asshole players like Dion Sanders. Players given special exemptions from rules lime Micheal Jordan. Ego maniac announcers screaming stupid catch phrases so they could be famous. And the sports media would reward anyone who was the biggest hotdog, the biggest egomaniac. It all became about money and fame.

That garbage started in the pros but has bled down into college sports, even before NIL hit the scene. Now with the internet and social media it has gotten exponentially worse. So I hardly watch anything other than PSU sports and now that is fading too. Might watch the team we are playing next.

One big problem of not watching sports is that sports is the universal language of men. Go anywhere...... work, vacation, family events......and you could talk sports with a total stranger as a way to break the ice and develop a relationship. Certainly can’t talk politics.....and religion is off base...sports was the safe opening salvo. Tell people you don’t watch any and people look at you like your weird.

So I do briefly watch a few, usually near the end. And read up on major events just to be conversant. But the passion is gone and it ain’t incoming back.
 
In the past could root for a team, follow recruiting and watch the kids develop. Now this is like the Pro's, started with opt outs, now full-blown free agency. NIL $$$, big money teams with big $$$ backers BUYING kids. Kids do commit to coaches; I see allowing a player to leave in "free agency" if the coach leaves. By the way, where is the education factor, perhaps, if a player leaves (portals), he should reimburse the university for tuition and expenses.

I think I watched three psu games this season.

Could be an all time low, but last season was probably close.

The program was rich beyond measure and that permeated through the program.

This latest Franklin contract was the nail in the coffin for me as a fan believe.

I just cannot support paying a coach that much.

This isn't an anti Franklin thing either. I think he is great. It just shows a complete disregard for donated money.

LdN
 
Started losing interest in all sports over ten years ago. Asshole players like Dion Sanders. Players given special exemptions from rules lime Micheal Jordan. Ego maniac announcers screaming stupid catch phrases so they could be famous. And the sports media would reward anyone who was the biggest hotdog, the biggest egomaniac. It all became about money and fame.

That garbage started in the pros but has bled down into college sports, even before NIL hit the scene. Now with the internet and social media it has gotten exponentially worse. So I hardly watch anything other than PSU sports and now that is fading too. Might watch the team we are playing next.

One big problem of not watching sports is that sports is the universal language of men. Go anywhere...... work, vacation, family events......and you could talk sports with a total stranger as a way to break the ice and develop a relationship. Certainly can’t talk politics.....and religion is off base...sports was the safe opening salvo. Tell people you don’t watch any and people look at you like your weird.

So I do briefly watch a few, usually near the end. And read up on major events just to be conversant. But the passion is gone and it ain’t incoming back.
Amazing to me that most of those a-hole players have prominent commentary or TV commercials today.
 
the NCAA simply couldn't have ****ed this over worse. When the NW players tried to unionize, the NCAA should have seen the writing on the wall. I know I did and have been posting about the demise for years. The NCAA is now trying to keep some weird classification of "pro-lite" players. They are not employees like the NFL but not amateurs either.

Lane Kiffin said that college coaches are even worse off than NFL because the NFL, has at least, a contract tying a player to a team for some period of time. A college kid can get a 'ship and leave the very next day. He's right.

Sadly, the only path out is to have the players unionize so there is a collaborating collective party to negotiate with. We need some kind of collective bargaining agreement so that the college teams can get some level of guidelines around a player's rights and limitations of rights. Today, it is simply a free-for-all.
 
In the past could root for a team, follow recruiting and watch the kids develop. Now this is like the Pro's, started with opt outs, now full-blown free agency. NIL $$$, big money teams with big $$$ backers BUYING kids. Kids do commit to coaches; I see allowing a player to leave in "free agency" if the coach leaves. By the way, where is the education factor, perhaps, if a player leaves (portals), he should reimburse the university for tuition and expenses.
Yup. As I've written before, amateurism has an appeal. NIL, opt outs, portal, etc make CFB look like professionals. When CFB players act like professionals and CFB conducts itself like a minor league, the appeal of amateurism fades. No one cares about the minor leagues in any sport. This is also why interest in the olympics has waned. After great interest in the novelty of the 1992 Dream team, no one cares about olympic basketball. People can watch pro basketball, tennis, hockey, golf, etc every day. There is little appeal in watching the same people in the olympics.
Personally, I didn't watch a single bowl game, including the outback bowl. With all the opt outs, I realized that the team playing would not be the team I invested in all season. There was little appeal to me to watch a "blue-white" game against Arkansas. People defend the opt outs by saying that the kids "owe fans nothing." Maybe.
I'd suggest that it's the fan investment (emotional, monetary, time) that provides every resource and opportunity that CFB players enjoy. When CFB players walk away and don't honor that investment, it logically creates negative feelings to those who have invested. We can debate whether the players "owe" fans anything, but there is no doubt that the current state of CFB (opt outs, NIL, portal) will drive less fan investment and therefore fewer dollars/resources and a shrinking of CFB. We can debate whether it's good, bad, or indifferent, but it's a reality.

IMHO, we will see a major shakeup of CFB as TV contracts adjust to this diminished interest reality.
Bowls are dead, or will return to what they were 4 decades ago.
Power teams who face less geographical pro competition and that have long operated as "semi-pro" will form a ~12-20 team P1. The rest (including PSU) will reorganize into a 2nd tier CFB system. The existing conferences may remain, they may not. Less TV money means more red ink. A percentage of the 130 FBS teams will drop to FCS or fold.
The US is about the only country with Major college sports. In the long run, we could see current college "revenue sports" follow the rest of the world with development pro ranks and college sports being played by students, without pro aspirations, who play as an extra-curricular.

As Nietzsche might have said, "College Football is dead, and we killed it."
 
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It is semi pro now. The opt outs are a joke and no parity. PSU is hanging by a thread to stay remotely relevant but really does not have a shot at the NC in any given year.

The only thing that is saving us is the great game day atmosphere at Beaver Stadium with 107K.
 
In the past could root for a team, follow recruiting and watch the kids develop. Now this is like the Pro's, started with opt outs, now full-blown free agency. NIL $$$, big money teams with big $$$ backers BUYING kids. Kids do commit to coaches; I see allowing a player to leave in "free agency" if the coach leaves. By the way, where is the education factor, perhaps, if a player leaves (portals), he should reimburse the university for tuition and expenses.
I checked the last 20 champs, the only northern team to win was osu. Going past that back another 15 - 20 years and we had PSU, ND, BYU, Michigan, OU ( south? Not sure ) . Texas won but I consider them southern . USC isn't what I call southern but they sure aren't northern .
PSU will not win one again in my lifetime . From childhood to a few years back I never thought I'd say that.
 
It is semi pro now. The opt outs are a joke and no parity. PSU is hanging by a thread to stay remotely relevant but really does not have a shot at the NC in any given year.

The only thing that is saving us is the great game day atmosphere at Beaver Stadium with 107K.
I don't enjoy that anymore either . Too much scoreboard stuff, not enough tradition for me.
 
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It is semi pro now. The opt outs are a joke and no parity. PSU is hanging by a thread to stay remotely relevant but really does not have a shot at the NC in any given year.

The only thing that is saving us is the great game day atmosphere at Beaver Stadium with 107K.
I am not sure PSU is "hanging by a thread" but certainly agree that the e107 strong and whiteouts are the biggest sustainable asset PSU has. I've been often asked what saved PSU from the JS era. To me the answer is easy: it is the 107,000 fans that show up every home Saturday in the fall. I was really worried about PSU the first season after the scandal. I attended the come-from-behind NW game and it was a fantastic game and atmosphere. The next season, I attended the four overtime UM game. It was clear, PSU was here to stay. In addition, the scandal actually made the PSU fanbase much more "pure". By that I mean that a lot of people going to PSU games who were miscreants went away. today, I think our fanbase is healthier than it was in 2011.
 
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I think I watched three psu games this season.

Could be an all time low, but last season was probably close.

The program was rich beyond measure and that permeated through the program.

This latest Franklin contract was the nail in the coffin for me as a fan believe.

I just cannot support paying a coach that much.

This isn't an anti Franklin thing either. I think he is great. It just shows a complete disregard for donated money.

LdN
I think he's ok but not worth the money even though it seems the market says that's what he's worth .
 
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In the past could root for a team, follow recruiting and watch the kids develop. Now this is like the Pro's, started with opt outs, now full-blown free agency. NIL $$$, big money teams with big $$$ backers BUYING kids. Kids do commit to coaches; I see allowing a player to leave in "free agency" if the coach leaves. By the way, where is the education factor, perhaps, if a player leaves (portals), he should reimburse the university for tuition and expenses.
I've lost interest in the playoffs but never will I lose interest in watching and following the Blue & White!!
 
I am not sure PSU is "hanging by a thread" but certainly agree that the e107 strong and whiteouts are the biggest sustainable asset PSU has. I've been often asked what saved PSU from the JS era. To me the answer is easy: it is the 107,000 fans that show up every home Saturday in the fall. I was really worried about PSU the first season after the scandal. I attended the come-from-behind NW game and it was a fantastic game and atmosphere. The next season, I attended the four overtime UM game. It was clear, PSU was here to stay. In addition, the scandal actually made the PSU fanbase much more "pure". By that I mean that a lot of people going to PSU games who were miscreants went away. today, I think our fanbase is healthier than it was in 2011.
I simply mean we are barely relevant at this point. 4 to 5 losses a year (6 this year, ugh) is not relevance. If Franklin cannot turn it around with Allar (and a decent O line) with at least a B10 title in the next 3 years then you have to seriously question if we ever will.
 
I don't like the direction the NCAA took with any college sports.

Transfer portal - The fun for me is watching coaches recruit and develop players. I don't get much excitement out of watching us invade Temple and take a good player off their team any more than I like someone doing it to PSU.

Extra years of eligibility - as mentioned above, I like the recruiting and developing part. I don't want to see guys for 5/6 years.

NIL - Who knows where this will end up. It's a true mess right now and PSU cannot and probably should not try to compete.

I love the watching the games. This last Franklin contract has taken the shine off him though as I don't think he is worth the contract. It's business and someone believes he is worth it.
 
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I simply mean we are barely relevant at this point. 4 to 5 losses a year (6 this year, ugh) is not relevance. If Franklin cannot turn it around with Allar (and a decent O line) with at least a B10 title in the next 3 years then you have to seriously question if we ever will.
I've thought similarly about hanging by a string but mine is a little different. This is the recruiting class that makes or break relevance going forward. With the NIL I'm not sure anyone can recover from a bad recruiting class this year unless they are going to pour money into recruiting. Had Franklin left this class would have taken a large hit. And our string would have broke!
 
Been done for a while. NIL has sanctioned a system for paying players that has been in place in the south/southwest forever. Most schools let athletes slide academically. Pretty much a joke. NCAA has been looking the other way throughout and then went after Paterno to make him the Boogie Man to justify their existence. Now we have Lebron like super-teams and very few good games to watch.
 
This year I probably watched about 3% of the amount of college football as I did 10 years ago. A huge portion of it is due to my family change and spending every waking weekend hour at my kids' hockey games, but I don't even follow the sport much anymore.

Game lengths, costs to attend, transfer portal, early departures, terrible playoff system, lack of parity, etc. have all contributed to the demise of something that was at one time my biggest consumer of free time.
 
In the past could root for a team, follow recruiting and watch the kids develop. Now this is like the Pro's, started with opt outs, now full-blown free agency. NIL $$$, big money teams with big $$$ backers BUYING kids. Kids do commit to coaches; I see allowing a player to leave in "free agency" if the coach leaves. By the way, where is the education factor, perhaps, if a player leaves (portals), he should reimburse the university for tuition and expenses.
It is an ENTIRELY different game than it was just a few years back. The college football guys over 50 grew up with is long gone, and what we are left with is much less attractive. But what a great ride it was!!! Thank you JoePa!!!
 
Yep. And when CFB coaches get political (see Nick Saban, WTF!) that encourages me to leave the sport in the rear view mirror.
Then you left the sport in the rear view mirror a few decades ago, right?

"Paterno was a political conservative and a personal friend of President George H. W. Bush. He campaigned for Bush door-to-door in the 1988 New Hampshire primary, and seconded his nomination at the Republican National Convention. Paterno was also a close friend of President Gerald R. Ford, and introduced President George W. Bush at a campaign rally before the 2004 presidential election. Before the 1974 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, a group of Pennsylvania Republican Party leaders briefly considered Paterno for Andrew Lewis' ticket as the candidate for lieutenant governor."
 
Guess so, I'm basing that on what the top paid guys are getting. Maybe a small niche is a better term?

I mean in every industry there are top guys. And they are paid higher rates.

However there are two factors that go into their pay.

1. Performance
2. Revenue generation

Franklin fails at the first relative to many peers. Of the 100 or so cfb programs he was somewhat average in results last season.

In revenue generation an appropriate percentage would be 10% of incremental revenue. So if Franklin is raising $50M more than peers... taking away the big ten revenues... then maybe $5M

I don't think he passes either of these tests.

And recruiting has become about as valuable as the final rounds of the mlb draft.

LdN
 
Yeah, imagine that Saban supports equal voting rights in our nation (it's the cornerstone of our democracy). The horror!
Yeah, if we don't declare election day a holiday, allow 30 days to vote, use absentee ballots as we always have for mail-in voting, and actually require some form of ID to prove you are who you claim to be we are suppressing the vote. SMH. The horror.
 
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